Midwestern waters are full of bee killing pesticides

Here’s an article in Mother Jones about how Midwestern Waters are Full of Bee Killing Pesticides.

The U.S. Geological Survey is important not only because it reveals neonicotinoids in Midwestern waters at killing levels, but because this is just the kind of soil and water surveying the EPA and USDA have carefully avoided despite recommendations 11 years ago by EPA Risk Assessment scientists that it must be done. The consensus is that the EPA and USDA have avoided this lest it reveal how significantly they have failed to protect the environment and the American people.

Are neonicotinoids the new DDT?

Here is another good article on the systemic pesticides.

How the New DDT Wreaks Havoc on the Bottom of the Food Chain cites the statistics of Jean-Marc Bonmatin of France, that the neonicotinoids are 5,000 to 10,000 times more toxic than DDT. At its peak in 1959, 80 million pounds of DDT were used. The toxic equivalent of the neonicotinoids used only on soybeans and corn in 2013 was 740,000 pounds. That would equal the toxic equvalent of 3.7 billion pounds of DDT. Since then I’ve found recent figures on total neonicotinoid use in 2009: 3.4 million pounds. If the earlier figure wasn’t astounding enough, try to get your mind around this one. The total useage of neonicotinoids in 2009 has the toxic equvalent of 17.5 BILLION POUNDS of DDT!!

Remember, these are water soluble pesticides with a half life of years which may have no safe dose, however small. Certainly the scorekeepers know full well that to report pesticide comparisons by the pound without regard to toxicity is at best incompetent and irresponsible, but based on the evidence you have to conclude that they aren’t just stupid and this must be a conscious effort to deceive. In Poison Spring, E. G. Valianatos characterizes the scorekeepers as “The Pesticide Mafia.” He spent twenty-five years in the Office of Pesticide Programs, the one we have had so much trouble with, and it is beginning to look like his insider’s view is being confirmed from the outside evidence.

Do insecticides put our food supply at risk?

I stumbled across this article about how insecticides put world food supplies at risk this morning when looking for something else. While it is several weeks old, it is well worth reading for the overview it gives of the neonic controversy. It refers to the Worldwide Task Force on Systemic Pesticides.

Runaround: three months of correspondence with the EPA

This air pollution story, Runaround: Three Months of Correspondence with the EPA, sounds all too familiar. We have seen the same thing in the pesticide arena. If they had thrown up this shield in 2010 do you think the leaked memo would ever have seen the light of day?

They have secreted themselves behind an administrative wall of their own creation and it appears that nobody (read congress) is prepared to exercise any intelligent management over this conduct.

The worker bees don’t throw up these delays and obstacles because they are inherently evil, but because they are being instructed to by an EPA management that is corrupt if not criminal.

The EPA is in the bunker and EPA management is determined that nobody will find out anything about anything because it would reveal their failures. If congress is not equally corrupted it should demonstrate this with some action to remove the miscreants and change these evasive tactics. The public and the environment are ill-served by all of them.

Another Silent Spring

This stinging indictment of the neonicotinoids and how they have been handled appeared in the Guardian yesterday.

The costly lobbying war over America’s dying honeybees

An excerpt from a new article in the National Journal.

In an effort to protect their product, pesticide makers are loading up on high-powered lobbyists. Bayer, the largest manufacturer of neonics, has signed former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt’s firm to lobby on the issue, according to disclosure records filed at the end of June. Gephardt himself is listed as a lobbyist for the company, along with his former chief of staff, Thomas O’Donnell, and aide Sharon Daniels.

Bayer also signed a contract in April with Cornerstone Government Affairs as part of its honeybee lobbying push.

A Bayer spokesperson declined to comment on the message its lobbyists plan to push. But the company confirmed that it recently hired both lobbying firms, and its line on pesticides has been well-publicized.

“Some critics contend that neonicotinoids may be involved in honeybee losses,” Bayer’s website proclaims. “However, there has been no demonstrated effect on colony health associated with neonicotinoid-based insecticides.”

Nature’s dying migrant worker

This is an exceptional article on the bee problems. It appeared this morning in the Minneapolis StarTribune. Take the time to read it thoroughly and don’t miss the graphics, side bars and videos. This is Part One of a four part series and I can’t wait to see what comes next. Steve Ellis, Jeff Anderson and family have layed it on the line for all of us for years and this is their most recent effort. Josephine Marcotty and Renee Jones Schneider spent 6 month in the creation of this first part, going out to beeyards with Steve and Jeff and riding along in the trucks moving bees between California and Minnesota.

I know many of you are wired into social media, but I am not. Give this the widest exposure you can.

Follow the Honey

Using the same tactics Big Tobacco did, the Big-Chem companies continue to distort science, buy legislators, corrupt regulators and mislead the public to protect profits from their systemic pesticides. Follow the Honey gives a very good overview of how we are being played and should be read carefully by anyone trying to understand the issues. They count on our ignorance. Deny them that option.

Pesticide toxicity chart

This chart give the relative toxicity of some common pesticides compared to the toxicity of some of the neonicotinoids, with DDT as the reference point. While the EPA and USDA claim there has been a reduction in pesticides with the introduction of systemic pesticides (which in itself is a fallacy), it is a little like saying that we have solved the arms race by replacing all those bows and arrows with a few nuclear weapons.