The U.S. EPA plans to tighten restrictions on five nasty soil fumigants that keep pests away from strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and peppers. The proposed mitigation measures include buffer zones, warning signs, air-quality monitoring, management and outreach plans, emergency-response training, and provision of breathing masks for farmworkers. The rules would apply to five scary-sounding ‘cides: chloropicrin, dazomet, metam sodium, metam potassium, and methyl bromide (which depletes ozone and must be ceased altogether where alternatives are available). The EPA has never before required buffer zones, which could range from 25 feet (which health advocates say is inadequate) to half a mile (which growers say would cramp their space). The new regulations, according to the EPA press release, are designed to keep workers and bystanders from “eye or respiratory irritation, or more severe and irreversible effects.”
