Poison Spring (39 page)

 
14
   Paul Shepard and Daniel McKinley, eds.,
The Subversive Science: Essays Towards an Ecology of Man
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), 230.

 
15
   Jantzen letter to Clayton Bushong on May 18, 1983.

 
16
   Eventually, Kelthane disappeared. I don’t know if it was officially banned, as it was an inert.

 
17
   Donald Roberts, “A New Home for DDT,”
New York Times
, August 20, 2007.

Chapter 5: Why Are the Honeybees Disappearing?

 
  
1
   Private communication,  January 19, 2011, and January 14, 2013.

 
  
2
   In 2000, a study by Cornell University estimated that every year bees pollinate crops—especially fruits, nuts, and vegetables—worth about $14 billion. See S. E. McGregor,
Insect Pollination of Cultivated Crop Plants
, Agriculture Handbook No. 496, Agricultural Research Service (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, July 1976), 1–2. See also Robert Dismukes et al., “Crop Insurance for Hay and Forage,” Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, October 25, 1995. See also David Pimentel, “Environmental and Economic Costs of the Application of Pesticides Primarily in the United States,”
Environment, Development and Sustainability
7 (2005): 229–52.

 
  
3
   The vulnerability of honeybees to deleterious changes in their environment makes them like alarm bells of harm to other insects, and, indirectly, to birds, plants, and other species. See Laura Maxim and Jeroen van der Sluijs, “Seed-dressing systemic insecticides and honeybees,” in European Environment Agency, “Late lessons from early warnings: Science, precaution, innovation,” Denmark, 2013, 401–38. In 2006, the Honeybee Genome Sequencing Consortium reported that honeybees are more sensitive to environmental pollution than other animals. Honeybees are of paramount importance because they pollinate crops and wild plants, and pollination is essential to both human nutrition and global ecology. George M. Weinstock et al., “Insights into Social Insects from the Genome of the Honeybee
Apis mellifera
,”
Nature
443 (October 26, 2006): 931–49. See also U.S. Department of Agriculture, “California Almond Forecast,” May 8, 2009.

 
  
4
   Hesiod,
Works and Days
, 230–35, translated by Apostolos N. Athanassakis (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983).

 
  
5
   Aristotle,
Historia Animalium
9.623b5–27b22; 631a9–b3, edited by D. M. Balme (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

 
  
6
   Pappos, “On the Sagacity of Bees in Building Their Cells,” in
Mathematical Collection
, translated by Thomas Little Heath,
A History of Greek Mathematics
, vol. II,
From Aristarchus to Diophantus
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), 389–90.

 
  
7
   “Transactions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society,” 1917. This quote is also cited in
Insect Pollination of Cultivated Crop Plants
by S. E. McGregor (USDA, 1976), 1.

 
  
8
   S. E. McGregor and C. T. Vorhies, Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 207, 1947.

 
  
9
   S. E. McGregor,
Insect Pollination of Cultivated Plants
, Agriculture Handbook No. 496, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, July 1976), pp. 1, 4.

 
10
   Gerhard Schrader, the chemist who invented these poisons, worked for the German chemical giant IG Farben.

 
11
   Eldon P. Savage et al., “Chronic Neurological Sequelae of Acute Organophosphate Pesticide Poisoning: A Case-Control Study” (EPA, May 1980). Steven D. Jellinek, assistant administrator, Office of Pesticides and Toxic Substances, wrote to the EPA administrator, Douglas M. Costle, September 8, 1980, that compared to a control group of people, the “100 previously poisoned persons” selected for the study “demonstrated significantly greater impairment of the higher integrative or neuropsychological functions, i.e., average impairment, verbal IQ, full scale IQ . . . reading recognition, etc.”

 
12
   One study demonstrating the toxic effects of pesticides on farmworkers was done by Clarence B. Owens, “The Extent of Exposure of Migrant Workers to Pesticide Residues” (EPA, January 1981). Finally, two memos by the EPA scientist Barbara Britton (August 15, 1985, and October 30, 1985) summarize the science of the deadly ecological and human health effects of parathion.

 
13
   In a June 2, 1986, memorandum about the “Statistical Evaluation of Parathion,” EPA scientists cited research data of the 1960s confirming that parathion in crops transforms itself into two very toxic compounds.

 
14
   August 15, 1985, letter from Barbara Britton, a scientist at EPA’s Office of Policy, Planning and Evaluation, to Jay Ellenberger, Office of Pesticide Programs; January 16, 1986, letter from Britton to Bruce Kapner, EPA Office of Pesticide Programs.

 
15
   Encapsulated methyl parathion, an extremely toxic homologue of parathion, remains toxic in stored pollen for close to two years. As early as 1978, 41 parts per million of methyl parathion was discovered in pollen, 1 part per million in honey, and 1 part per million or less in wax from honeycombs. Honeybee research experts have implied that residues of pesticides (whether encapsulated or nonencapsulated) “are a relatively common occurrence in honey.” See Clayton Bushong, “Penncap-M and Other Encapsulated Pesticides: Issues and Recommendations,” memorandum to Peter E. McGrath, Director, Hazard Evaluation Division, OPP, EPA, July 27, 1979. Norman Cook of the Ecological Effects Branch drafted this memorandum. His two memos, September 20, 1978, and October 11, 1978, were critical.

 
16
   The EPA has generated a great deal of paperwork about the agency’s approval of neurotoxins deleterious to bees. See “Penncap-M: Hazards to Humans and Bees,” memorandum from Norman Cook to Acting Director, Hazard Evaluation Division, September 20, 1978; “Honey Bees and Penncap-M,” memorandum from Norman Cook to Acting Director, Hazard Evaluation Division, October 11, 1978; “Modifications of Penncap-M Regulations to Protect Bees,” letter from C. A. Johansen, professor of entomology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, to Arthur Losey, assistant director, grain and chemical division, Department of Agriculture, Olympia, Washington, February 8, 1979; “Meeting on March 2, 1979, Between Representatives of Pennwalt Corporation and the Agency Concerning the Classification of Microencapsulated Formulations of Methyl Parathion,” memorandum from Mitchell B. Bernstein, Office of General Counsel, to the File, April 5, 1979; “Penncap-M: Status as of June 29, 1979,” memorandum from Norman Cook to P. E. McGrath, June 29, 1979; “Preliminary Report for Penncap-M-Honey Bee Project,” memorandum from Richard M. Lee to J. G. Cummings, July 20, 1979; “Penncap-M and Other Encapsulated Pesticides: Issues and Recommendations,” memorandum from Clayton Bushong to Peter E. McGrath, July 27, 1979; “Ecological Effects Branch Response to Pennwalt’s 9/26/80 Response to May 9, 1980 Incremental Risk Assessment,” memorandum from Norman Cook, John Leitzke, and Allen Vaughan to Jay S. Ellenberger, December 10, 1980; “Brief History of Penncap-M and Penncap-E,” memorandum from Norman Cook to Ecological Effects Branch Files, February 13, 1981.

 
17
   Johansen letter of February 8, 1979, to Arthur Losey, an agricultural official of the State of Washington.

 
18
   March 12, 1978, letter from Elwood Sires, president, Washington State Beekeepers Association, to Bob Mickelson, director, Washington State Department of Agriculture.

 
19
   Memo from Norman Cook to the director of the Hazard Evaluation Division, October 11, 1978.

 
20
   Letter from Frank Robinson, January 6, 1981, to the EPA. Vernon W. Miller, “Deadly Penncap-M Poisons Illinois Bees,”
American Bee Journal
, July 1983, p. 535.

 
21
   Letter from Hardie to Dale Parrish, a senior EPA official, March 14, 1980.

 
22
   “Botulism in Infants: A Case of Sudden Death?”
Science
, September 1, 1978, 799–801.

 
23
   Norman Cook, “Penncamp-M: Status as of June 29, 1979,” memorandum to Peter McGrath, Hazard Evaluation Division, Office of Pesticide Programs, EPA, June 29, 1979.

 
24
   Norman Cook, John Leitzke, and Allen Vaughan, Ecological Effects Branch, “Ecological Effects Branch Response to Pennwalt’s 9/26/80 Response to May 9, 1980, Incremental Risk Assessment,” memorandum to Jay Ellenberger, Insecticides-Rodenticides Branch, Hazard Evaluation Division, OPP, EPA, December 10, 1980.

 
25
   Bushong memo of July 27, 1979.

 
26
   Richard Lee memo of July 20, 1979, to his lab chief, J. G. Cummings.

 
27
   Robert L. Metcalf, “EPN Insecticide RPAR [Rebuttable Presumption Against Registration]” (consultant’s report to Edwin Johnson, August 24, 1982).

 
28
   Pierre Mineau and Cynthia Palmer, “The Impact of the Nation’s Most Widely Used Insecticides on Birds,” American Bird Conservancy, March 2013.

 
29
   Henk Tennekes,
The Systemic Insecticides: A Disaster in the Making 
(Zutphen, The Netherlands: Weevers Walburg Communicatie, September 2010), 70–71.

 
30
   Damian Carrington, “Insecticide Regulators Ignoring Risk to Bees,”
The Guardian
, December 12, 2012.

 
31
   For the leaked EPA memo, see Pesticide Action Network, www.panna.org.

 
32
   I spoke to Gutierrez by phone on December 27, 1984.

 
33
   June 30, 1989, letter from Dee A. Lusby.

 
34
   Lusby letter, August 31, 1990.

 
35
   The organizations suing the EPA included the National Pollinator Defense Fund, American Honey Producers Association, National Honey Bee Advisory Board, and American Beekeeping Federation.

 
36
   Earthjustice, “Beekeeping Industry Sues EPA for Approval of Bee-Killing Pesticide” (press release, San Francisco, July 8, 2013).

 
37
   George Monbiot, “Neonicotinoids Are the New DDT Killing the Natural World,”
The Guardian
, August 5, 2013.

Chapter 6: Agricultural Warfare

 
  
1
   See “Pesticide Induced Delayed Neurotoxicity” (EPA, Office of Research and Development, Health Effects Research Laboratory, 1976). The site for this study: http://books.google.com/books/about/Pesticide_Induced_Delayed_Neuro toxicity.htmlid=ECI0GwAACAAJ.

 
  
2
   See “The Report of the Leptophos Advisory Committee to the Administrator” (U.S. EPA, October 1976), which discusses the leptophos poisoning of workers. Page 28: “Humans exposed to leptophos exhibited typical signs of OP [organophosphate] poisoning.” The report admits that two workers were paralyzed. One worker suffered “total paralysis in the lower extremities” and the other “partial paralysis of the lower extremities” (p. 52).

 
  
3
   The members of the committee were Julius Coon of Thomas Jefferson University, Seymour Friess of the Naval Medical Research Institute, Tetsuo Fukuto of the University of California, Bernard McNamara of the U.S. Army Material Command, and Gerald Rosen of Duke University. Their report was dated October 1976.

 
  
4
   A year with the migrants was enough to convince Owens that these terribly poor people had something going for them. “To travel over the country, to endure the hardships of the labor, the loneliness of the camps, the scorn and abuses from all quarters of our society just for the privilege of working takes an especially determined person,” he wrote. “He takes pride in his work and he is proud, for how else could he endure?” Clarence B. Owens, “The Extent of Exposure of Migrant Workers to Pesticides and Pesticide Residues” (submitted to the National Science Foundation and Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC: May 1982), pp. 345–50.

 
  
5
   Owens, “Extent of Exposure,” p. 316.

 
  
6
   The dysfunctional relationship between the Owens brothers and the two government agencies was surely compromised by race as well as chemical politics. A senior EPA scientist who reviewed the Owenses’ proposal wrote on November 19, 1974, that the Owens brothers “are not now and may never be in a position to implement a study of sound scientific merit.”