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Availability Of Revised Risk Assessment For Metam-Sodium
The public can now access and comment on EPA’s revised human health and
ecological risk assessments for metam-sodium, a widely used soil
fumigant. Through a Federal Register notice published on August 31,
the Agency initiated a 60-day public comment period on these risk assessments that will close October 31, 2004. This review of
metam-sodium is part of the Agency’s process of reevaluating pesticides
to ensure they meet current scientific standards for health, safety, and
environmental protection.
In an effort to increase the transparency of the reevaluation process, as well as to make the Agency’s pesticide reviews more robust, EPA routinely solicits comment on its scientific assessments. The Agency has completed its review of public comments received on the preliminary risk assessments for metam sodium, and revised the risk assessments based on these comments and on our interactions with other regulatory agencies, particularly the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.
At present, refinements to the Agency’s current bystander exposure models are undergoing review by EPA’s Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP). The Agency will consider the SAP’s recommendations and public comments received on the revised risk assessments in developing a second revision of the metam sodium human health risk assessment. This second revised risk assessment will be released for comment as part of the Agency’s soil fumigant comparative cluster assessment in January 2005. Because the soil fumigants are used in similar ways and may be expected to result in similar human exposures, it is advantageous to review them concurrently. In addition to metam-sodium, the fumigant cluster assessment will consider human health risks associated with methyl bromide, chloropicrin, dazomet, telone, and iodomethane. A mitigation strategy will be developed for all the fumigants together, with final decisions scheduled for September 2005.
Further information on metam sodium is available on EPA’s web page, http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/reregistration/metamsodium/ or under methyldithiocarbamate salts on the Agency’s reregistration status page, http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/reregistration/status.htm.
The Federal Register notice giving details about the comment period is
available at http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-PEST/2004/August/Day-31/p19712.htm.
Further information about the soil fumigant cluster assessment is
available in an OPP Update issued on August 20, 2004, and available
under Pesticide News on the Office of Pesticide Programs’ home page,
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/.