EPA Updates Mitigation Menu Website with Options to Protect Nontarget Species from Pesticide Runoff
Released on October 16, 2024
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has updated its mitigation menu website to include all current measures to reduce exposure to nontarget species from pesticide runoff from agricultural uses. The menu provides growers with options for reducing runoff as part of future pesticide labels that implement EPA’s Final Herbicide Strategy from August 2024.
Updates to the mitigation menu website include:
- Additional runoff/erosion mitigation measures and descriptions;
- A table describing the number of runoff/erosion points for each mitigation measure;
- Updates to the mitigation descriptions;
- A runoff/erosion mitigation points calculator to help applicators calculate the number of points earned for practices already in place on the field;
- Information to help applicators understand how voluntary participation in conservation programs can fulfill EPA label requirements; and
- An archive of previous versions of the mitigation menu for reference and enforcement purposes.
If a new active ingredient registration or a registration review decision for a conventional pesticide requires runoff/erosion mitigation to reduce ecological exposures, the label for that pesticide will reference this menu. A pesticide applicator will then need to review the menu and determine whether menu measures need to be employed and, if so, how many measures. The mitigations described in the menu apply only when the product label references the menu website.
EPA hosts this mitigation menu on the agency’s website rather than including it on each pesticide label. By posting the menu online, EPA can add or modify mitigation measures on the menu without updating thousands of individual labels each time, which would take years to complete. This approach ensures that agricultural pesticide users can benefit promptly from those changes to the menu. EPA intends to periodically update the mitigation menu website to reflect new mitigation measures or changes in mitigation descriptions.
EPA’s other strategies, including the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act Interim Ecological Mitigation and the Vulnerable Species Action Plan, will rely on the same mitigation menu website for conventional agricultural uses. When finalized, the Hawaii Strategy and the Draft Insecticide Strategy will also use this website. By using the same menu website, EPA reduces complexity for pesticide applicators.
The mitigation menu website currently only includes runoff/erosion mitigation options. EPA intends to update the mitigation menu website in the future to include spray drift mitigation options arising from the ESA strategies, when those mitigation requirements apply.