A federal judge has ordered USDA to re-evaluate the environmental impacts of its grasshopper and Mormon cricket suppression program in the West within two years.

The agency’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service must correct deficiencies in its 2019 review of the program, requiring a greater focus on “integrated pest management” techniques and the cumulative effects of pesticide use, among other factors, according to U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez.

The federal suppression program is important for Western farmers and ranchers, as outbreaks of grasshoppers and Mormon crickets can severely damage crops and forage for livestock.

About three years ago, the environmental nonprofits Xerces Society and Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit against the agency, arguing its spray program violated the National Environmental Policy Act.

“APHIS’s widespread, routine application of pesticides on public and private rangelands to manage grasshoppers — many of which never reach economic infestation levels — harms not just grasshoppers but also numerous non-target insect species critical to ecosystem functioning and productivity,” the lawsuit claimed.

Last year, the judge agreed with the environmental plaintiffs that USDA had put too much emphasis on direct suppression of the pests with insecticides and did not adequately evaluate the use of preventative measures.

Despite this finding, Hernandez did not overturn USDA’s legal authorization for the overall spray program to continue.

Since then, the federal government and environmental plaintiffs have been debating how to remedy the shortcomings in USDA’s previous “environmental impact statement” about the program’s consequences.

Though APHIS argued imposing a two-year deadline to correct the EIS was unnecessary, given the time-related requirements of NEPA, the judge said it was appropriate to provide the environmental plaintiffs with “a remedy should there be a delay.”

“This is particularly appropriate where, as here, the legally inadequate EIS will remain in place indefinitely without action by APHIS,” Hernandez said.

While the judge agreed with the environmental plaintiffs on the deadline, he did not grant several other requests, such as requiring the USDA to completely redo the study instead of merely supplementing the 2019 version.

The judge also denied an injunction that would’ve required the USDA to issue “real-time, application-specific notifications of APHIS spraying activities” before the new review is complete, since this remedy is “not sufficiently tailored” to the violations and goes “far beyond what NEPA requires.”

Finally, Hernandez refused to overturn the environmental assessments for state-specific suppression activities in Wyoming and Montana until after the 2025 spraying season is finished, as this could “result in significant harms to the local community due to drought conditions and damage from last year’s wildfires.”