The Environmental Protection Agency rebuffed state officials who sought more time to digest the EPA’s plan to restrict pesticides in parts of 29 states, including Oregon and Washington, to protect 27 rare species.

The Association of American Pesticide Control Officials said the plan will significantly change pesticide controls and asked last week for at least 15 more days to respond to the 152-page proposal rolled out June 21.

The EPA denied the request and stopped taking comments Aug. 6, forcing states and others to hurry their responses. The Oregon Department of Agriculture complained the EPA was sowing confusion and said the risk of banning pesticides was “incalculable.”

Agriculture, forestry, public health and the environment are under pressure from invasive pests and noxious weeds, and “the restrictions, as proposed, put these resources at risk,” the department commented.

EPA pilot plan

Oregon and Washington are among the states most effected by what the EPA is calling a “pilot project” to protect endangered and threatened species from insecticides and herbicides.

Under the plan, the EPA will designate “pesticide use limitation areas” for each species.

The area for the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly will cover more than 2 million acres in Western Oregon and Western Washington. The area includes farm-rich Lewis and Skagit counties in Washington and parts of the Willamette Valley surrounding Corvallis and Eugene.

Growers in those areas will have to get permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service three months in advance to spay, according to EPA’s proposal. If pests break out, growers will have to consult with federal wildlife managers to decide what to do.

Washington State Department of Agriculture scientist Gary Bahr, writing on behalf of state pesticide control officers, told the EPA it was the “most important document” he had seen in his 30-year career.

States weren’t consulted

Washington agriculture department policy adviser Kelly McLain said in an interview the department enforces federal pesticide regulations, but wasn’t consulted by the EPA.

The department was taken aback by the scope of the proposal and doubtful federal wildlife managers, who have not been involved in regulating pesticides, could respond quickly enough to new pests on farms, she said.

“What do you do? Is there a 24-hour process?” she asked. “None of us know how this will play out on this grand of a scale.”

Pesticide dealers, soybean farmers and mosquito-control officials also asked for more time to comment. In response, EPA chief pesticide regulator Jan Matuszko stated the potential impact to pesticide use was small.

There are more than 1,600 federally protected species and the plan applied to only 27 with “small ranges,” according to Matuszko. Efforts to obtain further comment from the EPA Monday were unsuccessful.

For 15 of the 27 species, including the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly, the ranges exceed 1 million acres, according to the EPA.

The restrictions will apply to agriculture, rangeland, forestry, golf courses, athletic fields and aquatic applications, including mosquito control.

The EPA said it planned to provide more specifics over the next 18 months. For now, the EPA has posted maps to show pesticide applicators where they can “prepare for a future” when restrictions are enforced.

Other species in the pilot project include the White bluffs bladderpod, a plant found mostly in the Hanford Reach National Monument in Eastern Washington.

In California, four species are in the pilot project: the Plamate-bracted bird’s beak, a plant in the Sacramento Valley; the Buena Vista Lake ornate shrew in Southern California; and the Riverside and San Diego fairy shrimp, two species also in Southern California.

Endangered butterfly spurs strict pesticide limits in OR, WA