PORTLAND, Ore. — The USDA is defending its methods for killing grasshoppers and Mormon crickets across the West, arguing its pest control program has withstood rigorous scientific scrutiny.

While the agency’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service does take “integrated pest management” principles into account, chemical treatments must be deployed against rapidly surging pest populations, said John Tustin, an attorney for the government.

Spraying stops outbreaks

“The focus on suppression was perfectly reasonable for APHIS to focus on here,” Tustin said during March 22 oral arguments over the pest control program in federal court. “When there is an outbreak, it’s too late for anything else.”

The USDA says it’s taken the legally required “hard look” at its grasshopper and Mormon cricket suppression efforts and examined reasonable alternatives, both “programatically” across the West and in specific states.

To minimize the impacts on non-target species, the agency establishes no-spray buffer zones and applies chemicals at times when other insects are less active, Tustin said. “There are dozens of mitigation measures analyzed at the programmatic level.”

Controlling the pests with chemicals on rangelands in 17 Western states is necessary to protect the region’s agriculture industry and natural resources, as outbreaks can quickly wreak economic and environmental devastation, the agency said.

“It is reasonable and satisfies the statutory objectives,” Tustin said.

The oral arguments over pesticide treatments for grasshopper and Mormon cricket were held in Portland, Ore., as part of a lawsuit filed by the Xerces Society and Center for Biological Diversity against the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS.

Though IPM techniques are important for prevention, they must primarily be implemented on rangelands by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Tustin said.

“These are long-term treatment measures that must be applied by land managers prior to an outbreak,” he said. By the time USDA is called in, more direct control methods are necessary.

Comprehensive analysis

The agency says it conducted a comprehensive analysis of the region-wide spray program in 2019 and followed up with state-specific assessments before carrying out pesticide treatments, complying with the National Environmental Protection Act and Endangered Species Act.

While the environmental nonprofits claim the USDA violated federal laws by not taking a “holistic, prevention-first approach” to pest control, these claims are contradicted by its thorough consideration of “mitigation measures and cumulative effects,” the agency said.

The environmental plaintiffs are demanding a higher level of scientific analysis and disclosure than is required by law and which “cannot be reconciled with the need to provide a rapid and effective response” to grasshopper and Mormon cricket infestations, according to USDA.

‘Paralysis by analysis’

The agency isn’t required to engage in “paralysis by analysis” under NEPA and its “crystal ball” is too murky to forecast the exact locations of future infestations, Tustin said.

“Where a specific treatment will be is impossible to predict,” he said. “Those are factors you don’t know until there’s an immediate request for treatment.”

Even so, the USDA does exclude sensitive watersheds and other areas of environmental concern prior to treatments, which it discloses in its state-specific “environmental assessments,” or EAs, Tustin said.

“Each EA talks about where it’s not authorized,” he said. “The EAs discuss where things do not occur.”

The Xerces Society and Center for Biological Diversity claim a clear line can be drawn between the USDA’s actions and reduced grasshopper and Mormon cricket populations depriving birds and other wildlife of food in the region.

The federal agency hasn’t been transparent about the baseline environmental conditions that are needed to evaluate the impacts of the spray program, Hannah Goldblatt, attorney for the plaintiffs.

“When baseline information is lacking, the cumulative effects analysis is typically inadequate,” she said.

Insecticides can be sprayed by USDA on millions of acres of public lands each year but its analysis of the regional program doesn’t divulge the specific areas treated in the past or the future, the environmental plaintiffs claim.

“APHIS has the tools to do a better job but for some reason ignores them,” Goldblatt said.

Without such information, the agency can’t readily discern adverse impacts to important environmental and recreational sites, such as Oregon’s Steens Mountain or Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, said Goldblatt.

“None of those areas are called out or analyzed with any specificity in the EA,” she said. “By treating all lands as the same — millions of acres in a state — the EAs lack the necessary specificity.”

‘Holistic approach’ needed

The agency cannot legally continue keeping the public in the dark about its pest suppression efforts and should consider a “holistic approach” to controlling grasshoppers and Mormon crickets that’s less dependent on spraying, according to the nonprofits.

“You could possibly have fewer outbreaks if you take this holistic approach, which is what they are supposed to do,” said Andrew Missel, attorney for the plaintiffs.

Under the direction provided by Congress, the agency should have a “salad bar” of multiple preventative IPM tools aside from chemical treatments, he said.

“APHIS is saying we have some lettuce and a few croutons and calling that a salad bar,” Missel said.

The agency has also failed to examine the effects of its regional pest suppression program on such species as the monarch butterfly or western bumblebee, he said.

“This is not a dispute about methodology,” Missel said. “This is a case about there being no methodology. The court cannot defer to a void.”