HONOLULU — Hawaii took another step closer to pesticide regulation on Friday after the House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill aimed at disclosure, buffer zones, and a phased ban on the use of chlorpyrifos.
Senate Bill 3095HD1 is now headed to the Senate.
Rep. Dee Morikwa, in whose district much of the regulation would occur, said the bill is the best compromise she’s seen so far in the ongoing conversation about pesticides.
“I support the safe use of it and I’ve been against a lot of bills in the past, but this bill is the best compromise and I think it’s something that’s finally time we pass,” Morikawa said.
The bill incorporates parts of the current voluntary good neighbor program, increases funding to the Department of Agriculture for pesticide education and investigation, bans all restrictive use pesticides within 100 feet of schools during instructional hours, and phases out chlorpyrifos over a three-year period.
“The bill attempts to find a middle ground to move forward,” said Rep. Nadine Nakamura.
Opponents of pesticide regulation cite potential to hurt small farmers and the encroachment of those rules into households that use products containing restricted-use-pesticides as reasons for dissent.
It was passed with unanimous support in the House on Friday.
“This bill’s focus is on children’s safety. If you’re doing any RUP (application) near the school, that should be done when it’s not in operation and that’s a good place for focus,” Morikawa said.
While House Representatives gave the okay to SB 3095HD1, advocates of pesticide regulation said it’s not quite as potent as they’d like and the provisions are modest.
“This is a clean and straightforward bill. I believe the House has actually ‘threaded the needle’ and balanced the needs of the various stakeholders as best as could be done, given the legislative history,” said Gary Hooser, president of the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action.
He continued: “Yes, I wish it was stronger in various areas but SB3095HD1 represents a meaningful change in public policy and has tangible benefits to health and environmental protection.”
Morikawa said she thinks the bill is a good starting point, even though not everyone is 100 percent happy with it. Even she has a few lingering questions.
“About the chlorpyrifos, I have concerns. I don’t know what farmers will be affected by this bill,” she said.
But, because the bill’s essence is the protection of children’s health in schools, Morikawa gave it her blessing.
“As long as the industry is following the law and doing what they’re supposed to do, I’m in support of that,” she said. “In the long run it’s about science and food production and I’m a strong supporter. This makes sure that the kids are save.”
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Jessica Else, environmental reporter, can be reached at 245-0452 or jelse@thegardenisland.com.
key words….’compormise, pesticides, children, schools, three years’….so much for loving our keiki!
Did it cause death? On one occasion there were several people hospitalized. More labeling and warning signs needed to the public about this chemical pesticide use. And on how to use it.
Aloha,
We find it dangerous that some of our elected representatives say and indicate things like this bill is a good compromise. That is, compromising the use of poisons and the risk to keiki and all others with exposure to carcinogenic, cancer causing oil based petro chemicals, yes that is a real compromise to the health and safety of families.
That’s also not a compromise that’s a SELL OUT in favor or corporate farming and chemical companies whose same poisonous chemicals are banned in many countries of the world.
It just means that Hawaii elected officials are not mentally mature enough and the public not educated enough to value human health and life over corporate farming and corporate chemical company profits and maybe campaign contributions.
1.) In speaking about the very serious and widely banned in some worldwide countries, Chlorpyrifos, our elected official was concerned how limiting this toxic chemical would unfavorably impact the farmers (the farmers who use this chemical); yet there appears to be no concern for the people and keiki who have to breathe this deadly chemical or have it on their skin or in their homes and schools.
Besides the farmer is corporate huge farms with profit and not safety on their agendas.
2.) A 100’ buffer zone only on school days and only during school hours, is apparently acceptable for elected officials, and salaried chemical scientists, and corporate farms and some small farmers who use poisons and other ignorant people who use it at home, who ignore the warning labels is inadequate to protect people from poison.
What they are really saying is, we’ll spray your kids’ schools on the weekends, and on Monday through Friday they can just go to school and breathe and sit and also play amongst the poison…otherwise they will spray during school hours but keep the spraying machine about the length of 5 pickup trucks away regardless of the Tradewinds or Kona winds blowing poison onto you or your children.
3.) How puny the mind of some who allow poison sprayed near schools just 100’ away, when that is just 2 doors down in distance and the fields sprayed can be large tracts of open acreage..
4.) that people use poison at home even though in small dosage compared to farms, is still poisoning ones family and self. And consumers rarely read the warning labels and ingredients on poisons or in their foods’ ingredients’ labels. More ongoing ignorance if not downright stupidity.
5.) our elected person said it’s OK to spray on school days off, but the poison from the days before is still in the school when keiki and teachers return.
6.) Ms. Morikawa says she is a strong supporter of science and food production…! Would she tell us just how many years she has studied science and food production…? It appears she knows little about either; when so many more and more scientists and doctors each with decades of study time are against these poisons on and around our families and our food, and our schools.
Isn’t it science that brings us the dangerous medical drugs we see on TV ads…? Not all scientists are trustable, and a certain percent all graduated at the bottom of their class…and unknowingly you trust them?
Next year is too long to wait to vote to ban these chemicals such as Glyphosate, Chlopyrifos, and Bt-Toxin and others from our communities and ours and our children’s bodies , as so many other places in the world have already banned them from their communities.
Ms. Morikawa and Ms. Nakamura please take the time to study these issues in depth before you vote again.
Mahalo,
Charles
Aloha Ms. Morikawa, your last sentence in the article says: “This makes sure that the kids are safe.”
Ms. Morikawa, if you think 100’ poison buffer zones and spraying poisons next to schools on school days off is safe, you need to go back to the 5th grade where any student knows that that is not true, especially when it is their school. Poisons and kids don’t mix well. That’s why the labels say “KEEP OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN “
Mahalo,
Charles