space Press Releases, News Stories

By Karen L. Werner, International Environment Reporter Current Report

27 February 2002 -- The environmental ministers from the United States, Mexico, and Canada are expected to decide in June if the organochlorine pesticide lindane will be the subject of a regional action plan to reduce the compound's presence in the environment, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency staff members told BNA Feb. 12.

The three officials serve as the governing council to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which oversees environmental side agreements under the North American Free Trade Agreement. EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, Canadian Environment Minister David Anderson, and Mexican Environment Secretary Victor Lichtinger comprise the council.

The council likely will ask the three countries to develop a plan to reduce risks posed by lindane, according to Keith Chanon, a staffer in the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs.

The pesticide is a candidate for an action plan because it met scientific criteria that generally include factors such as persistence in the environment, bioaccumulation, and toxicity, he said. Advantages of Regional Plan. An advantage of a regional action plan is that the three countries would be able to work together to evaluate risks, share information on alternatives to lindane, and coordinate regulatory action, Chanon said.

Vic Shantora, head of the CEC pollutants and health program, told BNA Feb. 13 that the commission has been looking at lindane "with a view to a North American approach" to dealing with the pesticide. The pesticide is used as a seed treatment in the United States and Canada, and the extent of its use in Mexico will likely be evaluated as an action plan is developed, according to Janice Jensen, another official in EPA's pesticides office.

Development of the plan would be linked to the ongoing EPA review of lindane, which is expected to be completed in July, Jensen said. In the past, the United States has participated in plans on the banned pesticides DDT and chlordane, and the federal government nominated lindane several years ago for a regional action plan under NAFTA, Chanon said.

Control of lindane is already the subject of other multi-country agreements, such as the U.N. Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, and the Great Lakes Binational Toxics Strategy between the United States and Canada (INER Reference File 1, 21:4775 and 31:0851).

Copyright © 2002 The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.