LIHUE — Today is the deadline for Kauai’s largest agricultural companies to submit summaries of all restricted use pesticide applications to the Hawaii Department of Agriculture.
The monthly post-application reports are one portion of the state’s voluntary Kauai Agricultural Good Neighbor Program, which kicked off Dec. 1.
As of Tuesday afternoon, pesticide use information for Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont Pioneer and BASF had been posted on the state’s website.
“I just put it up yesterday,” HDOA Public Information Officer Janelle Saneishi said of the website.
While Kauai Coffee has expressed its willingness to comply with the state program, it had not submitted reports by press time.
The RUP summaries via the voluntary program provide basic information about which chemical products each company is using, in what quantities, the active ingredients and the total acreage each is applied to.
During December, Syngenta applied 13 RUPs — a total of 213.6 liquid gallons and 366.55 pounds — to 1,251 acres, according to the website. The company, one of three who filed a lawsuit to block the county’s pesticide disclosure ordinance, leases 3,000 acres on Kauai.
BASF’s RUP use was far less than that of Syngenta.
The company applied only three RUPs during December, a total of 2.19 gallons on 63 acres (including repeat applications). The company leases about 1,000 acres on Kauai, according to Kirby Kester, the company’s applied genetics manager.
Dow AgroSciences applied 10 RUPs, a total of 139.2 gallons to 873 acres (including repeat applications). The company leases 3,500 acres total for its two farms.
DuPont Pioneer applied 13 RUPs, a total of 66.02 gallons and 13.39 pounds, to 982.91 acres (including repeat applications).
The most commonly used product by Syngenta during the month was Lorsban, an organophosphate insecticide. The company applied 81.69 gallons of the product, containing 306.75 pounds of the active ingredient chlorpyrifos, to 326.76 acres, according to the website.
In comparison, BASF applied 4.69 pounds of chlorpyrifos to 5 acres, Dow applied 165.56 pounds to 241.9 acres and Pioneer applied 34.55 pounds to 49.07 acres.
Syngenta also used 244.75 pounds of atrazine, one of the world’s most widely used and controversial herbicides, to 306.5 acres.
BASF did not apply products containing atrazine during the month of December, while Dow used 23.66 pounds on 18.5 acres and Pioneer 7.6 pounds to 12.17 acres.
Post-application RUP summaries are due to the HDOA within 15 days after the end of each calendar month. The next round of reports are expected by Feb. 15.
An attempt to contact Kauai Coffee Tuesday was unsuccessful.
On Friday, Syngenta, Pioneer and Agrigenetics, a company affiliated with Dow, filed a federal lawsuit against the County of Kauai to block implementation of Ordinance 960 (formerly Bill 2491) related to pesticides and genetically modified crops.
While the industry supports the state’s Good Neighbor Program, it believes Ordinance 960 is unconstitutional, “fatally flawed” and exposes the companies to risks of “corporate espionage, vandalism and environmental terrorism,” according to the complaint.
A scheduling conference related to the lawsuit is scheduled for April 14 in U.S. District Court in Honolulu. BASF and Kauai Coffee did not join the complaint.
Ordinance 960, which requires disclosure of all pesticides and establishes buffer zones around sensitive areas, is slated to go into effect in August and apply to the same five companies.
To view the December post-application RUP summaries, visit https://data.hawaii.gov/widgets/9pud-c8q5.
• Chris D’Angelo, environmental reporter, can be reached at 245-0441 or cdangelo@thegardenisland.com.
