April 29, 2022
City of Mansfield Council Members,
During the 8-24-2020 City Council Meeting Mr. VanAmburgh made the statements “there is not a residue created”, “ any notion of needing to cover fish ponds, furniture, your pets are old news”,” the doses used in ULV spraying is incredibly low” and “3 grams of active ingredients to fog an acre of land.”
We find these and other statements like this very troubling. Our position and response to these statements would have been derived from the information below.
The pesticide of choice for Mansfield ground spraying is Aqua Perm-X UL 30-30 with the active ingredient consisting of permethrin. Following are a few quotes from the SDS or Safety Data Sheet:
GHS-US classification:
Serious eye damage/eye irritation Category 2A – Causes serious eye irritation
Aspiration hazard Category 1 – May be fatal if swallowed and enters airways
Carcinogenicity Category 2 – Suspected of causing cancer
Acute toxicity (oral) Category 4 – Harmful if swallowed
Acute toxicity (inhalation) Category 4 – Harmful if inhaled
Specific target organ toxicity (single exposure) Category 1 – Causes damage to organs
If questioned about any caution that should be exercised with this chemical the response from the Environmental Services Group would most likely be something along the lines of “it is not a danger at the application rate that it is applied at”. This is saying just because no one went to the hospital as a result of a ground spray event this pesticide is safe. Below is a portion of an email response from Bruce Blumberg, PhD. Professor Departments of Developmental and Cell Biology and Pharmaceutical Sciences University of California Irvine that addresses the issue.
“The entire article you sent is very typical of the type of analysis industry and regulatory toxicologists perform. They are interested in LD50 (the dose that kills half of the test subjects), the LOAEL (lowest observed adverse effect level) for whatever effect they are studying (usually organ weight), the NOAEL (no observed adverse effect level). The main endpoint (outcome) they are studying is death or acute illness. That is, do people or pets die or quickly get sick when they are exposed. The regulators are doing a fine job at this, very few people get acutely sick or die when they are in the area of pesticide exposure.”
“However, where their science becomes complete nonsense is when they then claim that the levels that do not make people die, or acutely ill are safe. Nothing could be further from the truth. While there is almost certainly some level of exposure that nearly everyone can tolerate without overt harm, they NEVER, EVER test such levels even in laboratory animals and rarely, if ever test the levels in people’s blood or homes after spraying occurs. Such claims also have little relevance to at risk populations such as children, elderly, or people who have other illnesses that may make them more susceptible to exposure (e.g., cancer, immune issues, etc).”
From 2016 thru 2022 the City of Mansfield’s Environmental Services Department ordered the City to be ground sprayed 152 times that totaled 2,372 miles with 753.51 gallons of active ingredient pesticide. “Three grams of active ingredient” sounds small and inconsequential and was most likely used to deflect the fact of the large amount of pesticide introduced into the environment which in no way can be healthy for people or the environment and is totally unacceptable. It is a fact that repeated exposures to low levels of pesticides leads to a host of health challenges.
From the NPIC website: “The National Pecticide Information Center NPIC provides objective, science-based information about pesticides and pesticide-related topics to enable people to make informed decisions. NPIC is a cooperative agreement between Oregon State University and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (cooperative agreement #X8-83560101).”
“Permethrin does not mix well with water. When permethrin gets into surface water like lakes or streams, it sticks very strongly to sediment and can stay there for more than a year. If permethrin is applied to plants, it may stay on the leaves for between 1 and 3 weeks. Permethrin does not evaporate very easily when it is applied to surfaces. Permethrin was applied indoors near a window in an experiment where it was exposed to daylight. After 20 days, 60% of the permethrin that was applied was still on the surface.”
It would be interesting to see the source for the statement “there is not a residue created”.
Our position is that caution should be taken with pesticide exposures and that the amount of pesticide that has been introduced into our local environment is totally unacceptable.
If the Environmental Services Department had adopted an equitable, effective and proactive mosquito control policy that is recommended by the EPA and all major mosquito control organizations we would not be having this conversation.