Although the state Department of Agri-culture had not released its investigation of the Keauhou Ranch experiment involving the aerial broadcast of rat poison, documents obtained by Environment Hawai’i reveal a series of missteps, if not out-and-out regulatory violations, that culminated in a kind of “perfect storm” of unfortunate circumstances. Almost every agency or party that could have placed a hand on the brake at one point or another to stop the unfolding disaster seems to have slipped up.
Here’s a short review:
The Environmental Protection Agency
In an “efficacy review” of Tonnie Casey’s application for an experimental use permit, William Jacobs, a biologist in the EPA’s Insecticide-Rodenticide Branch, raised a number of questions. He noted that the product Casey was seeking to use did not match the registration number she provided. The registration of product she apparently wanted to use had expired earlier in 2003, and when Jacobs brought this to the state Department of Agriculture’s attention, staff there quickly re-registered it. Yet Jacobs seems not to have picked up on the fact that the registered product, identified as HI-970007, is a block approved only for use in bait stations. Instead, he describes it as “large-size pellets that are thought to be somewhat immune to feeding by small birds.” (The description is puzzling: according to one rat-bait expert, “A bait block is square and blocky. A pellet is round. It would be impossible to confuse the two.”)
Jacobs concluded with recommendations that the all-important label for the pellets to be used in the experiment be revised. One of the most important changes he recommended would have allowed the application rate to be increased, from the “5-10 lbs of bait per acre” on the draft label, to “10-15 lbs of bait per acre” that all parties seemed to agree would be a more appropriate application rate.
John Hebert with the EPA’s Insecticide-Rodenticide Branch, Registration Division, forwarded Jacobs’ recommendations to Casey in a letter dated May 6. “Please revise your EUP label as indicated above,” Hebert wrote, referring to the several changes Jacobs had proposed, “and submit two copies of the revised label before you begin the experimental program.” At the same time, Hebert put an EPA “ACCEPTED” stamp on the draft label (containing language not reflective of the experiment’s terms and conditions) and forwarded that, with his letter, to Casey. Casey never did provide a revised label. (Hebert was asked to explain why he placed the “ACCEPTED” stamp on a draft label; he had not responded by press time.)
Hawai’i Department of Agriculture
The Pesticide Branch of the state Department of Agriculture was responsible for ensuring that the permit’s terms and conditions were carried out. DOA staffer Chris Gerken was at the Keauhou Ranch site when the experiment began.
If Gerken noticed any discrepancies between the planned experiment and the terms set forth in the label, no record of it has been made available to Environment Hawai’i yet. But some should have been apparent:
o The label permit called for the experiment to be conducted only when the weather forecast called for less than half an inch of rain over the next three to five days. Late in the evening on August 27, the day before the experiment was to begin, the National Weather Service had given a tropical depression the name Jimena and predicted its path would come near or hit the Island of Hawai’i.
o The label permit stipulated that no more than 10 pounds per acre was to be applied in the initial aerial drop. The bucket slung under the helicopter had been calibrated to distribute 15 pounds per acre. Why did Gerken not notice this discrepancy?
o The label on the 50-pound boxes of pellets clearly stated the contents were “BAIT BLOCKS” and carried an EPA registration number for HI-970007. If Gerken noticed this, why did he allow the experiment to proceed?
Kamehameha Schools
Kamehameha Schools had been in possession of at least 320 boxes of improperly labeled rat poison since November 2002. Among other things, the Pesticide Branch is supposed to make sure that large users of pesticides use only registered products, that they store them safely, and that they apply them in a way protective of human and environmental health. Had the boxes been deliberately mislabeled, so as not to raise the concerns of any DOA inspector?
As a DOA inspector wrote after the investigation began, at the time the pelletized rat poison was shipped, “Eaton did not receive required EUP [Experimental Use Permit] pellet labeling information because EUP had not been approved. Regardless, BAIT BLOCK labeling with SLN 970007 should not have been placed on boxes containing pellets.”
Kamehameha Schools should also be asked to explain the discrepancies between what Casey reported was done and what the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s staff found on the ground. The USDA conducted surveys over four plots totaling 746 acres, and found evidence of a heavy treatment of rat poison on each plot. Yet Casey reported that only 530 acres (an area that reflects acreage in three of the four plots) received treatment. (Casey declined to talk with Environment Hawai’i about this or any other aspect of the rodenticide experiment.)
Did Kamehameha Schools receive only 320 boxes of the poison pellets? If so, how does it account for the pellet densities that suggest many times more bait was broadcast than the 17.8 pounds per acre Casey reported?
Eaton’s
J.T. Eaton & Co., Inc., a longtime manufacturer of pesticides, surely had to know that the 320 boxes of pellets they shipped to Kamehameha Schools contained pellets and not bait blocks, as the labels indicated. Had the boxes not carried the registration number of the bait blocks, perhaps at least one snafu could have been avoided – i.e., the placement of bait pellets in bait stations following the aerial broadcast.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 14, Number 11 May 2004
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