Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Monday, October 8, 2007
The EPA approved methyl Iodide being manufactured and sold by Arysta LifeScience Corp., late last week. In spite of concerns by scientists and physicians, many of whom are Nobel Prize winners.
Leaping from the frying pan into the fire is common place these days. Each time one evil is eliminated another one rears its ugly head to replace it. Methyl Iodide has many of the same dangerous traits as the chemical it will now be used to replace. It also seems to pose less danger to the earth’s ozone.
The EPA says Midas has undergone rigorous testing. The Department of Pesticide Regulation in California is conducting its own tests which won’t be completed for several more months. The California agency uses stricter guidelines than the EPA when it comes to what can be used in California.
Arysta has spent more than $11 million dollars on their own data, and 8 years.
Pay careful attention here.
Last year the EPA dropped its plan to approve methly iodide. But, the agency was given ‘additional data’ to review by Arysta. Elin Miller, Arysta’s former chief executive, is now a top official at the EPA and is now the administrator of the EPA’s northwest region.
Voila! Another case of the Fox guarding the hen house?
Pressure from the United Farm Workers, some environmental groups and California pesticide officials may be underlying the one-year approval methyl iodide was granted. The EPA says the one-year approval is due to new regulations it is developing for all fumigants.
The effects of Global warming are running at break-neck speeds. Efforts to prop the dominoes back up seem to be finally moving into high gear all over the world.
Is the cure going to be more deadly than the disease? How soon will we hear the words,”The treatment was a success, but the patient died?”
Labels: EPA, Global Warming, Methyl Bromide, Methyl Iodide, Ozone, Pollution
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
EPA Approves Methyl Iodide to Replace Methyl Bromide. Differences Blur!
Friday, September 28, 2007
Methyl Bromide has been used by the hundreds of thousands of tonnes to sterilize soils before crops are planted. It’s devastating affect on our Ozone layer is well documented.
Methyl Iodide maybe approved as a replacement for Methyl Bromide today by the EPA. Methyl Iodide was researched as long ago as 50 years.
Both compounds are known to be toxins to humans and animals but, methyl Bromide is thought to be far more devastating to the ozone.
Methyl Iodide has been proven to be equal to, and in many cases better than, Methyl Bromide in the control of many detrimental organisms living in the soil. Why, when this compound seems to be a safer alternative, to the Ozone layer was Methyl Iodide not being used for the past 30 years?
Why then has the world used Methyl Bromide instead?
The nature of Methyl Iodide causes it to dissipate far faster in the air than the methyl bromide, a few days rather than several years. It’s properties cause it to be used in a liquid form rather than gas, like Methyl Bromide; an advantage that makes it potentially less dangerous to use during application.
Interestingly enough there are claims by the USDA itself that the lack of the iodide portion of the compound is a major cause of mental illness in the world…..DOH! Is it really that easy?
The USDA also states unlike bromide, iodide is a recognized plant and human nutrient. Why would we continue to float this Methyl Bromide into our earth’s atmosphere for some 50 years, knowing there may be a suitable substitute that might even be good for us?
Good farming practices went out the window with the coming of the industrialized age. There was a time when plowing a crop under after harvest and rotating crops were the norm. The Hebrew Scriptures (the old Testament) even give detailed instructions as to how to successfully and with good stewardship cultivate the soil. How did we get so far off the track of nourishing the soil and in doing so our bodies? Follow the money.
At some point in our industrialized evolution someone got the bright idea that farming could and should be a mega profitable venture. Mechanized harvests, mechanized fumigation, mechanized fertilization became the mechanics for the mega bottom line profits of farming.
One look at the ever evolving ‘food pyramid’ and the volumes of food recommend for a balanced diet only proves there are fewer and fewer nutrients in the foods we eat. I’m not even speaking of processed and refined foods. Fresh, wholesome fruits and vegetables now days need to be eaten in quantities that are bordering on the ridiculous. Why? Because these foods are grown in void and vanquished soil. Over farmed, over worked and over sterilized.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that to produce nutrient rich food from the earth, the earth needs to be nourished. Sterilization does not enrich. Fertilizing with lab made compounds does not nourish.
The only thing that has been truly nourished on our earth in the last 60 years has been the bottom line of the commercial ventures.
Photo: World Ag Expo-Tulare CA.USA
Labels: Agriculture, EPA, Environment, Global Warming, Methyl Bromide, Methyl Iodide, Ozone
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Methyl Iodide May Be Approved by EPA Today
Thursday, September 27, 2007
In an effort to find an acceptable substitute for Methyl Bromide, Tokyo’s Arysta LifeScience Corp is marketing Methyl iodide, a compound they are calling MIDAS (MIDASusda). Was this product named after King Midas? Maybe Arysta plan was to make farmers feel that everything their new product touches will turn to gold?
Then again maybe it’s merely a stroke of good luck with the acronym.
In any case at least 54 scientists and physicians feel what this product touches may turn to death and destruction. The Methyl iodide is being called “one of the more toxic chemicals…”
EPA is expected to approve the use of MIDAS, in the US, as soon as tomorrow. 6 chemistry Nobel Prize winners are concerned that people living near, and those working with this product will be at “serious risk”
Methyl Bromide has long been known to be a severe and serious detriment to our fragile Ozone layer, and therefore a contributor to global warming. The EPA is taking the position buffer zones could be created around fields to reduce the risk of nearby residents and neighbors and that farm workers could be protected by using respirators.
The EPA, evaluated studies that linked Methyl iodide inhalation a horrifying array of illnesses and deaths in rats, but concluded the chemical was not likely cancerous in humans! Okie Dokie then!
The Montreal Protocol banned the use of Methyl Bromide and is calling for smaller and smaller usage with a complete fade out by 2010. Though the U.S. is using more Methyl Bromide each year than the rest of the world combined, and has applied for conditional use permits up to 2009, MIDAS may not be a less toxic alternative.
As for the depletion of the Ozone layer, Methyl Iodide is destroyed by light in as little as a few days, where Methyl Bromide can stay in the atmosphere for as long as 2 years.
Methyl Iodide seems to be an affordable alternative when it comes to being more friendly to the ozone, but as 1981 Nobel prize winner, Professor Roald Hoffmann from Cornell says “I wouldn’t like to live near a field where it’s (Methyl Iodide) applied.
Methyl Iodide was studied as long as 50 years ago…Provided there is no breaking news will have more on that sad subject tomorrow.
Labels: EPA, Global Warming, Methyl Bromide, Methyl Iodide, Montreal Protocol, Ozone
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Replacing Methyl Bromide with the MIDAS Touch?
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
When you count all the things that are known to cause damage to the earth’s protective Ozone layer Methyl Bromide is 50 times more destructive! In fact Methyl Bromide is a deadly neurotoxin. Methyl Bromide has also been linked to gene mutation, chromosome damage, and DNA damage.
More conservative estimates rate this compound at 3 to 5 times more damaging than CFC’s but, in either case if there were alternatives to the use of this agent…why in the world wouldn’t you use them?
Methyl Bromide is injected into soil before many crops such as grapes, almonds, strawberries and others are planted. The Methyl Bromide sterilizes the ground before crops are planted. After harvest this chemical is used to decontaminate products and storage product areas. It kills nematodes, insects, rodents and weeds. Methyl Bromide also kills the Ozone.
Here we have a deadly neurotoxin, a chemical that is classified as a category 1 compound by the EPA, the most deadly category of substances that is still being used, by the millions of tons, today. Yet in 93% of the applications of Methyl Bromide there are less toxic alternatives available. Why is it still being used?
Though this chemical has been banned under the Montreal Protocol, and there are other products that could be used as an alternative; the U.S. ask for and was granted ‘critical use exemptions’ by the Montreal Protocol. How much Methyl Bromide does the U.S. use?
The entire developed, in 2006 used 5,000 tones of Methyl Bromide. The U.S. received an exemption to use 8,000 tons. While fewer and fewer nations are requesting ‘critical use exemptions’ for its use, the U.S. continues to cry, “We need’, “We have no other choice”. The U.S. is submitting requests into the year 2009.
The U.S. is looking more and more like ‘Audry II’ from ‘The little shop of horrors’, screaming “Feed me”, and like O.J. still looking for the ‘real killers’, the U.S. seems still to be looking for ‘alternatives’ to Methyl Bromide use that other nations have apparently been able to locate.
This is bad stuff folks. Another enormous hole in the Ozone is growing over the Antarctic this week. In the past 2 years a hole the size of Europe has opened researchers fear that as spring comes to the southern hemisphere, so too will more holes in the Ozone.
Follow the money! If there are alternatives available why wouldn’t you use them?
The U.S. claims, affordable alternatives are not yet available.
Can we afford the alternative of giving the U.S. everything it cries for?
As Janos Mate of Greenpeace International points out, Italy, Greece and Spain have nearly eliminated their agricultural use of Methyl Bromide.
Photo: USDA.gov nematodes
Labels: Agriculture, EPA, Methyl Bromide, Ozone, Toxin, USA, neurotoxin
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Methyl Bromide the Ozone and the USA
