The EPA released its final herbicide strategy Aug. 20, a plan for meeting obligations under the Endangered Species Act with respect to herbicide drift, runoff and/or erosion.

According to a news release, the EPA will use the strategy to identify measures to reduce the amount of herbicides exposure to these species when it registers new herbicides and when it re-evaluates registered herbicides under a process called registration review. 

Final Strategy Details

The EPA says the final strategy includes more options for mitigation measures compared to a draft released in 2023, while still protecting listed species. The strategy also reduces the level of mitigation needed for applicators who have already implemented measures identified in the strategy to reduce pesticide movement from treated fields into habitats through pesticide spray drift and runoff from a field. The measures include cover crops, conservation tillage, windbreaks and adjuvants. Further, some measures, such as berms, are enough to fully address runoff concerns. Growers who already use those measures will not need any other runoff measures. The EPA identified these options for growers through its collaborations with USDA under its February 2024 interagency MOU and through over two dozen meetings and workshops with agricultural groups in 2024 alone.

The final strategy also recognizes that applicators who work with a runoff/erosion specialist or participate in a conservation program are more likely to effectively implement mitigation measures. These conservation programs include the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service practices and state or private stewardship measures that are effective at reducing pesticide runoff. The strategy reduces the level of mitigation needed for applicators who employ a specialist or participate in a program. Geographic characteristics may also reduce the level of mitigation needed, such as farming in an area with flat lands, or with minimal rain such as western U.S. counties that are in the driest climates. As a result, in many of those counties, a grower may need to undertake few or no additional runoff mitigations for herbicides that are not very toxic to listed species.

The final strategy uses the most updated information and processes to determine whether an herbicide will impact a listed species and identify protections to address any impacts. To determine impacts, the strategy considers where a species lives, what it needs to survive (for example for food or pollinators), where the pesticide will end up in the environment and what kind of impacts the pesticide might have if it reaches the species. These refinements allow EPA to focus restrictions only in situations where they are needed.

The final strategy will also expedite how EPA complies with the ESA through future consultations with FWS by identifying mitigations to address the potential impacts of each herbicide on listed species even before the agency completes the consultation process for that herbicide, which can take 5 years or more. Further, EPA and FWS expect to formalize their understanding of how this strategy can inform and streamline future ESA consultations for herbicides.

The final strategy itself does not impose any requirements or restrictions on pesticide use, according to the EPA news release. Rather, EPA will use the strategy to inform mitigations for new active ingredient registrations and registration review of conventional herbicides. EPA understands that the spray drift and runoff mitigation from the strategy can be complicated for some pesticide users to adopt for the first time. EPA has also developed a document that details multiple real-world examples of how a pesticide applicator could adopt the mitigation from this strategy when those measures appear on pesticide labels.

To help applicators consider their mitigation options, EPA is developing a mitigation menu website that the agency will release in fall 2024 and plans to periodically update with additional mitigation options, allowing applicators to use the most up-to-date mitigations without requiring pesticide product labels to be amended each time new measures become available. EPA is also developing a calculator that applicators can use to help determine what further mitigation measures, if any, they may need to take in light of mitigations they may already have in place. EPA will also continue to develop educational and outreach materials to inform the public and help applicators understand mitigation needs and where descriptions of mitigations are located.

ASA 'Disappointed' with Strategy

The final strategy was met with disappointment from the American Soybean Association (ASA). Josh Gackle, president of the ASA, said while there were improvements to the final strategy compared to the draft, the organization is still disappointed the EPA "chose to leave so many opportunities on the table to make this strategy workable for U.S. agriculture."

"We remain concerned with the complexity of this framework and whether growers and applicators will be able to clearly understand how to implement it," he said in a statement. "Likewise, we continue to have concerns as to the type and affordability of runoff mitigations EPA has provided, the potential distance of spray drift buffers, the number of mitigations farmers will need to adopt, and whether these requirements are supported by the best available science, as the law requires. As finalized, the Herbicide Strategy is likely to cost U.S. farmers billions of dollars to implement and could result in significant new hurdles to farmers accessing and using herbicides in the future."

Input on Proposed Strategy

In July 2023, the EPA released a draft of the strategy for public comment. According to a press release, the agency received extensive comments, with many reiterating the importance of protecting listed species from herbicides but also minimizing impacts on farmers and other pesticide users. In response to comments, EPA made changes to the draft, with the primary changes falling into three categories:

1. Making the strategy easier to understand and incorporating up-to-date data and refined analyses;
2. Increasing flexibility for pesticide users to implement mitigation measures in the strategy; and,
3. Reducing the amount of additional mitigation that may be needed when users either have already adopted accepted practices to reduce pesticide runoff or apply herbicides in an area where runoff potential is lower.

The EPA says it focused this strategy on conventional herbicides used in agriculture in the lower 48 states because the most herbicides are applied there. In 2022, approximately 264 million acres of cropland were treated with herbicides, according to the Census of Agriculture from the USDA. The number of cropland acres treated with herbicides has remained fairly consistent since the early 2010s.

The Final Herbicide Strategy and accompanying support documents are available in docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365 at the Regulations.gov page.

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