H-4010.1 _______________________________________________
HOUSE BILL 2726
_______________________________________________
State of Washington 56th Legislature 2000 Regular Session
By Representatives Cooper, Campbell, Linville, Barlean, Dickerson, Stensen, Schual‑Berke, Reardon, Romero, Sullivan, Lovick, Gombosky, Santos, Regala, Fisher, Scott, Keiser, Conway, Veloria, Dunshee, Anderson, Ruderman, O'Brien, Hurst, Constantine, Haigh, Edmonds, Wood, Kagi, Kenney and Rockefeller
Read first time 01/19/2000. Referred to Committee on Agriculture & Ecology.
AN ACT Relating to minimizing the use of pesticides in and around certain facilities; amending RCW 17.21.020; adding new sections to chapter 17.21 RCW; and creating a new section.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that children are more vulnerable than adults to the hazardous effects of pesticides. The intent of this act is to minimize the use of high-hazard pesticides in and around schools and to promote the use of the least toxic pesticides available when pest controls are needed.
Sec. 2. RCW 17.21.020 and 1994 c 283 s 1 are each amended to read as follows:
Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, the definitions in this section apply throughout this chapter.
(1) "Agricultural commodity" means any plant or part of a plant, or animal, or animal product, produced by a person (including farmers, ranchers, vineyardists, plant propagators, Christmas tree growers, aquaculturists, floriculturists, orchardists, foresters, or other comparable persons) primarily for sale, consumption, propagation, or other use by people or animals.
(2) "Agricultural land" means land on which an agricultural commodity is produced or land that is in a government-recognized conservation reserve program. This definition does not apply to private gardens where agricultural commodities are produced for personal consumption.
(3) "Antimicrobial pesticide" means a pesticide as defined by 7 U.S.C. 136(mm).
(4) "Apparatus" means any type of ground, water, or aerial equipment, device, or contrivance using motorized, mechanical, or pressurized power and used to apply any pesticide on land and anything that may be growing, habitating, or stored on or in such land, but shall not include any pressurized handsized household device used to apply any pesticide, or any equipment, device, or contrivance of which the person who is applying the pesticide is the source of power or energy in making such pesticide application, or any other small equipment, device, or contrivance that is transported in a piece of equipment licensed under this chapter as an apparatus.
(((4)))
(5) "Arthropod" means any invertebrate animal that belongs to
the phylum arthropoda, which in addition to insects, includes allied classes
whose members are wingless and usually have more than six legs; for example,
spiders, mites, ticks, centipedes, and isopod crustaceans.
(((5)))
(6) "Certified applicator" means any individual who is
licensed as a commercial pesticide applicator, commercial pesticide operator,
public operator, private-commercial applicator, demonstration and research
applicator, or certified private applicator, or any other individual who is
certified by the director to use or supervise the use of any pesticide which is
classified by the EPA or the director as a restricted use pesticide.
(((6)))
(7) "Commercial pesticide applicator" means any person who
engages in the business of applying pesticides to the land of another.
(((7)))
(8) "Commercial pesticide operator" means any employee of a
commercial pesticide applicator who uses or supervises the use of any pesticide
and who is required to be licensed under provisions of this chapter.
(((8)))
(9) "Defoliant" means any substance or mixture of substances
intended to cause the leaves or foliage to drop from a plant with or without
causing abscission.
(((9)))
(10) "Department" means the Washington state department of
agriculture.
(((10)))
(11) "Desiccant" means any substance or mixture of substances
intended to artificially accelerate the drying of plant tissues.
(((11)))
(12) "Device" means any instrument or contrivance intended to
trap, destroy, control, repel, or mitigate pests, but not including equipment
used for the application of pesticides when sold separately from the
pesticides.
(((12)))
(13) "Direct supervision" by certified private applicators
shall mean that the designated restricted use pesticide shall be applied for
purposes of producing any agricultural commodity on land owned or rented by the
applicator or the applicator's employer, by a competent person acting under the
instructions and control of a certified private applicator who is available if
and when needed, even though such certified private applicator is not
physically present at the time and place the pesticide is applied. The
certified private applicator shall have direct management responsibility and
familiarity of the pesticide, manner of application, pest, and land to which
the pesticide is being applied. Direct supervision by all other certified
applicators means direct on-the-job supervision and shall require that the
certified applicator be physically present at the application site and that the
person making the application be in voice and visual contact with the certified
applicator at all times during the application. Direct supervision of an
aerial apparatus means the pilot of the aircraft must be appropriately
certified.
(((13)))
(14) "Director" means the director of the department or a duly
authorized representative.
(((14)))
(15) "Engage in business" means any application of pesticides
by any person upon lands or crops of another.
(((15)))
(16) "EPA" means the United States environmental protection
agency.
(((16)))
(17) "EPA restricted use pesticide" means any pesticide
classified for restricted use by the administrator, EPA.
(((17)))
(18) "FIFRA" means the federal insecticide, fungicide and
rodenticide act as amended (61 Stat. 163, 7 U.S.C. Sec. 136 et seq.).
(((18)))
(19) "Fumigant" means any pesticide product or combination of
products that is a vapor or gas or forms a vapor or gas on application and
whose method of pesticidal action is through the gaseous state.
(((19)))
(20) "Fungi" means all nonchlorophyll-bearing thallophytes
(all nonchlorophyll-bearing plants of lower order than mosses and liverworts);
for example, rusts, smuts, mildews, molds, and yeasts, except those on or in a
living person or other animals.
(((20)))
(21) "Fungicide" means any substance or mixture of substances
intended to prevent, destroy, repel, or mitigate any fungi.
(((21)))
(22) "Herbicide" means any substance or mixture of substances
intended to prevent, destroy, repel, or mitigate any weed or other higher
plant.
(((22)))
(23) "High-hazard pesticide" means a pesticide that meets one or
more of the following criteria:
(a) Classified as hazard category I or hazard category II by the United States environmental protection agency;
(b) Classified as a known, likely, probable, or possible carcinogen by the United States environmental protection agency;
(c) Contains a known, probable, or suspect endocrine disruptor;
(d) Nervous system toxicant;
(e) Reproductive toxicant;
(f) Persists in the environment, containing a soil half-life greater than one hundred days;
(g) Active ingredient has high or very high mobility in soils; or
(h) Product is labeled as toxic to fish, birds, bees, wildlife, or domestic animals.
(24) "Immediate service call" means a landscape application to satisfy an emergency customer request for service, or a treatment to control a pest to landscape plants.
(((23)))
(25) "Insect" means any small invertebrate animal, in any life
stage, whose adult form is segmented and which generally belongs to the class
insecta, comprised of six-legged, usually winged forms, as, for example,
beetles, bugs, bees, and flies. The term insect shall also apply to other
allied classes of arthropods whose members are wingless and usually have more
than six legs, for example, spiders, mites, ticks, centipedes, and isopod
crustaceans.
(((24)))
(26) "Insecticide" means any substance or mixture of
substances intended to prevent, destroy, repel, or mitigate any insect.
(((25)))
(27) "Land" means all land and water areas, including airspace
and all plants, animals, structures, buildings, devices, and contrivances,
appurtenant to or situated on, fixed or mobile, including any used for
transportation.
(((26)))
(28) "Landscape application" means an application by a
certified applicator of any EPA registered pesticide to any exterior landscape
plants found around residential property, commercial properties such as
apartments or shopping centers, parks, golf courses, schools including nursery
schools and licensed day cares, or cemeteries or similar areas. This
definition shall not apply to: (a) Applications made by certified private
applicators; (b) mosquito abatement, gypsy moth eradication, or similar
wide-area pest control programs sponsored by governmental entities; and (c)
commercial pesticide applicators making structural applications.
(((27)))
(29) "Least-toxic pesticide" means a pesticide for which all of
the following are true:
(a) Disclosed ingredients in product have been evaluated by the United States environmental protection agency and found to include no possible, probable, known, or likely carcinogens;
(b) Disclosed ingredients in product include no reproductive toxicants;
(c) Disclosed ingredients in product include no known, probable, or suspect endocrine disruptors;
(d) Active ingredient has soil half-life of thirty days or less unless the active ingredient is a mineral;
(e) Active ingredient has extremely low or very low mobility in soil; and
(f) Product is not labeled as toxic to fish, birds, bees, wildlife, or domestic animals.
(30) "Nematocide" means any substance or mixture of substances intended to prevent, destroy, repel, or mitigate nematodes.
(((28)))
(31) "Nematode" means any invertebrate animal of the phylum
nemathelminthes and class nematoda, that is, unsegmented round worms with
elongated, fusiform, or saclike bodies covered with cuticle, and inhabiting
soil, water, plants or plant parts. Nematodes may also be called nemas or
eelworms.
(((29)))
(32) "Person" means any individual, partnership, association,
corporation, or organized group of persons whether or not incorporated.
(((30)))
(33) "Pest" means, but is not limited to, any insect, rodent,
nematode, snail, slug, weed, and any form of plant or animal life or virus,
except virus, bacteria, or other microorganisms on or in a living person or
other animal or in or on processed food or beverages or pharmaceuticals, which
is normally considered to be a pest, or which the director may declare to be a
pest.
(((31)))
(34) "Pesticide" means, but is not limited to:
(a) Any substance or mixture of substances intended to prevent, destroy, control, repel, or mitigate any pest;
(b) Any substance or mixture of substances intended to be used as a plant regulator, defoliant or desiccant; and
(c) Any spray adjuvant, such as a wetting agent, spreading agent, deposit builder, adhesive, emulsifying agent, deflocculating agent, water modifier, or similar agent with or without toxic properties of its own intended to be used with any pesticide as an aid to the application or effect thereof, and sold in a package or container separate from that of the pesticide with which it is to be used.
(((32)))
(35) "Pesticide advisory board" means the pesticide advisory
board as provided for in this chapter.
(((33)))
(36) "Plant regulator" means any substance or mixture of
substances intended through physiological action, to accelerate or retard the
rate of growth or maturation, or to otherwise alter the behavior of ornamental
or crop plants or their produce, but shall not include substances insofar as
they are intended to be used as plant nutrients, trace elements, nutritional
chemicals, plant inoculants, or soil amendments.
(((34)))
(37) "Private applicator" means a certified applicator who
uses or is in direct supervision of the use of any pesticide classified by the
EPA or the director as a restricted use pesticide, for the purposes of
producing any agricultural commodity and for any associated noncrop application
on land owned or rented by the applicator or the applicator's employer or if
applied without compensation other than trading of personal services between
producers of agricultural commodities on the land of another person.
(((35)))
(38) "Private-commercial applicator" means a certified
applicator who uses or supervises the use of any pesticide classified by the
EPA or the director as a restricted use pesticide for purposes other than the
production of any agricultural commodity on lands owned or rented by the
applicator or the applicator's employer.
(((36)))
(39) "Residential property" includes property less than one
acre in size zoned as residential by a city, town, or county, but does not
include property zoned as agricultural or agricultural homesites.
(((37)))
(40) "Restricted use pesticide" means any pesticide or device
which, when used as directed or in accordance with a widespread and commonly
recognized practice, the director determines, subsequent to a hearing, requires
additional restrictions for that use to prevent unreasonable adverse effects on
the environment including people, lands, beneficial insects, animals, crops,
and wildlife, other than pests.
(((38)))
(41) "Rodenticide" means any substance or mixture of
substances intended to prevent, destroy, repel, or mitigate rodents, or any
other vertebrate animal which the director may declare by rule to be a pest.
(((39)))
(42) "School district designee" means the individual identified by
the school district to carry out the requirements of this chapter at the school
facility.
(43) "School facility" means any facility used for licensed daycare, kindergarten, elementary, or secondary school purposes. The term includes the buildings or structures, playgrounds, landscape areas, athletic fields, school vehicles, or any other area of school property visited or used by pupils. "School facility" does not include any postsecondary educational facility attended by secondary school pupils.
(44) "Snails or slugs" include all harmful mollusks.
(((40)))
(45) "Unreasonable adverse effects on the environment" means
any unreasonable risk to people or the environment taking into account the
economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of any
pesticide, or as otherwise determined by the director.
(((41)))
(46) "Weed" means any plant which grows where it is not
wanted.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. A new section is added to chapter 17.21 RCW to read as follows:
The department of health shall prepare a list of pesticides commonly used by school districts and daycares and determine which of these pesticides meet the criteria for high-hazard pesticides and which of these pesticides meet the criteria for least-toxic pesticides. This list must be made available to school districts and daycare operators.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 4. A new section is added to chapter 17.21 RCW to read as follows:
(1) School district designees shall prepare annual plans whose purpose is to achieve significant reductions in the use of pesticides other than those defined as least toxic in RCW 17.21.020. Such plans shall include the following components:
(a) Documentation of the type, quantity, and seasonal variation of pests in school facilities within the jurisdiction of the school district;
(b) Identification of any pests under (a) of this subsection that are known to present a human health risk;
(c) Documentation of the type, quantity, and seasonal application of pesticides, and of other methods of pest control, in school facilities within the jurisdiction of the school district; and
(d) Quantitative measures for reducing or eliminating the application of high-hazard pesticides, while effectively controlling pests that present a human health risk.
(2) For the control of pests that do not present a human health risk, school districts shall use only least-toxic pesticides in school facilities within the jurisdiction of the school district.
(3) The plans shall be adopted and monitored by school districts as part of general operations plans.
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