Latest Court Filings Allege That Dow’s Enlist Duo Harms Endangered Species, Other Crops, Human Health; Was Unlawfully Approved by Pruitt’s EPA
WASHINGTON— Late Wednesday a coalition of environmental organizations and farmers represented by the Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice filed new legal papers in federal court seeking the reversal of Scott Pruitt and the Trump Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of Dow Chemical’s toxic pesticide, Enlist Duo. The novel pesticide is a combination of glyphosate and 2,4-D, to be sprayed over the top of corn, cotton and soybeans that are genetically engineered by Dow with resistance to both pesticides.
“Our filing reveals that EPA approved Enlist Duo despite its significant harms to health, environment, farms, water and endangered species,” said Sylvia Wu, CFS attorney and counsel for the coalition. “EPA’s job is protecting the environment, human health, and farmers, not blindly do the bidding of pesticide companies. The court must stop its use.”
In early 2017 EPA dramatically expanded approval of Enlist Duo use to 34 states and for use on cotton, only one year after a court sent back EPA’s previous approval. The two chemicals in Enlist Duo do more damage when used together than the net damage they do when used separately.
“EPA has put human health, neighboring crops, and the survival and recovery of hundreds of endangered species at risk by recklessly putting a potent and toxic pesticide on the market without the data or expert review the law requires,” said Paul Achitoff, Earthjustice attorney and counsel for the coalition. “We, and the law, demand much more from the agency created to protect our health and environment than bowing to chemical industry pressure.”
Dow markets Enlist Duo and its companion Enlist crops as a quick fix for the “superweeds” epidemic created by prior genetically engineered “Roundup Ready” crops, genetically engineered to withstand what would otherwise be a toxic dose of the herbicide glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup. Repeated use of Roundup on these crops has resulted in the proliferation of glyphosate-resistant superweeds which now infest over a hundred million acres of U.S. farmland. These superweeds now require an even more toxic combination of herbicides, like Enlist Duo, to take them out, driving a dangerous spiral of increasing weed resistance and pesticide use. The U.S. Department of Agriculture conservatively estimates that use of Enlist Duo on U.S. corn and soybean will increase the use of 2,4-D by 200 to 600 percent.
Said Jim Goodman, an organic dairy and beef rancher from Wisconsin and board president of National Family Farm Coalition, one of the petitioners in the case: “2,4-D is a possible carcinogen, an endocrine-disrupter and a herbicide that is very drift prone and persistent in the environment. The combination of 2,4-D and glyphosate in Enlist Duo is a recipe for disaster. It may control Roundup-resistant weeds, but only for a while, and at what cost to the health of farmworkers, consumers and the environment?”
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