Winter Structural Pest Control Advisory Committee

I just returned from the Texas Department of Agriculture's quarterly Structural Pest Control Advisory Committee meeting.  The purpose of the committee is to advise the TDA and its commissioner on education and curricula for PMPs, examinations, proposed rules and standards on technical issues related to pest control, fees and other issues affecting the practice of pest control in Texas.

Today's meeting was relatively brief, but informative. We met two TDA staffers that work actively behind the scenes on pesticide-related issues.  Rafael Paonessa is in charge of reviewing and approving the structural pest control CEU courses that all license holders must attend each year.  Rafael is the person I deal with to get approval for CEU classes that we offer.  He is always efficient and easy to work with.  He reported on recent overhauls of forms and procedures used in the re-certification program.

The biggest changes in the recertification process are in how course providers handle class attendance records, a subject I wrote about in detail last November.   The most common issue in getting courses approved, he said, is when providers do not provide enough detail about the planned course(s).  It's important to provide enough information for his office to determine whether the course meets department guidelines. It's also important that class content relates directly to pesticide use or pest management. General horticultural topics, or workplace safety topics (unrelated to pesticide safety), for example, will not be approved. The department does conduct spot checks of CEU classes to make sure the content is being covered and does not consist of advertising for a particular product or company.  Detailed information on putting together a course for CEUs is available in the just revised Pesticide Recertification Course Accreditation Guide, which is available online.

A new EPA-mandated Pollinator Protection Icon
will appear on many new pesticide labels.

The other employee we met today was Dale Scott. Dale handles the pesticide product evaluation and registration system at TDA. Many people believe that EPA is THE agency that approves pesticide labels, but in fact all pesticides must also be registered by each state in which they will be sold. This is why not all pesticides are registered, or legal for use, in all states.  Approximately 16,000 pesticide labels are registered in the state at any time, and his office processes about 3,500 new pesticide registration requests every year.

Dale reviewed information about new pollinator protection guidelines that are beginning to appear on pesticide labels. Four neonicotinoid insecticides will be the first insecticides to come under the new pollinator protection label guidelines. Changes to look for include pollinator protection information under all Directions for Use statements, a new bee icon to draw attention to pollinator protection information, and consistent warning label language about applying insecticides when bees are actively foraging.  This is a topic that all pest management companies and technicians should be aware of. Dale promised to make his PowerPoint on the topic available to the committee.

Also, Maron Finley, IPM in Schools specialist in the department reported on the top ten violations found in school IPM program inspections this past year. Most, he noted, related to inadequate record keeping. In order, they included:

1. No written guidelines that identify pest thresholds.  (155 violations, 39% of schools)
2. Not maintaining records showing approvals of Yellow Category pesticides (93 violations, 23% of schools)
3. IPM program records not maintained for the required time period (64 violations, 16% of schools)
4. IPM Coordinator not conducting periodic facility inspections (63 violations, 16% of schools)
5. No system for keeping records of facility inspection reports, pest control service reports, or pesticide applications (57 violations, 14% of schools)
6. No plan for educating and informing school district employees about their roles in the IPM program (54 violations, 13% of schools)
7. No monitoring program to determine when pests are present (48 violations, 12% of schools)
8. No reference [in the IPM policy] to Texas laws and rules governing pesticide use and IPM in schools (40 violations, 10% of schools)
9. IPM Coordinator training not completed within six months of appointment (32 violations, 8% of schools)
10. Name and license numbers of persons applying pesticides not on file (31 schools, 8% of schools)

A more serious violation, which occurred only 10 times, and did not make the Top Ten list, was applications made by non-licensed applicators.  Maron noted that 9 of these violators were small, class 1A to 3A, schools, and that all were in rural communities.  

Several on the committee commented that the overall violation rates seem low, and that compared to when the school IPM program first started, the state has made very good progress.  Nevertheless, everyone agrees that there is more work to be done to increase compliance.  Stephen Pahl expressed the desire for TDA to do more outreach to school administrators.  TASB, TASBO, and TASA are three school-oriented organizations that have ongoing meetings where school IPM talks can be presented.  George Scherer, of Texas Association of School Boards, was present and commented during public testimony that it is possible to get the names and contact information for school board members if needed during the compliance assistance phase of helping a school district.

Arnold Anderson, from Katy ISD, provided testimony on the subject of violations during the public comment portion of the meeting.  He suggested that schools with little experience in IPM should be encouraged to seek out a mentor school district rather than being fined. A suggestion was made that perhaps the TDA could facilitate mentoring by maintaining a current list of districts willing to mentor other districts in their IPM program development.  This might be another way TDA could reduce the number of school IPM violations without having to resort to administrative fines or penalties.

Finally, we were advised today that there is still an opening on the Advisory Committee.  If you know of someone who is not connected directly or indirectly with the pest control industry, and is interested in serving as a public member of the committee (with no pay or travel reimbursement), Leslie Smith is accepting applicants.

Advisory Committee Gets Updates, Homework

The Texas Department of Agriculture's Structural Pest Control Advisory Committee met in Austin last week. I have served on the committee for two plus years, and have written about the advisory committee in the past (search this site for the term "advisory committee").  The committee represents the public and the pest control industry, and meets quarterly to get updates, and offer suggestions and feedback to TDA, on rules and regulations pertaining to pest control in Texas.

Budget Update & Department news

This quarter's meeting included an update on TDA's budget status in the legislature.  House Bill 1(HB 1) (in this session the House takes the lead in drafting the state budget, next session the Senate takes the lead) proposes a 45% cut in the TDA budget.  This seemed incredibly high to me for an agency budget cut, but I wasn't detecting any feeling of panic among Assistant Commissioner Jimmy Bush or other TDA staffers at the meeting.  According to Bush, while such cuts will likely mean a major restructuring of the Agency, TDA does not see any major impacts on the operation of the Structural Pest Control Service (the division of TDA that oversees and regulates the pest control industry in the state).  Much of the cuts being proposed would come from programs at TDA that do not bring in revenue through licenses or fees, namely marketing and the rural economic development divisions of the agency.

The committee was introduced to two TDA attorneys that have recently been assigned to the Structural Pest Control Service.  Mary Luedeker and Lisa Hoyt will take over all new structural pest control cases, working with the agency and with industry to interpret and enforce laws and rules relating to pest control in Texas.   

Legislative Updates

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dr. Ambrose Charles reported that the Texas Council on Environmental Quality has drafted a discharge permit plan for pesticide applications near water which has been accepted by the U.S. EPA.  He noted that the deadline for implementing this program was recently delayed until October 31, but that there is some question whether this new permitting program will ever go into effect.  He reported that H.R. 872 was recently passed out of the U.S. House of Representatives by a wide margin.  This bill would exempt pesticides labeled under FIFRA from being subject to the Clean Water Act permit system. A companion bill, S. 718, was also introduced into the Senate.  If that passes and both houses agree on a joint version of the bill (there are differences), Congress could effectively bypass the recent court decision that would require permits for pesticide applications for aquatic weed control, forest pest control, mosquito control and other pest control around water. The paperwork and manpower requirements, supporters say, will be expensive to communities and agencies, and will not result in improved water quality.  Environmental groups oppose HR 872, saying it would be a vote for dirty water.  If you have question about how the Texas water permit system works, Dr. Charles is familiar with the provisions of the Texas permitting system.

Katherine Wright-Steele gave a legislative update on four bills relating to the pest control industry that are currently in the Texas state legislative process.  Senate Bill 3, containing language that would repeal all school IPM regulations in the state, has been previously discussed here.  HB 2741, HB 2742, and HB 2743 were introduced by Representative Tim Kleinschmidt, R-Lexington.  All appear to have been introduced with the support of the Texas Pest Control Association.  House bills 2741 and 2742 serve to give TDA more leverage in regulating advertising, restoring some of the authority lost in the last legislative session.  The house bill 2743 seeks to restructure the Advisory committee, eliminating the university (yo!) and department of State Health Services representatives and making six of the nine positions filled by pest control professionals (three would be public members). Status of these bills is still uncertain and there are currently no companion Senate bills.

Wood Destroying Insect Reports

The committee received some homework from Jimmy Bush. Members were asked to review and provide input into the Wood Destroying Insect (WDI) Report (Form No. SPCS/T-4), WDI report inspection procedures (Rule 7.175), and the chapter on WDI inspections in the AgriLife Extension Study manual (B-5075).  This follows discussion from other meetings on ways to reduce the numbers of complaints received each year from the public about WDI reports and inspections.  In 2010 the TDA received 20 complaints related to WDI inspections, approximately 10% of all complaints received.  While some felt that this number of complaints is very low compared to the number of inspections conducted each year, there does seem to be room for improvement.  Improvements to the form itself, as well as the need for improved training and certification for WDI inspectors was discussed. 

A group of industry members (Eric Melass, Mike Dickens and Debbie Aguirre) appointed by the committee late last year  recommended that enforcement of existing rules rather than new regulations was what was most needed. They also suggested that all WDI inspectors be required to carry a certified applicator's license and that CA tests have a section devoted to WDI issues.  If this change did not result in fewer problems, only then should TDA consider creating a special license subcategory for WDI inspectors.

CEU courses

The committee was also charged with reviewing staff recommendations on restructuring CEU course offerings.  A group of SPCS staff reviewed the two existing rules (Section 7.134 and Section 7.135) and offered a draft version of the rules with suggestions for improvement.  One of the most significant concessions in the new version is to allow the use of an online course to meet someone's entire annual recertification requirement.  The only limitation under this proposal would be that online courses could not be used in any two consecutive years to meet CEU requirements.  This is because there is concern that, despite recent improvements in technology, the department is still unconvinced that online courses can fully substitute for face to face training. 

Other changes in Section 7.135 would include eliminating speaker qualification forms, and doing away with a requirement that online course takers pass an exam with at least a 70% to get their CEU credit and be proctored by a certified applicator.  It's not clear under the draft rule how sponsors will guard against abuse of online courses without the proctor requirement.  In public testimony time, Don Ward, Executive Director of the Texas Pest Control Association, expressed the association's general support of online courses if abuse issues can be addressed.  He also expressed a preference for certifying speakers over courses, seemingly the opposite of the new rules.

If you have suggestions for improvements to the CEU or WDI report process, you should contact one of the Advisory Committee members before July 28, or plan to attend the next committee meeting on that date.