Advisory Committee Spells out IPM for Texas Schools

Two weeks ago, on January 29th, I had the privilege of serving on the Structural Pest Control Advisory Committee meeting to discuss changes to Texas pesticide regulations. This was our third meeting since the committee formed last year, and school IPM was the principal topic on the agenda.

For those of you unfamiliar with this committee, think of it as the lite version of the former Structural Pest Control Board in Texas. The former Board consisted of industry, public and university members and was authorized to oversee the creation of regulations, and impose penalties on pest control companies who chose not to play by the rules. The advisory committee has none of the former Board's authority, but simply serves as a sounding board for the Structural Pest Control Service (SPCS) as it considers changes and improvements to pesticide regulations for licensed pest control companies.

That said, last month's meeting was a great example of how the advisory committee process can and should work. The principal chore put before us was to provide input on the new rules on IPM for Texas public schools. The TDA staff at the meeting were respectful of the committee's input and seemed eager to get these new rules written quickly and out to the industry and public for review. For the committee's part, everyone seemed to do their homework, came with good ideas, and were eager to reach consensus on all aspects of the rules.

No one has yet seen the newest draft regulations, but based on my notes, I think I can give a pretty good idea of the probable new structure and wording. That's my way of saying, "don't quote me on this". Everything is tentative until SPCS administrators Jimmy Bush and Jim Muse release the draft regulations--probably later this month.

While some of the changes were minor, there are some significant revisions that will affect the way we do IPM in schools in Texas (and maybe other states) for many years. One problem with the old rules was that there was a lot of confusion about what was meant by "IPM policies" and "IPM programs", both of which were required for all schools by state law. The new rules should be more clear, and spell out more explicitly what is meant by an IPM program.

Although the new rules still eschew an actual definition of IPM (there are almost as many definitions as there are people who try to define IPM), they do spell out what an IPM program should include. The rules will require a school IPM program to contain the following elements:

• a monitoring program to determine when pests are present or when pest problems are severe enough to justify corrective action;
• the use of the least-toxic effective methods available to control pests, rodents, insects and weeds;
• use of non-chemical management strategies where practical;
• a system for keeping records of facility inspection reports, pest-related work orders, pest control service reportes, pesticide application documentation, and pesticide complaints;
• a plan for educating and informing school district employees about their roles in the IPM program;
• and written guidelines (thresholds) for when pest control actions are justified.

In my opinion, if we can bring schools into compliance with this rough definition of IPM (and I think we've come a long way already), Texas schools can become a model of good institutional pest management for all school districts and even for PMPs around the country. I especially like the fact that Texas recognizes the importance of good recordkeeping and education as part of an effective IPM program.

They say there are two things you never want to watch being made: sausage and laws. Although we're not lawmakers, I believe the same rule of thumb applies to regulations. In our case there was a lot of discussion over what a monitoring program should look like, whether it should be "regular" or at predefined intervals, etc. We discussed the best wording for least-toxic, vs. least-risk, vs. low risk. Some discussions are inevitably tedious, but the committee's interest and attitude helped make it a lot less painful than other committees I've served on.

Besides defining the essential components of IPM, a few of the other key improvements were retaining most of the Green Category pesticide uses, requiring record retention for two years to make it compatible with other pesticide use rules (originally retention was proposed for five years, but industry objections made an impact here), and reducing the reentry periods from 12 hours to 4 and 8 hours for yellow and red category products, respectively. This last change is important. I am unaware of any scientific evidence to suggest that longer reentry times are needed for student safety, and shorter reentry requirements should make the job of controlling pests much easier for PMPs.

If you have an interest in school IPM regulations, keep alert for the new regulations. I will let you know when they come out. Whatever Texas comes up with will be a good example of a battle-tested model that other states interested in encouraging IPM and reducing pesticide exposure to students can learn from. And that sausage is worth tasting.

Concerns about the new school IPM rules

Austin, TX. Today the Texas Department of Agriculture meets to hold public hearings concerning the new rules that will guide the Structural Pest Control Service's regulatory activities for the future. The biggest proposed changes deal with rules governing the way pesticides are regulated in public schools.

Texas has one of the longest-standing and most comprehensive set of laws and regulations governing pesticides and integrated pest management (IPM) in schools in the nation. In the course of the past 13 years that the rules have been in effect, schools in Texas have significantly changed the way they do pest control. A study our office completed in 2007 details some of the shifts. For example, in 1994 the two most common insecticides used by nearly all school districts were diazinon and chlorpyrifos (Dursban®). Today, the most commonly used pesticides include a variety of baits, insect growth regulators and lower toxicity insecticides. Granted, diazinon and Dursban® are no longer registered for use in buildings, but their replacements--the commonly used pyrethroid insecticides--are used frequently by only 13% of school districts. This represents an enormous shift for an industry that has often been slow to change.

Certainly, part of the success of the school IPM rules is due to the way the rules gently encourage the use of less toxic pesticides. Under the system, pesticides are categorized into Green, Yellow, or Red based on a variety of criteria that include signal words, acute toxicity and the likelihood of hazardous exposure. For schools, any green category pesticide can be used at the discretion of the pest control technician. Yellow and Red category pesticides require written justification and approval by either the certified applicator or the school district's IPM coordinator.

By making it a little more difficult to use the more toxic products, while keeping all potential pesticides that might be useful to schools still available, Texas has managed over the past thirteen years to successfully balance opposing interests. Those who were most concerned about children's exposure to hazardous substances have been satisfied, while maintenance and pest management professionals have been left with the freedom to use any pesticide product they determine is necessary to control pests in schools.

As evidence of the success of this system, today one can find virtually no environmental group criticizing pesticide use in Texas schools. Fifteen years ago anti-pesticide lobbyists were a common site in public sessions of the Texas Structural Pest Control Board, protesting the use of a variety of pesticides in schools. Today it is hard to interest community activists (in Texas anyway) in school pest management issues, because there have been so few problems in our schools. By this and other measures, the rules have been a success.

Unfortunately, the new rules threaten to upset this balance in several important ways. Specifically, the TDA is proposing to tighten certain requirements and eliminate some pesticides from the green category. For example, pyrethrins and insect growth regulators will no longer be included in the green category.

Pyrethrins are organically derived compounds that are very commonly used during inspections as a tool to flush insect pests out of hidden harborages. They are also used to provide fast knockdown of a variety of pests including cockroaches, ants, bees, wasps, flies and stored product pests. Their toxicity is in the low range for humans (LD50 values above 1500 mg/KG) and they break down very quickly, making them widely used in restaurants and food manufacturing plants.

Similarly, insect growth regulators are low toxicity (commonly used IGRs have LD50 values greater than 2000 mg/kg) products with a variety of useful applications. They are among the few low-toxicity sprays for long-term population reduction of cockroaches in kitchens, and they provide some of the lowest toxicity control options for fleas, fire ants and mosquitoes. Over 21% of all schools in our study used IGRs on a regular basis.

In addition to restricting the use of these former green category pesticides, the TDA proposes to restrict entry of all non-pesticide applicators into all treated areas for 6 hours after an application is made. What's new here is not that students are required to stay out of treated areas, but also employees of the school. To keep non-authorized personnel out of treated areas, the areas will need to be monitored or secured by fence or lock and posted for six hours.
This requirement goes far beyond EPA standards for re-entry into treated areas (usually until sprays have dried), and will make it significantly more difficult and expensive for schools to treat sports fields, grounds, kitchens and hallways for pest problems.

There ought to be a reason for adding regulations to an already-heavily regulated industry. In this case there appears to be no smoking gun, no pattern of complaints, no illness reports, just a regulatory agency that wants to add rules that no one in the community is asking for.

Before TDA can formally establish and begin enforcing these rules, the state requires the agency to publish them for public comment for 30 days, ending August 3. If you have an opinion on these matters, you will never have as much opportunity to influence the shape of these rules as you do right now. For more information about the rule changes and how to respond, see my July 16th post.

News about rule changes at Texas Department of Agriculture

Last year the pest control regulatory establishment in Texas, the Texas Structural Pest Control Board, was abolished by the legislature. The event brought a mixture of horror and glee to the pest control industry in Texas as it contemplated what life might be like under a new regulatory agency, the Texas Department of Agriculture, or TDA.

This month provided the first glimpse of what this new life might be like. The TDA just published the amended rules governing structural pest control in Texas. They can be found online at the following link:

http://tiny.cc/Jul4rules

People interested in commenting on these new rules have until August 3, 2008 to get their letters in. There will also be a public hearing on Monday July 21, 2008 at 2:00 p.m. at the William B. Travis Bldg., 1701 North Congress - Room 1-100, in Austin. The Public Hearing Notice can be viewed at the following link:

http://tiny.cc/Jul21hearing

If this all seems a bit hasty, it is. The TDA is anxious to get the new rules in place by September, and will have to hurry to make this self-imposed deadline.

Meanwhile, if you have interest in life under this new agency, now is the time to let your voice be heard. Written comments sent to the department via USPS (snail mail) will probably have the greatest impact. Emails, and even testimony at the public hearings, will probably carry less weight in the final analysis than a thoughtfully written letter.