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Federal Appeals Court Orders EPA to Ban the Pesticide Chlorpyrifos

posted by mrpg on Monday August 13 2018, @08:00AM   
from the too-late dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The New York Times reports:

A federal appeals court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday to bar within 60 days a widely used pesticide associated with developmental disabilities and other health problems in children, dealing the industry a major blow after it had successfully lobbied the Trump administration to reject a ban.

The order by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit came after a decade-long effort by environmental and public health groups to get the pesticide, chlorpyrifos, removed from the market. The product is used in more than 50 fruit, nut, cereal and vegetable crops including apples, almonds, oranges and broccoli, with more than 640,000 acres treated in California alone in 2016, the most recent year data is available.

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Original Submission

• Field Workers Shouldn't Be Wearing HazMat Suits Field Workers Shouldn't Be Wearing HazMat Suits (Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday August 13 2018, @08:46AM (2 children)

  by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Monday August 13 2018, @08:46AM (#720870) Homepage Journal

  I once saw two guys working in a strawberry field, both of them wearing white HazMat suits as well as respirators.

  The strawberries that are grown in and around Watsonville, California are freakishly large.

  I once walked two hundred miles from Santa Cruz to Oceano Dunes State Beach near San Luis Obispo. Every time I passed a field that was owned by Dole there was always a very _small_ warning sign printed with only _English_ text. Those signs always "warned" the fieldworkers not to smoke while working there, to wear hazmat suits, and also forbid dogs and horses from entering the fields.

  I've always thought it would be cool to replace one of those signs with a really large one that depicted a poison gas attack in World War I, or perhaps to place a full-page advertisement in a rural California newspaper with a spanish translation of Wilfred Owens' "Dulce Et Decorum Est":

  Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
  Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
  And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
  Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
  But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
  Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
  Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

  Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
  But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
  And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
  Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
  As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

  In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
  He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

  If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
  Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
  And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
  His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
  If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
  Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
  Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
  Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
  My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
  To children ardent for some desperate glory,
  The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
  Pro patria mori.

  "It is sweet and right to die for one's country." -- Horace

  --
  Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]

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• Re:Field Workers Shouldn't Be Wearing HazMat Suits Re:Field Workers Shouldn't Be Wearing HazMat Suits (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 13 2018, @11:19AM (1 child)

  by Runaway1956 (2926) on Monday August 13 2018, @11:19AM (#720906) Journal

  Alternatively, "It is sweet and honorable to die for the fatherland". While "right" and "honorable" are very much synonymous, the latter is more highly valued by many people. Especially soldiers, or warriors.

  Parent

  • Re:Field Workers Shouldn't Be Wearing HazMat Suits (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @04:12PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @04:12PM (#721023)

    One can't help reading sarcastically into those variations over the usage of the sweet smelling hydrogen cyanide in WW1 and how huge chunks of American troops were/are 2nd gen immigrants.

    Parent