Anti-community state pesticide preemption laws prevent local governments from protecting people from harm

Centner, Terence J.; Heric, Davis Clarke

doi:10.1080/14735903.2019.1568814

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…It is also a well-known pollutant of great environmental concern. Atrazine has been shown to have negative effects such as DNA damage, gene expression shifts, cancer and endocrine disruption 1 , 2 . Its residues are found in soil samples decades after it was last applied and were shown to chronically leach into local aquifers 3 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genome-scale reconstruction of Paenarthrobacter aurescens TC1 metabolic model towards the study of atrazine bioremediation

Ofaim

Zarecki

Porob

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Atrazine is an herbicide and a pollutant of great environmental concern that is naturally biodegraded by microbial communities. Paenarthrobacter aurescens TC1 is one of the most studied degraders of this herbicide. Here, we developed a genome scale metabolic model for P. aurescens TC1, iRZ1179, to study the atrazine degradation process at organism level. Constraint based flux balance analysis and time dependent simulations were used to explore the organism's phenotypic landscape. Simulations aimed at designing media optimized for supporting growth and enhancing degradation, by passing the need in strain design via genetic modifications. Growth and degradation simulations were carried with more than 100 compounds consumed by P. aurescens TC1. In vitro validation confirmed the predicted classification of different compounds as efficient, moderate or poor stimulators of growth. Simulations successfully captured previous reports on the use of glucose and phosphate as biostimulators of atrazine degradation, supported by in vitro validation. Model predictions can go beyond supplementing the medium with a single compound and can predict the growth outcomes for higher complexity combinations. Hence, the analysis demonstrates that the exhaustive power of the genome scale metabolic reconstruction allows capturing complexities that are beyond common biochemical expertise and knowledge and further support the importance of computational platforms for the educated design of complex media. The model presented here can potentially serve as a predictive tool towards achieving optimal biodegradation efficiencies and for the development of ecologically friendly solutions for pollutant degradation. Atrazine (2-chloro-4-ethylamino-6-isopropylamino-1,3,5-triazine) is an herbicide employed to control broadleaf and grass mainly in crops such as rice, wheat, maize, and sorghum. It is also a well-known pollutant of great environmental concern. Atrazine has been shown to have negative effects such as DNA damage, gene expression shifts, cancer and endocrine disruption 1,2. Its residues are found in soil samples decades after it was last applied and were shown to chronically leach into local aquifers 3. As such, efforts are being made to limit and monitor its use 4. While atrazine was banned in the European Union and Switzerland since 2003, the United States Environmental Protection Agency still allows its wide use under monitoring 5,6. Areas contaminated with atrazine and other hazardous herbicides are rapidly increasing worldwide introducing a need in remediation approaches. Bioremediation-an environmental bioprocess in which naturally occurring organisms are used for breaking down hazardous substances into less toxic or non-toxic substances-is increasingly acknowledged as a cost-effective feasible alternative for environmental cleaning 7-9. Critical environmental bioprocesses are naturally carried out by bacteria and are related to removal of pollutants from water, soil or air 10. Thus, bacterial bioremediation is widely applied for the ...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genome-scale reconstruction of Paenarthrobacter aurescens TC1 metabolic model towards the study of atrazine bioremediation

Ofaim

Zarecki

Porob

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…The main exception might be highly dense urban areas, where rodents are mainly infesting homes and businesses. However, large urban areas might not need to repeal state preemption to ban rodenticide use, as there is a precedent of making exceptions to state preemption in highly populated areas-municipalities with over 2 million people are exempt from the pesticide preemption law in Illinois (currently only Chicago; Centner & Heric, 2019). This is apparently due to an appreciation that large cities can secure the expertise required to make informed decisions and that dense cities may have unique pest management problems or unique public health threats.…”

Section: Impactmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Opponents (e.g., Beyond Pesticides; slide 14 of Poison Free Malibu's presentation) respond that regulators do not have the best interests of the public at heart, as they are prone to industry capture. Moreover, regulators do not necessarily consider the myriad ways in which the harms of a pesticide could accumulate, such as from repeated exposure to different pesticides that have similar mechanisms of toxicity (Centner & Heric, 2019). In the case of rodenticides, regulators are almost certainly not considering the harm of rodenticides to rodents themselves.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paths to reducing rodenticide use in the U.S. Paper

Elmore¹,

McAuliffe²,

Mckay³

2023

Preprint

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This is the third report in a sequence of reports on reducing the use of rodenticide poisons. It is not necessary to have read the previous reports to read this one, although this report will take for granted conclusions that were discussed and weighed in depth in the previous reports. Part 1 describes why rodenticides are crueler to rodents and more dangerous for human children, pets, and wildlife than most alternative methods for removing rodents from homes, businesses, and farms. Part 2 explains why both consumers and businesses have strong incentives to continue relying on rodenticides. This report describes and ranks interventions to reduce rodenticide use in the U.S. according to their expected impact, neglectedness, and tractability. We leave aside how the interventions we discuss might change attitudes toward pest populations in the long term due to a lack of relevant evidence. The report is grouped into sections by the class of intervention: Legislative interventions, Information campaigns, Technological disruption, and Funding research. We are pessimistic about the legislative interventions that severely restrict legal rodenticide use. For example, California's recent ban on second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) is riddled with exemptions and may increase the use of alternatives that are even crueler to rodents. However, there are less controversial reforms, such as sanitation reform, that would reduce some rodenticide use, especially at the local level. Our top recommended intervention is investing in improved rodent birth control. [part 1] of this sequence was enthusiastic about existing EPA-approved rodent birth control ContraPest, but in part 2 we reported additional findings that led us to conclude that ContraPest is too expensive and cumbersome to replace the role that rodenticides currently play. Birth control baits that are cheaper and more versatile than Contrapest could replace rodenticide in many (though probably not all) situations. Our runner-up recommendation is to run digital information campaigns to educate the public on the costs and dangers of rodenticides. Digital advertising is cheap, and can quickly reach millions of people without having to first develop personal relationships with voters. Although the relatively grassroots approach of extant anti-rodenticide activism may be a sign that more impersonal approaches would not work, there is value in testing how much can be accomplished through mass communication alone. We acknowledge that some interventions that do not look promising on their own may increase the tractability of more promising interventions. For example, obtaining local- and state-level bans may be a hassle and the results may be imperfect, but legal pressure to find alternatives may spur investment in new technology that is both more effective and humane than rodenticides. Readers may also have a personal advantage in implementing certain interventions and therefore may want to prioritize implementing those even if other interventions are more highly ranked in this report.

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US Urban and Suburban Yardscaping

Tzankova

Vanags

2021

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Futures

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Anti-community state pesticide preemption laws prevent local governments from protecting people from harm

Cited by 6 publications

References 15 publications

Genome-scale reconstruction of Paenarthrobacter aurescens TC1 metabolic model towards the study of atrazine bioremediation

Genome-scale reconstruction of Paenarthrobacter aurescens TC1 metabolic model towards the study of atrazine bioremediation

Paths to reducing rodenticide use in the U.S. Paper

US Urban and Suburban Yardscaping

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