Border areas are areas where movement, goods or other activities are prohibited or restricted by law. Unlike ordinary territory, border areas are under the administrative control of border authorities. Admission is usually only possible with an individual permit. Entering a border area without authorization is a crime or misdemeanor and grounds for arrest. Border areas will be created to locate illegal intruders, conceal and disguise and prevent border security procedures and equipment, and thus assist border guards in their work. For example, Russia maintains considerable border areas. This measure is enacted pursuant to the Federal Insecticides, Fungicides, and Rodenticides Act (FIFRA), 7 U.S.C. 136-136y, specifically Sections 136a(d), 136i, and 136w. In addition, in accordance with the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act of 2018 (PRIA 4) (Pub. L. 116-8; March 8, 2019), the EPA is only revising the EEZ requirements in the WPS. 2.
Epo`s reply. The EPA does not believe that these regulations will have a disproportionate and negative impact on human health or the environment on minorities or low-income populations, or on children. The EPA considers environmental and health protection for agricultural pesticide risks to all potentially affected populations and addresses them in two ways. First, the EPA manages the risks and benefits of each pesticide primarily through pesticide-specific registration and labelling requirements. Systematic reviews of pesticide registrations and subsequent labelling guidelines as a result of these reviews consider the protection of all groups, including vulnerable groups (e.g., children and LEA communities). Second, the framework provided by WPS 2015 is essential to ensure that the improvements achieved through re-recording and review of the recording are achieved. Therefore, when agricultural pesticides are used according to their labeling, the EPA does not expect undue adverse effects on children, JE communities, or others. Compliance support and enforcement also play a role in ensuring that risk mitigation measures are adequately implemented at the local level. These requirements work together to protect people from exposure to pesticides during use.
The trained attendant or applicator must understand the principles underlying the EEZ requirement and how it relates to the do not contact requirement. Any applicator or material handler who has reason to believe that a person may be contacted during application should suspend use until they can ensure that humans are not in contact with pesticides. Otherwise, there is a risk that the applicator or manipulator will violate WPS and FIFRA. Whether it is easier to prove a violation of the EEZ requirement or the no-contact requirement in individual cases, the aim of the WPS is not to create easily detectable violations, but to reduce harmful effects on human health and the environment. The EPA believes that, despite the revisions to this final rule, the combination of safeguards created by the 2015 WPS adequately achieves this objective. The comments suggest that the focus is wrongly on creating easily detectable violations, regardless of the negative effects. The EPA is not aware that a violation of non-contact pesticides from the EEZ has been enforced, as both cases in California. In the Texas incident cited by commentators, the inspector found no WPS violations because there was no evidence that contact with a pesticide could have occurred, given the proximity of workers to the application, the method of application, and variables such as weather conditions, wind speed and direction, and vegetation. This is likely due in part to EPA guidance on implementing the EEZ outside the facility, which designed the requirements of 40 CFR 170.505(b) to allow for the resumption of applications after the manipulator assessed conditions or took various safety measures to prevent a situation where people could be accidentally sprayed. The EPA revises the requirements of the WPS EEZ (40 CFR part 170) adopted in 2015 (80 FR 67496, November 2, 2015) (FRL-9931-81) (Ref. 1) to clarify and simplify the requirements.
In particular, the EPA amends the requirements of the EEZ to: The EEZ is an area of up to 100 feet around the application area, designed to protect workers and other people from exposure to pesticides during application. The EEZ only exists for outdoor pesticide applications. Employers may not allow anyone to enter the EEZ within the limits of their property. Once the application is completed, the EEZ no longer exists, but there may be a security period for the covered area. From 2 January 2017, only trained handlers will be allowed to enter the EEZ. Another commenter explains that the agency arbitrarily failed to quantify the cost of the increased pesticide exposure that would result from the proposal. In particular, the commentary cites that in the proposal, the EPA acknowledges that agricultural workers and others benefit from extending EEZ limits beyond the farm, but without explanation or support, the proposal describes these benefits as “minimal.” Furthermore, the cost analysis does not include any discussion, either quantitatively or qualitatively, of the costs associated with the removal of these protective measures or of the increased risks to agricultural workers or other persons resulting from the limitation of the EEZ to farm boundaries. Instead, they argue that the cost analysis states that “the EPA is unable to quantify an increased risk of pesticide exposure by revising the requirements of the SEZ,” and that the agency asserts, without explanation or support, that the increase in this risk “may be negligible.” The Agency cannot evade its obligation to analyse the foreseeable consequences by simply saying that the consequences are not clear.
CEPOL`s refusal to quantify the cost of the proposal, including the cost of adverse effects on human health, is remarkable given the Agency`s statutory mandate under FIFRA to protect people and the environment from the undue adverse effects of pesticides. As a result, the commentator argues that the APA does not allow the agency to ignore such a central evidentiary issue. The EEZ is an additional requirement, regardless of the restricted entry interval (REI) already required by pesticide labels.
