Jul 17, 2017

The EPA has released drafts of its human health and ecological risk assessments of 2,4-D as part of its ongoing registration review process.

The EPA has released drafts of its human health and ecological risk assessments of 2,4-D as part of its ongoing registration review process. A summary of the draft human assessment can be found on the 2,4-D website.

The 2,4-D Task Force will be preparing comments to EPA. Please join in and tell the EPA why 2,4-D is important to you and the benefits you derive from using it at your golf facility by the July 24 deadline.

Even brief comments help a lot. Click here to get to the right docket on the Regulations.gov website. On the website, click Comment Now, then type, or cut and paste, your supporting comments, and click Continue. It only takes a few minutes to complete.

It is important that the Agency hear from you concerning how useful this product is to managing your weed systems.  You might comment on:

• Managing weed resistance at your golf facility
• The breadth of control options that the product brings to your management system
• The economic benefit from using the herbicide
• Your professional experience in support of the product registration

We very much appreciate your partnership in maintaining the registration and uses of 2,4-D.

Background from the 2,4-D task force

The EPA's draft human health risk assessments states that the following risks are not of concern: dietary, residential, non-occupational, volatilization/residential bystander and aggregate risk estimates. Recent EPA review documents have noted that 2,4-D is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans. The task force is in full agreement with this portion of the EPA's assessment.

There are some points of difference. The EPA's draft human assessment identified occupational handler inhalation as a concern for some scenarios; however, there was no concern for occupational handler from dermal exposure. The task force will submit comments to demonstrate that occupational handlers enjoy significant margins of safety from inhalation exposure.

In addition, the EPA's draft ecological risk assessment identified the potential for effects on some non-target organisms. The task force's comments will explain that the EPA's models are based on very conservative assumptions; moreover, those effects decreased through typical exposure reduction measures, such as limitations on aerial application, boom heights and specification of the spray droplet spectrum.

The task force notes the EPA's overall finding of no human health concerns and supports continued product stewardship to reduce any calculated levels of concern for non-target organisms, in order to preserve 2,4-D's many beneficial uses.

Learn more at www.24D.org.