The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced last week it plans to step up the timing of when it assesses farmworker and other human exposure to pesticide spray drift. Historically, the agency assesses human exposure to spray drift at the time of a chemicals registration review, or every 15 years.
 
EPA will now assess the potential for people to be exposed to a pesticide when it drifts away from where it is applied earlier in the agency's review process. This applies to new active ingredient pesticide registrations and new use decisions.
 
Starting immediately, the EPA will also complete a chemical-specific spray drift analysis during the initial registration process or the review process for new and amended uses of existing products. That includes droplet sizes and buffer distances for each pesticide and use.
 
Human health spray-drift analyses will now be included for any new active ingredients. This includes new submissions for domestic uses of new active ingredients. In addition, the analyses will be conducted for any new chemical use and amended use registration submissions where an active ingredient has previously received a chemical-specific spray drift analysis.