Rep. Neguse, Sen. Markey Pen Letter to Interior on Transparent Federal Pesticide Recordkeeping

Washington, D.C. — Congressman Joe Neguse and Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA) penned a letter to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Director of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Dave Applegate, urging maintenance of the USGS Pesticide National Synthesis Project.  The USGS Pesticide National Synthesis Project, part of the larger National Water Quality Assessment Project, has produced robust pesticide use estimates throughout every watershed in the country at the State and county level, annually since 1992.

Since 2020, the Department of Interior scaled back and analyzed a reduced list of pesticides through this program, resulting in decreased amounts of data which has affected federal, state, and local management, research, and public health efforts. This data has been essential to implementing USGS water quality projects and studies, including to predict concentrations of pesticides in streams and groundwater, to examine the transport of pesticides through the atmosphere in air and rain samples, and to forecast water quality based on historical pesticide use. 

“It is critical for the health of our communities and environment that we continue to monitor our watersheds for pesticides through programs like the USGS Pesticide National Synthesis Project. We encourage you to continue these critical data collection efforts to inform pesticide use and environmental and health impacts, and urge you to communicate the expected timeline for releasing previous years of annual data with the broader users of this database external to USGS,” the lawmakers wrote. 

The letter was co-signed by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Representatives Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Blumenauer (D-OR), Levin (D-CA), McGovern (D-MA), and Stansbury (D-NM). 

Read the full letter HERE and below: 

The Honorable Deb Haaland Secretary
Department of the Interior 1849 C Street NW Washington, DC 20240

The Honorable Dave Applegate Director
United States Geological Survey 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive Reston, VA 20192

Dear Secretary Haaland and Director Applegate,

September 7, 2023

Thank you for the important work that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) does to provide earth, water, biological, and mapping data and expertise that are critical to protecting our communities and natural landscapes. We write to emphasize the importance of maintaining national data on agricultural pesticide use.

The USGS Pesticide National Synthesis Project, part of the larger National Water Quality Assessment Project, has produced robust pesticide use estimates throughout every watershed in the country at the State and county level, annually since 1992. This data has been essential to implementing USGS water quality projects and studies, including to predict concentrations of pesticides in streams and groundwater, to examine the transport of pesticides through the atmosphere in air and rain samples, and to forecast water quality based on historical pesticide use.

In addition to federal agencies, this data has been used by state and local public health officials and environmental health advocates to monitor pesticide use and impacts on local communities and natural habitats. The database is also an important source for researchers and has been used in over 500 peer-reviewed scientific papers. As such, we request that planned hiatuses or substantive disruptions to the frequency of updates to the database be communicated with users external to USGS.

Since 2020, the Department of Interior has scaled back and analyzed a reduced list of pesticides through this program. The reduction of such data programs affects federal, state and local water management, scientific research, and environmental health advocacy. It is critical for the health of our communities and environment that we continue to monitor our watersheds for pesticides through programs like the USGS Pesticide National Synthesis Project.

We encourage you to continue these critical data collection efforts to inform pesticide use and environmental and health impacts, and urge you to communicate the expected timeline for releasing previous years of annual data with the broader users of this database external to USGS. Thank you for your attention to this matter, and we look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Sincerely,

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