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NRDC sues EPA over withheld information regarding colony collapse disorder

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The Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit today to uncover critical information that the US government is withholding about the risks posed by pesticides to honey bees. NRDC legal experts and a leading bee researcher are convinced that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has evidence of connections between pesticides and the mysterious honey bee die-offs reported across the country. The phenomenon has come to be called colony collapse disorder, or CCD, and it is already proving to have disastrous consequences for American agriculture and the $15 billion worth of crops pollinated by bees every year.

EPA has failed to respond to NRDC Freedom of Information Act request for agency records concerning the toxicity of pesticides to bees, forcing the legal action.

Recently approved pesticides have been implicated in massive bee die-offs and are the focus of increasing scientific scrutiny, said NRDC Senior Attorney Aaron Colangelo. EPA should be evaluating the risks to bees before approving new pesticides, but now refuses to tell the public what it knows. Pesticide restrictions might be at the heart of the solution to this growing crisis, so why hide the information they should be using to make those decisions?

In 2003, EPA granted a registration to a new pesticide manufactured by Bayer CropScience under the condition that Bayer submit studies about its product's impact on bees. EPA has refused to disclose the results of these studies, or if the studies have even been submitted. The pesticide in question, clothianidin, recently was banned in Germany due to concerns about its impact on bees. A similar insecticide was banned in France for the same reason a couple of years before. In the United States, these chemicals still are in use despite a growing consensus among bee specialists that pesticides, including clothianidin and its chemical cousins, may contribute to CCD.

In the past two years, some American beekeepers have reported unexplained losses of 30-90% of the bees in their hives. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), bees pollinate $15 billion worth of crops grown in America. USDA also claims that one out of every three mouthfuls of food in the typical American diet has a connection to bee pollination. As the die-offs worsen, Americans will see their food costs increase.

Despite bees critical role for farmers, consumers, and the environment, the federal government has been slow to address the die-off since the alarm bells started in 2006. In recent Congressional hearings, USDA was unable to account for the $20 million that Congress has allocated to the department for fighting CCD in the last two years.
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Is the EPA hiding colony collapse disorder information? Hopefully this suit will give us the answers. Personally, I have always thought pesticides, particularly Round Up by Monsanto was contributing to the decline of bees... here you have bees naturally pollinating or trying to naturally pollinate a biofake plant. What are the chances something would go wrong, or that the bees would suffer some sort of repercussions from that? Did Monsanto, Bayer, or any company really do any tests regarding that or their pesticides? Who knows... we are never told anything. All we know is that the food is on our shelves because all of these agencies tell us everything is safe without showing us anything to back it up.
JanforGore

38 responses // NRDC sues EPA over withheld information regarding colony collapse disorder

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    Wow. Thanks for posting this. I really don't know what value our federal agencies bring to the general public. I say shut them all down and start over. Between the FDA and the EPA, its a tight race as to which one controlled more by large corporations.

    jefftego
    2 responses to this
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    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Is the EPA hiding colony collapse disorder information?
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    Why not? They've been dutiful drones to George and Dick for the last 8 years. They've rewritten and suppressed scientific findings even by their own staff that do not support White House political policy. They have fired personell who released information they deemed deragatory to government policy of support to lobbyist interests over the general public. They have lied and withheld information and been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They have been implicated in coverups, and special favors to lobbyists. They have been party to blackmail and extortian to force independent universities and groups to lie or distort information for special lobby interests and political aims. They have numerous special memo's that have leaked out that any employee who divulges any information to the press will be fired.
    They routinely use licensing and inspections to harrass and intimidate persons or businesses the Bush administration considers political enemies.

    Why should this be any different? Business as usual.

    Wetdog
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    CCD is occurring even in countries where these new pesticides haven't yet reached, but where GM crops are grown.

    Vierotchka
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    I signed off on this because we're not being told all we should from GWB's EPA. It's time for some payback.

    huntre
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    CCD is a great concern of mine, combined with other environmental factors, an increasing population, and Biofake crops this planet could be in for a rude awakening. A global potato famine if you will.

    VynalFrontier
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    (sigh)

    elegua
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    There are crops that completely rely on bee pollination. They've tried to pollinate almond and cranberries artificially but it doesn't work. No bees=very disappointing thanksgivings.

    There's some good info on this site plus its fun...you can send little "save the bee" bee avatars to people.

    http://helpthehoneybees.com

    k8_hj
    1 response to this
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    paste the address for anything from the web

    "EPA has failed to respond to NRDC Freedom of Information Act request for agency records concerning the toxicity of pesticides to bees, forcing the legal action."

    Failed to respond speaks volumes. Covering for the corporate masters again. And truth be told, I suspect their pesticides have done more than contribute to CCD.

    recommended by Vierotchka, huntre
    JanforGore
    2 responses to this
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    http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/image_full/internation...
    Image...

    A long held tactic used by polluting corporations; is to locate in areas where their pollution is collectively affecting life. (great example is down in So Louisiana a place called Cancer Alley)

    Then they all point at one another and go, no he did it, no he did it, and the collective results is the same, we get poisoned by their chemicals, and they continue to produce more poisons. All along the corporation and government in bed together reaping profits. So now, not only the humans are being affected, now the bees. They are the canary in the coal mine.

    I wonder if the GMO seeds that are doing it too, or if the chemicals like Roundup, or if, or if, or if.....what we have is consequences, and no real certain causes, but the bees don't have political agenda's. I get sick thinking of this.

    recommended by Vierotchka
    queenofit
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    Just another case of the petrochemical strangle hold on the world. Who cares about the bees we need more off shore drilling.

    recommended by huntre
    justright
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    queenofit: I suspect GM seeds are part of this too. Why should they care about killing off the bees when their super fake 'Round Up Ready' bioplants don't even need natural processes to grow? The absolute level of greed and apathy displayed by these people goes so far beyond immorality and inhumanity.

    JanforGore
    2 responses to this
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    Hopefully not. The more the government hides things the worse they seem to get.

    damnneargenius
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    Very interesting. When I was a child DDT was the pesticide of choice. It was cheap, and killed those bugs, but did not hurt the Honey Bees.

    Now we have Honey Bees dying out, and West Nile disease, that we never had with DDT. People in Africa are dying because they can not use DDT.

    The notion that the chemical companies were against the band on DDT is funny, because the chemical companies just made more expensive chemical pesticides.

    The people who fought to band DDT were probably funded by the chemical companies. The real victims are the millions of Africians who died of malaria, because the new chemicals are not as effective as DDT.

    mo1y
    1 response to this
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    So F'd... Coverups and lies in the name of corporate protections and greed. Par for the course.

    The world is a mess.

    It's not too late though. We can fix it still.

    onechance
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    kind of scary considering 1/3 of things we eat rely on polination

    anarchopunk
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    Did you know that honey isn't part of a vegan diet? This would be part of the reason...

    However, I'm sure all of this has something to do with a diabolical honey bee terrorist plot being uncovered and the subsequent annihilation of the offended colonies...

    SnowWhiteLx
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    We need low-cost, low ecological impact robot bees that can be released into the wild and work for at least a season until the bee population is brought back. If we are able to bring the bees back, that is.

    sublimeuniverse
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    Ahh, honeybee colony collapse! It's that horrible horrible movie The Happening in real life! It's only a matter of time before trees start gassing people.

    zulu
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    I wish I could say I was surprised that the greedy choices of man is once again responsible for disrupting the delicate balance of nature-at such a crucial point in the life cycle of crops-and an enormous amount of our food supply. Monsanto strikes again? This is eerily similar to Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" when the truth about DDT in our ecosystem having devastating consequences was exposed & taking decades to correct.

    darkhorsejim
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    destroying the food supply by doing nothing about CCD will very quickly put the world at the mercy of Monsanto's fake food

    taking over the water supply will provide even more control, and the creation of plagues and panic will give Bush and company a reason to use all those new warfare and surveillance weapons they've invested so many of our tax dollars in

    this is an agenda of greed that needs to be stopped

    but how do we stop sociopaths with money and power?

    Incredulous
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    Add this to the ever-expanding list of environmental/conservation tragedies inflicted upon wildlife and the American people by the Bush administration. More plant and animal species have gone extinct during the Bush admin. than all previous presidential terms combined. It's all about money and nothing else matters. McCain has been awarded a "0" by the League of Conservation Voters for his voting record on the environment. If McCain wins it will be a continuation of the Bush disastrous record on the environment.

    biodiversity
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    This is yet another atrocity that Bush et al have perpetrated. It is disgusting and we must not let McCain in office. If we do we are doomed.

    MeganMcKenzie
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    I financially support the NRDC more than any other organization. I hope more folks will as well.

    MeganMcKenzie
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    Organic, it's what's for dinner. Sorry about the theft Onechance. A silent spring could be in our near future.

    bluestranger
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    Thanks for the post Jan. It's frustrating how little thought is placed on the future impact. We are certainly a society living in the now and the hell with the rest.

    We'll be regretting it when fruits and vegetables no longer exist or we have to resort to pollination by hand (which is already being done at tremendous cost)

    Just sad...

    ESKCSG
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