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Protecting Endangered Species

Apr 11, 2016

Protecting endangered species has always been an important consideration for the agrochemical industry, but even more so now with the development of the case study biological opinions for the three organophosphates (malathion, chlorpyrifos, and diazinon) by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

As a result, the need to develop endangered species assessment (ESA) methods that accurately and conservatively characterize risk in the environment is widely recognized.

Appropriate data quality procedures, exposure estimates, effects metrics selection, risk characterization, and weight-of-evidence methodology are key determinants to evaluating risk to ESA listed species. It is also generally accepted that the currently available pesticide exposure modeling tools and parameterization approaches are inadequate for representing actual pesticide exposure in many important types of aquatic habitats, and industry continues to discuss how to improve the models' predictive success.

The Stone / Intrinsik team is actively involved in the ongoing discussions about this important topic through their publications, presentations, and lead role in the development of the ESA case studies for the three organophosphate chemicals for FMC, Dow AgroSciences, and ADAMA. At the upcoming EMPM meeting on May 9, our team members will be presenting on refining ESA exposure modeling approaches to result in more realistic predictions of pesticide concentrations. These presentations will provide solutions for both efficient screening level exposure predictions and refined assessments that take into account heterogeneous landscapes with variable sized streams.

To read more about each of these presentations, click on the links below.

See more:

A Watershed-Scale Refined Flowing Water Exposure Modeling Approach for Endangered Species Assessments (Abstract)

Development and Evaluation of a Screening Level Flowing Water Exposure Modeling Approach for Endangered Species Assessments (Abstract)