Water wardens warn of pesticide muzzles

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Martin Sager (58) is worried. At the beginning of this week, the director of the association of Swiss drinking water suppliers (SVGW) wrote a letter to the national councilors. In it he warned of a change in the law, which the council will decide on Thursday. The result would be that environmental organizations would have less control over the authorization of pesticides in the future.

Not only the affected environmental organizations, but also the drinking water suppliers are concerned. Sager is asking parliamentarians to reject the amendment proposed by the Economics Committee. “It is becoming increasingly difficult for water suppliers to provide sufficient clean water for drinking water supply,” he writes on behalf of the association. According to him, a weakening of environmental organizations in the authorization of pesticides increases the risk that substances will come into circulation that further affect water quality.

Economic politicians want to play back

Since a decision by the Federal Supreme Court in 2018, organizations such as Pro Natura, WWF and Greenpeace have the option to request access to approval documents – for example, when a manufacturer approves a new pesticide, wants to use an active ingredient that has already been approved for a new field of application, whether previous federal government resources have been audited. If they suspect something is wrong, they also have the option to file a complaint.

The Federal Council and the Council of States now want to enshrine the association’s right of appeal in law. However, the Economic Commission of the National Council is hesitant to do so. She wants to limit the right to view dossiers and the right to file complaints: in the future, environmental organizations would only be able to veto the approval of new active ingredients or the assessment of an already approved one.

“A Dangerous Way”

“It’s a dangerous path,” says Sager. “The new composition of existing active ingredients or the extension of authorizations to other crops also entail risks,” he says. It is therefore important that environmental organizations can also have a say in such approval applications.

The Science Industries Association, which also represents the interests of pesticide manufacturers, sees it differently. In the approval process, a scientific risk assessment would be carried out anyway, regardless of the possibility of the association’s right to file a complaint, says board member Pia Guggenbühl. The pesticide manufacturers also argue that the ability for environmental organizations to file complaints means “enormous extra administrative work for the government”.

According to Scienceindustries, the controversial proposal from the National Council’s Economic Commission is a “middle ground” between what the Federal Supreme Court decided five years ago and what the Federal Council now wants to pass into law. The fact is, however, that environmental protection organizations can now have a say in all approval procedures. According to the WWF, about 90 percent of cases have nothing to report.

Source:Blick