Strategy to Protect Endangered Species from Herbicides

The Herbicide Strategy is designed to provide early mitigations that minimize impacts to over 900 federal endangered and threatened (listed) species and designated critical habitat for conventional herbicides (chemicals used to control weeds) used in agriculture, before completing effects determinations and, where necessary, consultation under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). EPA will use the strategy to identify measures to reduce the amount of herbicides exposure to these species when it registers new herbicides and when it re-evaluates registered herbicides under a process called registration review. The strategy also focuses mitigation only in situations where species need protection by considering the location, biology, and habitat of those species. EPA focused this strategy on conventional herbicides used in agriculture in the lower 48 states because of the large percentage of herbicides applied there. In 2022, approximately 264 million acres of cropland were treated with herbicides, according to the Census of Agriculture from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The number of cropland acres treated with herbicides has remained fairly consistent since the early 2010s. EPA is also focusing this strategy on species listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) because herbicides generally impact those species. For species listed by the National Marine Fisheries Service, EPA is addressing pesticide impacts through a separate initiative with that agency.

The mitigations in the Herbicide Strategy address the most common ways that conventional agricultural herbicides may impact listed species. EPA expects the mitigations in the Herbicide Strategy will reduce the likelihood of future “jeopardy” or “adverse modification” (J/AM) findings and minimize the potential for “take” from the ongoing use of these herbicides. EPA also expects that the Herbicide Strategy will ultimately increase the efficiency of future ESA pesticide consultations with FWS regarding herbicides.

In August 2024, EPA released its final Herbicide Strategy. The strategy incorporates a wide range of stakeholder input, particularly to offer pesticide users many options to reduce pesticide impacts to listed species.

The final Herbicide Strategy includes the following documents:

The final Herbicide Strategy includes more options for mitigation measures compared to the draft, while still protecting listed species. The strategy also reduces the level of mitigation needed for applicators who have already implemented measures to reduce pesticide movement from treated fields into habitats through pesticide spray drift and runoff from a field. The measures include cover crops, conservation tillage, windbreaks, and adjuvants. Further, some measures, such as berms, are enough to fully address runoff concerns. Growers who already use those measures will not need any other runoff measures. EPA identified these options for growers through its collaborations with the USDA under its February 2024 interagency MOU and through over two dozen meetings and workshops with agricultural groups in 2024 alone.

The final strategy also recognizes that applicators who work with a runoff/erosion specialist or participate in a conservation program are more likely to effectively implement mitigation measures. These conservation programs include the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service practices and state or private stewardship measures that are effective at reducing pesticide runoff. The strategy reduces the level of mitigation needed for applicators who employ a specialist or participate in a program. Geographic characteristics may also reduce the level of mitigation needed, such as farming in an area with flat lands, or with minimal rain such as US counties that are in the dryest climates. As a result, in many of those counties, a grower may need to undertake few or no additional runoff mitigations for herbicides that are not very toxic to listed species.

The final strategy will also expedite how EPA complies with ESA obligations through future consultations with FWS by identifying mitigations to address the potential impacts of each herbicide on listed species even before the agency completes the consultation process—which in many cases, can take five years or more. Further, EPA and FWS expect to formalize their understanding of how this strategy can inform and streamline future ESA consultations for herbicides.

The final strategy itself does not impose any requirements or restrictions on pesticide use. Rather, EPA will use the strategy to inform mitigations for new active ingredient registrations and registration review of conventional herbicides. EPA understands that the spray drift and runoff mitigation from the strategy can be complicated for some pesticide users to adopt for the first time. EPA has developed a document that details multiple real-world examples of how a pesticide applicator could adopt the mitigation from this strategy when those measures appear on pesticide labels. To help applicators to consider their options, EPA is developing a mitigation menu website that the agency will release in fall 2024 and plans to periodically update with additional mitigation options, allowing applicators to use the most up-to-date mitigations without requiring pesticide product labels to be amended each time new measures become available. EPA is also developing a calculator that applicators can use to help determine what further mitigation measures, if any, they may need to take in light of mitigations they may already have in place. EPA will also continue to develop educational and outreach materials to inform the public and help applicators understand mitigation needs and where descriptions of mitigations are located.

The Final Herbicide Strategy and accompanying support documents are available in docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2023-0365.

Background

In July 2023, EPA released a draft of this strategy for public comment. EPA received extensive comments, with many reiterating the importance of protecting listed species from herbicides but also minimizing impacts on farmers and other pesticide users. In response to comments, EPA made many improvements to the draft, with the primary changes falling into three categories:

Making the strategy easier to understand;
Increasing flexibility for pesticide users/growers to implement mitigation measures in the strategy; and
Reducing the amount of additional mitigation that may be needed when growers have either already adopted practices to reduce pesticide runoff or are applying herbicides where runoff potential is lower due to geography.

In April of 2024, EPA released an update to its draft strategy, describing planned improvements to the final strategy aiming to increase grower flexibility and ease of implementation and incorporating real-world growing practices while still protecting federally listed species. In May of 2024, USDA and EPA co-organized and hosted an ESA-FIFRA Mitigation Workshop for stakeholders with an interest in specialty crops including state regulators, commodity groups, federal partners, EPA regional staff, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and registrants to discuss:

The list of runoff/erosion and spray drift mitigations being considered in the updated Herbicide Strategy such as pesticide runoff vulnerability and areas of low annual precipitation;
Additional mitigation measures EPA is evaluating which require more analysis or supplemental data; and
Updates on mitigation practices that were evaluated and not considered relevant to cultivated agriculture.

In the workshop, stakeholders presented on training and education efforts, mitigation, and cropping techniques, as well as voluntary and required conservation programs within their regions. After the presentations, there was a Q&A panel session for both the EPA and the stakeholder presentations. EPA considered the stakeholder input provided at the workshop in completing the draft Insecticide Strategy, the Mitigation Support Document and the final Herbicide Strategy.

The slides presented by EPA and participants of the EPA's Ecological Mitigation Measures (pdf) (22.52 MB) .