Siding with GMO Giants, Federal Judge Rejects Kauai Anti-GMO Law
Published on Tuesday, August 26, 2014
by Common Dreams
County ordinance meant to protect people and land from 'one of the most toxic chemical environments in all of American agriculture'
by Lauren McCauley, staff writer
Siding with a coalition of GMO giants, a federal judge in Hawaii on Monday rejected a local effort to protect the health and environment of the island by blocking heavy pesticide use near homes and schools.
The Kauai County ordinance known as Bill 2491, which was passed in October, aimed to shield residents from the intensive pesticide spraying that had transformed parts of the island "into one of the most toxic chemical environments in all of American agriculture," as Grist writer Paul Koberstein recently reported.
Despite strong public support behind the measure, Magistrate Judge Barry Kurren ruled that Bill 2491 is "pre-empted" by a state law which Kurren said is meant to broadly regulate all state pesticide matters. The suit was brought against the county by four multinational agriculture companies—DuPont, Syngenta, Agrigenetics Inc. (owned by Dow Chemical), and BASF Plant Sciences—which for decades have been dousing their GMO test crops on the island with some of the most toxic pesticides available at a rate higher than most farms in the nation, according to Koberstein's analysis of government pesticide databases.
The bill required that growers disclose the type of pesticides being sprayed on their fields and established "buffer zones" around sensitive areas, including schools, medical facilities, homes, parks, public roadways, shorelines and waterways. The legislation was designed to protect citizens "after state agencies failed to provide any meaningful assistance," according to the Center for Food safety which, along with environmental law group Earthjustice, represented the ordinance in legal filings.
Following the ruling, residents of Kauai and anti-GMO advocates slammed the ruling as a "blatancy of injustice."
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http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/08/26/siding-gmo-giants-federal-judge-rejects-kauai-anti-gmo-law
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