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Show 1080 is one step closer to the range byNanChalat Though the nation's wool-growers wool-growers and livestock owners recently won another round in the fight over the use of the predator-control poison 1080, the case is still far from closed. The poison has not yet been released for use in Summit County's rangelands but local sheep ranchers are hoping that it soon will be. The most recent Environmental Environ-mental Protection Agency decision allowing 1080 to be considered for reregistra-tion reregistra-tion as a legal predacide (with special provisions regarding re-garding its use) has been appealed by both those who want it legalized again and those who want it permanently per-manently banned from use. The ranchers say the EPA didn't go far enough and that the restrictions on dosage are too tough. The environmentalists, environ-mentalists, who claim that 1080 was responsible for killing nontarget wildlife and endangering humans, say that the EPA was too lenient and they want the decision reversed. In any case, 1080 is still a long way from the drugstore shelf, said Bob Reynolds of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The highly-effective sodium so-dium fluoroacetate compound com-pound known as 1080 (ten eighty) has been down this route before. After several years of widespread use 1080 was banned by President Richard Nixon in 1972. Environmentalists had produced pro-duced evidence that 1080 not only killed its intended target (coyotes) but it was also affecting raptors and other endangered species. While hailed by conservationists, conserva-tionists, Nixon's decision to remove 1080 from the list of legal predacides met with strong opposition from most Utah sheep and livestock owners who claimed that it was their most cost-effective means of controlling loss to coyotes and other predators. But those were the conservation conserva-tion conscious 1970s and the executive order was upheld. It wasn't until President Reagan succumbed to pressure pres-sure from a coalition of livestock lobbyists in January Janu-ary of 1982 that the issue was formally reopened. Reagan rescinded Nixon's ban and 1080 once again went back to the EPA for review. The agency grappled grap-pled with the question for almost a year. Hearings were held in Washington and Denver where all of the old rivalries were rekindled. Finally, on Oct. 22, 1982, administrative law judge Spencer Nissan ruled that new evidence contradicted earlier data. It was then up to new EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus to affirm Nissan's Nis-san's decision. Ruckelshaus passed that authority on to Lee Thomas, the EPA's assistant administrator of sion to grant 1080 a reregis-tration reregis-tration application as long as it included all of the special provisions noted by Nissan. According to Reynolds at the Salt Lake City headquarters head-quarters for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Thomas's ruling was grossly misconstrued as definitive approval of 1080. "It has been commonly quoted in the press that it is now ready for release and that is just not true," said Reynolds. Registration, he said, is a long process. Among the points to be clarified in the registration proceedings will be the maximum dosage per bait (Nissan ruled to disallow large meat bait stations), requirements for verification verifica-tion of predation, monitoring of baits (Nissan recommended recom-mended that the baits be checked at a minimum once every seven days), and certification of employees to handle the baits. Reynolds explained that Thomas's decision excluded large bait stations and smear posts from consideration but approved ap-proved the possible use of single lethal dose baits and toxic collars (to be affixed to target sheep). Reynolds said that controlling the manufacture manu-facture and distribution to give its handlers full accountability ac-countability would also be a key issue. The 1080 debate has a direct bearing on Park City and the surrounding rural countryside, much of which is used by local sheep ranchers for grazing. Solid Waste and Emergency Response. On Oct. 31, 1983, Thomas affirmed the deci- i |
