EPA Finalizes Pyrethroid Label Changes

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency late last year approved revisions to pyrethroid labels that permit PMPs to make outdoor applications beyond applications to cracks and crevices and spot treatments, provided the application is made through the use of a coarse, low pressure spray over a treatable surface (bare soil, lawn, turf, mulch or other vegetation) and not an impervious surface like a driveway or sidewalk. More recently, EPA formally notified pesticide registrants of the label change. Click here to read EPA's communication to the registrants.
 
EPA originally decided to limit the outdoor non-agricultural use of pyrethroids in 2009, because of potential impacts on aquatic species.  Those labels began showing up last year. Among other things, the labels largely limited the outdoor use of pyrethroids to crack and crevice and spot treatments. NPMA, along with the Association of Structural Pest Control Regulatory Officials, an organization representing state pesticide regulators, and the State FIFRA Issues Research and Evaluation Group, an EPA advisory committee also comprised of state regulators, recommended to EPA that the labels be further changed. 
 
The recently approved language should begin showing up on labels by the middle of this year.