TOP TEN HERBICIDES USED IN TEXAS HERBICIDE ESTIMATED LBS. OF ACTIVE INGREDIENT 2,4-D 10,515,639 Atrazine 3,140,259 Trifluralin 2,869,251 Metolachlor 2,000,967 Pendimethalin 1,286,197 Glyphosate 1,137,503 Propanil 875,709 Dicamba 654,517 Picloram 645,331 Prometryn 504,403 Source: National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, National Pesticide Use Database

Pesticide use in Texas and throughout the United States is increasing at a steady pace. The increase in pesticide use has not been without costs.^* Pesticides pose a number of problems for agriculture, including increased production costs, destruction of beneficial insects, secondary pest outbreaks, development of pesticide-resistant pests, and the potential for harmful health effects on agricultural workers and their families.^* However, the full extent of pesticide use on farms and in cities is unknown because the state lacks a pesticide use reporting system. Efforts to use alternatives to pesticides are also increasing, though slowly.

The overall pesticide-use estimates for Texas crops are based on a database established by the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. They come from a combination of (1) the 1992 Agricultural Census data, which provide information on cropping patterns, and (2) federal and state pesticide use "surveys" conducted between 1991 and 1993, not on actual reported use for Texas farms.^*

In 1995, the Texas Agriculture Statistics Service estimated that Texas farm and ranch operators spent $376 million on pesticides. When this is combined with $642 million in fertilizer costs, it equals one-third the net cash income received by all Texas farmers and ranchers in 1995. Thus, farm chemicals represent the single largest yearly input cost for field-crop production.^*

TOP TEN INSECTICIDES USED IN TEXAS INSECTICIDE ESTIMATED LBS. OF ACTIVE INGREDIENT Malathion 1,649,326 Oil 957,233 Sodium Chlorate 913,773 Ethephon 772,269 Terbufos 740,848 Chlorpyrifos 600,903 Tribufos 535,732 Carbaryl 413,839 Methyl Parathion 360,260 Aldicarb 338,126 Source: National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, National Pesticide Use Database

Farmers are not the only one who use pesticides, pesticides are used extensively by homeowners, commercial exterminators, golf course managers, parks departments, schools, highway departments, utility companies, and others to control insects, weeds, and other pests in nonagricultural settings. One controversial category of nonagricultural pesticide use in Texas is the use of herbicides to kill aquatic weeds such as hydrilla and water hyacinth. Commonly used aquatic herbicides include 2,4-D, glyphosate, endothall, and fluoridone. During 1993 to 1996, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department reported treating annually between 1,750 and 3,440 acres of lakes and streams with aquatic herbicides, though the amount of active ingredient used was not reported.^* Many other entities—such as river authorities, lake managers, and golf courses, as well as individual homeowners—also use aquatic herbicides, although with no use reporting. This can pose problems, particularly if the herbicides are applied near a drinking-water intake, since most labels for aquatic herbicides require protection of public drinking-water supplies. In some cases, the labels require that the drinking-water intake be shut down for between seven and 21 days after the herbicide is used in a drinking water-source. Enforcement of such label restrictions is difficult, at best, without information on uses.

FYI A report issued by the Texas Pesticide Information Network entitled Play at Your Own Risk: The Hidden Dangers of Pesticide Use in Texas' City Parks is the first comprehensive analysis of toxic chemicals used in the parks of the 25 most populous metropolitan areas in Texas. Southwest Regional Office of Consumers Union, Play at Your Own Risk (Consumers Union:Austin, Tx, March 2001) www.txpin.org)

Specific data on pesticide use in other sectors are generally not available. Most governmental entities—such as schools, parks departments, and highway maintenance departments—do keep some records of their pesticide use. There is, however, no public compilation or reporting of these uses that would allow the oversight agencies or the public to readily know what pesticides are being used in the community, even in locations such as parks and schools where children may come into most direct contact with them.

Limited anecdotal information on the effects of nonagricultural uses of pesticides in Texas also exists, largely as a result of problems encountered in the pesticide use. For example:

• TOP TEN FUNGICIDES USED IN TEXAS FUNGICIDE ESTIMATED LBS. OF ACTIVE INGREDIENT Chlorothalonil 434,905 Copper 235,697 Sulfur 107,622 PCNB 91,044 Mancozeb 79,944 Maneb 62,158 Benomyl 53,507 Tebuconazole 52,512 Propiconazole 44,553 Ziram 25,177 Source: National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, National Pesticide Use Database

  Eating fish caught in Austin's Town Lake was prohibited for years due to the high concentrations of the pesticide chlordane, which was most commonly used to control termites before its use was banned in the early 1990s.
• The widespread use of the insecticide diazinon on lawns and other urban settings has affected water quality in the Trinity River basin.^* Wastewater from a number of city sewage treatment plants, including Fort Worth, Denton, Tyler, Temple, and others, can fail monthly toxicity tests because diazinon has reached the system through runoff and is not removed by the treatment plant.^* The City of Fort Worth has launched a public education campaign promoting use of less-toxic alternatives.^*
• Hundreds of trees along an 11-mile stretch of road in north Dallas in August 1997 were poisoned by city workers applying a weed killer to city sidewalks.^*
• A Dallas study of children poisoned by pesticides at home found that 15 percent had absorbed pesticides through their skin from contaminated carpets and linens.^*

FYI In 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency sped-up its monitoring of atrazine, a heavily used herbicide, in surface water supplies. Seventy-six million pounds of atrazie are used per year in the U.S. to control weeds in corn, sugar cane, sorghum crops and home lawns. Environmental organizations have long advocated a ban on the use of atrazine.  It has been banned in Europe because of irreversible harm to exposed wildlife and threats to human health.

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