States Sue to Cut Pesticide Use in Public Housing

ALBANY, New York, September 13, 2004 (ENS) - Six state attorney generals have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in an attempt to reduce the use of pesticides in public housing.

The suit charges the federal agency is failing to comply with a 1996 law that requires the use of safer pest management practices in thousands of public housing developments across the United States.

The lawsuit was filed last week in federal court in Brooklyn by attorneys general from New York, Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, Wisconsin and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

"There is no reason to subject children and other residents of public housing to potentially harmful chemicals when there are other effective ways to deal with pests," said Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. "We must use common sense and other tested, effective methods of pest control to ensure that kids are as safe as possible no matter where they live."

The suit aims to force HUD to require housing authorities to use integrated pest management, a method that eliminates pests without toxic pesticides.

States, environmentalists, housing and public health organizations say HUD needs to change pest control methods at public housing developments. (Photo courtesyGovernment of Massachusetts)

It calls for chemicals to be used as a last resort and in limited quantities to minimize toxicity and damage to human health.

HUD does not currently require housing authorities to use this management process for pest management at agency-funded developments.

The attorneys general say HUD's policy is a violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, which calls on federal agencies "use Integrated Pest Management techniques in carrying out pest management activities and shall ... promote Integrated Pest Management through procurement or regulatory policies, and other activities."

They contend the law exists in part to protect the health of low-income American families and that HUD's noncompliance is posing a major public health risk.

Some 1.3 million families live in public housing funded by HUD and managed by 3,300 public housing authorities.

"HUD is solving one problem with another problem - controlling pests, but poisoning public property and the children and citizens who live in public housing," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. "There are safer and sounder affordable alternatives to these pesticides."

The suit comes a year after 11 attorneys general petitioned HUD to order federal housing authorities to use Integrated Pest Management techniques.

HUD denied the request in December 2003 - it argued that it is only required to promote the use of Integrated Pest Management methods and is meeting its obligations under the law.

Housing authorities must comply with HUD regulations to be eligible for federal funding and the agency provides technical and professional assistance to housing authorities to help them comply with these regulations.

The petitioners want chemicals to be a last resort in fighting pests, such as mice, cockroaches and termites. (Photo courtesy Mississippi State University )

The states also request that the court find that HUD's prior inaction on this matter violated federal law.

Children are in particular vulnerable to the harmful effects of pesticides.

Exposure to pesticides in the womb and during the first years after birth is linked to increased risks of cancer and injury to developing brain and nervous systems.

A 2002 survey by the Attorney General's office of the pest management policies and practices at housing authorities in Albany, Buffalo, New York City, Syracuse and Yonkers found that housing authorities relied almost entirely on chemical pesticides to treat pest problems.

The report outlined how the use of pesticides could be substantially reduced without any loss of pest control effectiveness if housing managers practiced Integrated Pest Management.

"This lawsuit should embarrass the President and his HUD secretary," said Reverend Johnny Ray Youngblood, pastor of St. Paul's Community Baptist Church in Brooklyn and chair of the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation. "While they lather rich rhetoric about leaving no children behind, they avoid the most obvious remedy to the worst public health threat that American children face today: exposure to triggers that have dramatically increased asthma rates, particularly in poor communities."