A pesticide which caused the deaths of millions of bees in Germany is at the center of a lawsuit filed against the U.S Environmental Agency on Monday.

 

The Natural Resources Defense Council, "wants to see the studies that the EPA required when it approved a pesticide made by Bayer CropScience five years ago," according to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle. 

 

The lawsuit is an attempt to examine the extent to which the EPA is protecting bee populations from dangerous pesticides.  Within recent years America is experiencing what experts call "colony collapse disorder" and according to the article, "Scientists believe that the decline in bees is linked to an onslaught of pesticides, mites, parasites and viruses, as well as a loss of habitat and food."

 

Clothianidin is the pesticide in question and in 2003 the EPA granted conditional registration of the pesticide requiring Bayer CropScience to submit studies of chronic exposure to honeybees and the effect of the pesticide on the bee’s life-cycle and to the queen.  Those studies have not been made available to the public and it is unclear whether Bayer submitted them as required.  

 

The environmental group filed a request for the studies under the Freedom of Information Act on July 17 after other requests had been ignored.  When the EPA missed the August deadline for the official request, the group filed federal suit. 

 

Since 2006 honeybees, which pollinate $15 billion worth of U.S. crops, began abandoning their colonies, destroying roughly a third of their hives. 

 

Worries about local bee populations have been examined by NMI’s Denise Tessier in a June report and follow up.