Howard R. Rosenberg
The Worker Protection Standard (WPS) for Agricultural Pesticides has stimulated training efforts, questions, objections, and now keyboards from coast to coast. Designed to reduce and mitigate pesticide hazards to an estimated 4 million people working in U.S. fields, forests, nurseries, and greenhouses, this complex regulation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) carries requirements for the majority of agricultural employers in the nation. Despite virtually universal agreement with the goal of the WPS, there remain much uncertainty and controversy about the means for pursuing it.
As reported in the previous issue of Labor Management Decisions, Congress enacted a bill in March pushing back the effective date of several provisions from April 15, 1994, to January 1, 1995. This legislation, signed by the President in early April, provides more time for the EPA to prepare and authorize official training materials, for various organizations to get the word out, and for agricultural employers and state enforcement agencies alike to prepare for full implementation. Although EPA published the WPS in August 1992, after years of consultation with groups affected, awareness and understanding of its basic provisions have been quite uneven among agricultural employers, employees, and advisors.
EPA is encouraging employers to use the time between now and January to learn about their new obligations and to obtain materials needed for compliance. The set of requirements to understand and comply with, however, is not static. Decisions made through administrative procedures of the WPS may significantly affect employer obligations. Responding in early June to a long pending petition, for example, the EPA granted a limited exception to WPS restrictions on early entry into pesticide-treated areas for the harvesting of greenhouse-grown roses. A class of alterations that will apply more broadly will be defined in "equivalency" agreements under which individual states commit to uphold state standards at least as protective of workers as the federal. Public hearings on the proposed terms of equivalency in California are not expected until the Fall.
Moreover, some basic provisions of the Worker Protection Standard are up for reconsideration. In early July the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) submitted to EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner a petition asking for significant revision of the WPS. The petition includes several specific proposals formulated after weighing information from commissioners, secretaries, and directors of agriculture, worker representatives, and agricultural producers.
Special E-Mail Network Up and Running
Many of those whom the WPS is supposed to affect still have basic questions about its fundamentals, and all face difficulty in keeping abreast of rule interpretations, proposed modifications, new references, and compliance resources. Changes, distances, and delays naturally translate into communication problems among all the parties involved in a regulation of this scope and complexity - including rule makers and enforcers themselves. And so it has been with respect to the WPS; people have had trouble getting what they need to know.
Modern technology can help, however, and it is presently being used to speed and broaden the exchange of essential information about the WPS. The UC Agricultural Personnel Management Program and the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at Berkeley have established an electronic bulletin board and reference archive for anyone concerned with the Worker Protection Standard. This bulletin board, "WPS-Forum," welcomes all individuals who have an interest in the WPS and access to Internet, Bitnet, or a compatible electronic mail system. The forum opening was first announced, through the Internet, on May 19, 1994. At this writing, two months later, it has 215 subscribers.
WPS-Forum makes it possible to efficiently disseminate information to and pool knowledge from agricultural employers and employees, regulatory agency staff, educators, and other service providers. By actively participating in the forum, subscribers can keep one another better informed about the WPS, share ideas on how to deal with it, and perhaps even contribute to refining it. In addition, they can download references from the forum archive through a three-word e-mail command.
Posted messages. The "messages" that participants are posting include questions, answers, announcements, pearls of wisdom, complaints, and ideas on all manner of WPS-related issues. Message topics and types are varied, with the discussion to date tending to focus on rule interpretations, proposed changes, worker notification requirements, training materials, reference documents, and feasibility of compliance in real-world conditions. A sampling of messages posted in WPS-Forum during the past two months appears alongside this article.
To post an item for general distribution through the network, participants send an e-mail message to the forum Internet address (WPS-Forum@are.berkeley.edu). A copy of the message is automatically distributed to all other members. Those who want to reply to a message similarly send their comments to the forum address, and the system forwards these replies to all members, including the person who sent the original. Simply by being on the forum list, then, subscribers receive a copy of all messages shortly after they are posted. Frequency of postings, a handful per week at the outset and several per week currently, will likely increase to a few or more per day as membership grows, preparations for the January 1995 implementation of key provisions intensify, and practical experience under the regulation accumulates.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 9, is using the forum as an integral part of its ongoing public outreach effort. One of the first messages posted was the full text of its official "Questions and Answers" publication explaining the 1994 legislative changes for agricultural employers. EPA staff will continue to post news as well as respond to questions. The agency plans to publish and obtain comments through the forum on proposed changes in certain requirements that are scheduled for reconsideration later this summer.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has chipped in with several informative messages, including a prompt summary of the limited reentry exception for harvesting roses. The Cal/EPA Department of Pesticide Regulation and County Agricultural Commissioners' Offices, which are responsible for enforcing the WPS in California, are also participating in the forum. Messages they post are to particularly help clarify how the California standards differ from those that are generally applicable in the nation.
The archive. Part of this bulletin board system is an archive that contains (1) a copy of all messages ever posted, and (2) a set of reference documents and compliance tools. Any file in the archive can be obtained by sending a three-word e-mail message to the system address. Return messages containing the requested files can be printed, machine-searched, edited, and saved just like any other e-mail file. These files can also be accessed through the Internet "gopher" protocol.
As references are added to the archive, they are announced in general postings to the forum, along with regular messages from participants. Subscribers can obtain a list of all files in the archive at any time by sending a two-word e-mail message.
The system software automatically places all messages sent to WPS-Forum into monthly chronological files that are especially helpful to newcomers interested in perusing the flow of discussion that took place before their arrival. Large reference files are not posted but rather placed directly into the archive for subscribers to retrieve if they wish. Some significant resource documents that have been posted are also later placed in the archive as files unto themselves (in addition to their automatic inclusion in chronological files).
Current contents of the archive are:
Joining In
Anyone who has access to an Internet-compatible electronic mail system can take advantage of WPS-Forum. Various forms of participation include actively initiating or responding to posted messages, downloading files from the archive, or simply "listening in" to get more familiar with topics discussed by others. There is no charge to subscribe or to belong.
Subscribers increase the value of WPS-Forum for themselves and others by raising or framing significant issues, responding to questions, offering views on topics in which they have expertise, and contributing reference documents for the archive. So far, so good, and there will be plenty to keep up with in the months ahead.
To join the network, send to ListProc@are.berkeley.edu, the message: "SUBSCRIBE WPS-FORUM yourfirstname yourlastname" (for example: subscribe WPS-Forum Al Gore). A welcome message confirms the new subscription and provides more information about the features of this bulletin board system.
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