Scotts Miracle Gro Pleads Guilty to Pesticide Charges (Occupy Monsanto)

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Poisoning bird seed that you sell to bird lovers isn’t the brightest of ideas. Scott’s Miracle Gro, exclusive distributor of Monsanto’s RoundUp, is proposing donating $500,000 to support wildlife conservation and study in addition to paying a $4 million dollar fine for using unapproved insecticides in bird seed sold nationally for two years, the judge will be considering that in their guilty plea as he decides on the repercussions for their actions. The government alleges that beginning in 2005, Scotts produced a line of wild bird food products under names including “Morning Song” and “Country Pride” that contained insecticides.

According to court records, Scotts sold a whopping 73 million packages of bird seed in 2008 that were treated with Storcide II and Actellic 5E, intended to prevent insects from destroying the feed. This was done despite being warned by one of their own chemists and orinthologists that there were toxicity issues. Storcide II is labeled as “Toxic to birds. Toxic to wildlife,” and that “Exposed treated seed may be hazardous to birds.” No such warning exists on the Actellic 5E label. Despite this, Scotts continued to sell their improperly treated seeds for two more years.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s own fact sheet on pirimiphos-mehtyl states that “Ecological risks are not of concern to the Agency.” Yet the same fact sheet also states “Although pirimphos-methyl is highly toxic to birds and fish, these risks are not of concern based on the use pattern of pirimiphos-methyl.”

This would seem to indicate that the EPA did not anticipate this chemical to be used on anything intentionally fed to birds, said the nonprofit American Bird Conservancy.

“EPA needs to amend the use label for Actellic 5E and any other pesticide containing the same active ingredient, pirimiphos-methyl, to agree with their own fact sheet, and ensure that no other birds are poisoned by seed dosed with this toxic chemical,” said American Bird Conservancy President George Fenwick.

“This highlights a key problem that it is the pesticide registrant that writes the labels on pesticides, not EPA,” Fenwick said. “In some cases, it would seem that EPA is not effectively checking that the labels encompass the agency’s responsibilities for birds.”

Scotts has been charged repeatedly by the EPA for inappropriate use of pesticides, lying, and making false claims the EPA refused to sell pesticides.
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