COM 0931.020 1996-1998 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

• United States Agricultural National Beltsville, Maryland 6 Department of Research Program 20705 Agriculture Service Staff RECFN~ "!1'" August 4, 1998 ey Dote-_-' iL3s~ TO: Hawaii County Council, County of Hawaii, State of Hawaii County Coundl RE: Proposal to Ban Use of Irradiation as a Quarantine Treatment from the County of Hawaii, State of Hawaii, to Be Taken Up at the County Commission Meeting, August 5, 1998, Hilo FROM: Kenneth W. Vick, National Program Leader Postharvest Entomology - F L,- Chairman Arakaki and Hawaii County Council, thank you for considering these comments on the pending proposal to ban a quarantine treatment irradiation facility from the island of Hawaii to be taken up at the County Council meeting, August 5, 1998. I also understand that this issue may be placed before the voters later in the year. Since you don't know me, I would like to briefly explain my position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS) so that you may be better able to determine the degree to which I am qualified to make these comments. As National Program Leader for Postharvest Entomology, I have programmatic responsibility for all postharvest entomology programs, as well as for all fruit fly research in ARS. Therefore, I am responsible for the ARS entomology programs in Hawaii. Additionally, I am the ARS representative on the USDA team that negotiates quarantine regulations with other countries, and I am the ARS liaison to the USDA Animal and Health Inspection Service (APHIS) for quarantine issues. In this capacity, I review proposed quarantine regulations to ensure that the scientific backing for the proposal is sound. I am also the USDA coordinator for methyl bromide alternatives research and I serve on the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), Methyl Bromide Technical Options Committee. I have been a National Program Leader for seven years. Prior to that I was an ARS research entomologist at the Insect Attractants, Behavior and Basic Biology Laboratory, Gainesville, Florida, for 22 years. Agriculture in Hawaii labors under a Federal quarantine that prohibits fruit fly host commodities from being sent to the Mainland unless treated with an approved, efficacious quarantine treatment. When ethylene dibromide (EDB) was banned as a postharvest fumigant in 1984, most commodities stopped moving to the Mainland for lack of an acceptable treatment. A vapor heat treatment for papaya had been certified some years before the EDB ban, which allowed the continued shipment of papaya to the Mainland and Japan. Caoum No. ~3 2 0 , Pile No. C0.11.~C..L L. R AW 4 w ~ 1 Agricultural fief. /vow ssearch searCh service{, ~BtiE