Matthew Gerhart's Blog Posts

unEARTHED. The Earthjustice Blog

Matthew Gerhart's blog


    SIGN-UP for our latest news and action alerts:
   Please leave this field empty

Facebook Fans

Earthjustice on Twitter

Featured Campaigns

Everyone has The Right To Breathe clean air. Watch a video featuring Earthjustice Attorney Jim Pew and two Pennsylvanians—Marti Blake and Martin Garrigan—who know firsthand what it means to live in the shadow of a coal plant's smokestack, breathing in daily lungfuls of toxic air for more than two decades.

Coal Ash Contaminates Our Lives. Coal ash is the hazardous waste that remains after coal is burned. Dumped into unlined ponds or mines, the toxins readily leach into drinking water supplies. Watch the video above and take action to support federally enforceable safeguards for coal ash disposal.

ABOUT EARTHJUSTICE'S BLOG

unEARTHED is a forum for the voices and stories of the people behind Earthjustice's work. The views and opinions expressed in this blog do not necessarily represent the opinion or position of Earthjustice or its board, clients, or funders.

Learn more about Earthjustice.

View Matthew Gerhart's blog posts
10 October 2011, 2:25 PM
Matthew Gerhart

Earthjustice Calls on EPA to Ban Chlorpyrifos

Pesticide is devastating to humans, animals
Chlorpyrifos spraying. Photo courtesy of treehugger.com.

You've probably never heard of the dangerous pesticide chlorpyrifos. But, according to CDC data, you probably have chlorpyrifos in your body—because you probably have been regularly exposed to it since you were developing in the womb.

Chlorpyrifos is part of a class of pesticides, the organophosphates, that are most frequently reported as the cause of acute poisonings of farm workers. It is one of the most widely used pesticides in the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that every year farmers apply more than 10 million pounds of chlorpyrifos on dozens of crops, ranging from apples and broccoli to walnuts and wheat.

Earthjustice has filed a series of lawsuits over chlorpyrifos, and one of the cases forced the EPA to update its analysis of the impacts of chlorpyrifos. The EPA released that analysis this summer, and we submitted comments on Thursday.

1 Comment   /   Read more >>