I’ve been out of town on vacation, so I’m behind on posting. I’m working on something that should be up later today or early tomorrow. But, first, I need to apologize for making an error in my recent post about Scotts. In that post, which you can read here if you missed it, I talked about how the company pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges that they had used insecticides known to be toxic to birds, fish and other wildlife on two brands of bird seed they were selling. They did this to help protect the seed from pests during storage. The products have been recalled, but not before more than 70 million units were sold over two years.
Credit: Free Nature Pictures
http://www.freenaturepictures.com/misc-birds-pictures.php
In my post I explained what happened and how Scotts ended up pleading guilty and being fined. But I got one part wrong, which someone from Scotts pointed out to me, so I am correcting my mistake, which I should. I wrote that Scotts tried to cover up the fact that they had coated the seeds with toxic insecticides by falsifying EPA documents. This is not correct. The company’s falsification of government documents was actually part of a separate legal issue going on at the same time involving Scotts illegal sale of pesticides that were not registered with the EPA.
I confused the two issues when researching my column and thought the fabricated paperwork had to to with the bird seed. I do apologize for that mistake. I know how important it is to get your facts straight on these things. I also know it’s easy to glaze over and tune out when talking about legal stuff. But these issues with Scotts are serious and the company’s products are everywhere. As gardeners, we need to stay informed so we can make safe, healthy choices about the products we buy and use in our homes and gardens.
Free Nature Pictures
http://www.freenaturepictures.com/misc-birds-pictures.php
I have the facts straight now and I’ll talk more about this in the future. But, basically, on September 7th, the day after I wrote my post, Scotts was sentenced in federal district court in Columbus, Ohio, to pay a $4 million fine and perform community service for eleven criminal violations of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). According to an EPA media release that came out that same day, it is the largest criminal penalty under that act to date. As the release notes, the fines follow Scotts February 2012 guilty plea for “illegally applying insecticides to its wild bird food products that are toxic to birds, falsifying pesticide registration documents, distributing pesticides with misleading and unapproved labels and distributing unregistered pesticides.”
(You can read the whole EPA release here if you like. Or find out even more by going here and reading what the EPA has posted on its investigation, as well as Scotts products involved in the settlement.) Penalties called for under a separate civil agreement, which the press release talks about, bring the total amount Scotts will pay up to $12.5 million.
But back to my mistake—the fabrication of government documents occurred when a Scotts’ employee intentionally falsified correspondence and other paperwork related to two pesticides being sold to the public by Scotts: Scotts Garden Weed Preventer & Plant Food and Scotts Lawn Service Fertilizer With Halts. As stated in the EPA release: “Scotts also pleaded guilty to submitting false documents to EPA and to state regulatory agencies in an effort to deceive them into believing that numerous pesticides were registered with EPA when in fact they were not. The company also pleaded guilty to having illegally sold the unregistered pesticides and to marketing pesticides bearing labels containing false and misleading claims not approved by EPA. The falsified documents submitted to EPA and states were attributed to a federal product manager at Scotts.”
Whew! Thank you for sticking with me through what I thought I could explain much more quickly. Sadly, coverage of what has been going on with Scotts has not been that great outside of The Columbus Dispatch, the company’s hometown paper, and the blogs (particularly Garden Rant) and websites of interested others. (Here’s a good story from The Guardian and another from Scientific American.) So please help spread the word.
