CONCORD, N.H. — Concerns about insecticides and their impact on New Hampshire’s wildlife aren’t going away, senators said on Thursday. But with one bill on the subject sent for interim study and another killed this week, the Legislature will not take the matter any further this session.
A House bill from prime sponsor and Wolfeboro Republican John MacDonald started the session as a proposed ban on seeds treated with a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids. Scientists say these chemicals leech from treated seeds into the environment, causing harm and death to non-target insects as well as birds, fish and other wildlife.
In February, a House amendment softened the bill, proposing a study committee on the seed treatments in place of a ban. Other states including Vermont and New York, as well as the Canadian province of Quebec, have enacted bans on the seed coatings; the committee would study the results of those bans and whether it was advisable to enact one in New Hampshire, proponents said.
But on Thursday, the bill’s path ended with a voice vote in the Senate.
Sen. Howard Pearl, a Loudon Republican and a farmer, made the motion to defeat the bill. He said the Legislature had considered pesticide concerns at length in prior years and the information the study committee would consider was “readily available.”
“There’s been a strong movement to remove these (neonicotinoids) from the tool bag of agriculture in New Hampshire, and they are a very much needed tool that we use on a daily basis,” he said.
At hearings earlier this month, opponents of the bill said they worried the outcome of the study committee was predetermined in favor of a ban.
Some farmers said they worried that restricting the use of neonicotinoids would harm their crops. But others said there was not scientific evidence that the use of seed coatings boosts crop yields. Seed coating treatments, popular for grain and corn, are just one of the ways that the pesticides can be applied.
Yet the impact of the chemicals on wildlife is clear, conservationists said.
On Thursday, Sen. David Watters, a Dover Democrat, pointed to the documented decline in birds, fish, and insect populations across the state. Neonicotinoids are water-soluble and travel through runoff and streams; they are also passed to birds through their insect prey.
“We could at least study it, we could talk about it,” he said. “… If not this year, we’re going to have to do something about neonics. We’re just going to have to.”
Another bill sponsored by MacDonald, sought to direct the state’s Pesticide Control Board to reclassify neonicotinoids, limiting their use to certified pesticide applicators. That bill was sent to interim study by voice vote in the Senate April 16.
Pearl said the Legislature had discussed regulations on the pesticides for years and pointed to future bills he said would be forthcoming.
“There’ll be more bills coming forward, I’m certain, in the upcoming years,” he said.