From 72 to 400: US announces expansion of number of agricultural chemicals it will monitor
For several years, biologist Nathan Donley has worried about the future of a pesticide database run by the U.S. Geological Survey, a federal agency devoted to environmental science. The Pesticide National Synthesis Project provides information about the use of agricultural chemicals in each U.S. county, with year-by-year records dating back to 1992. At its most comprehensive, the project tracked hundreds of pesticides. In 2019, the USGS reduced the number of tracked pesticides to just 72. Then, last March, a USGS employee casually mentioned to Donley that the agency intended to stop updating i...