The New Hampshire Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources heard two ideas to address shrinking insect populations in New Hampshire during a Tuesday hearing.
One measure, House Bill 1431, would direct the state Pesticide Control Board to reclassify a group of pesticides that is particularly harmful to pollinators and wildlife as restricted use, meaning their use would be limited to professional pesticide applicators. The group of pesticides, called neonicotinoids, has been linked to ecosystem-wide effects from insect and bird population declines to cyanobacteria blooms.
Another bill, House Bill 1086, would establish a committee to study the feasibility and possible outcomes of a ban on seeds treated with neonicotinoid pesticides. Seed treatments are common in grain crops, including corn.
Both bills were sponsored by Rep. John MacDonald, R-Wolfeboro.
“We have to do something,” MacDonald said Tuesday. “I’m not trying to take away any powers of the Pesticide Control Board, but nobody’s doing anything. And I don’t know, I can’t figure out why.”
The windshield effect and beyond
Rosemary Malfi, director of conservation policy for the insect conservation nonprofit Xerces Society, said the decline of insects in New Hampshire is evident in the “windshield effect.”
“Do you remember, anyone who drove a car in the ’90s or early 2000s, you actually got bugs on your windshield? I think everyone here probably knows that that doesn’t happen so much anymore. Neonicotinoid insecticides, or ‘neonics,’ are a major contributor to these declines,” she said.
Forty percent of the bumblebee species historically found in New Hampshire are locally extinct or in severe decline, while about 70% of butterfly species are losing numbers, too, Malfi said. Other classes of insects, including aquatic insects, are affected as well.
This ripples out to affect animals higher up the food chain, including fish and birds. Beneath insects on the ecosystem ladder, meanwhile, are the microorganisms that contribute to harmful cyanobacteria blooms; this means that insect decline can allow cyanobacteria to proliferate, potentially worsening those costly problems, said Rep. Peter Bixby, D-Dover.
Learning from neighbors
As proposed, HB 1086 calls for a committee of three representatives and one senator to assess data from Quebec and New York, where bans on neonicotinoid treated seeds are in place already. They could also assess information from other areas with bans, MacDonald said.
The committee would assess whether bans in other regions have affected crop yields. Some speakers on Tuesday said studies show neonicotinoid seeds to be ineffective at increasing yields.
“We’re concerned that our agricultural community is being asked to pay for a product on seeds that isn’t necessarily helping productivity, but is having serious consequences, both to soil ecology and to water ecology,” said Carol Foss, senior adviser for science and policy with NH Audubon.
Nisa Marks, a wildlife biologist and organic farmer from Henniker, N.H., said neonicotinoids were not necessary for successful crops. But some farmers who attended said restrictions could harm them. Sarah Wrocklage, of Tecce Farm in Durham, N.H., said pests would cause losses on her farm if she could not treat them with chemicals.
In her testimony, Wrocklage also touched on another area that the committee would be directed to consider: Whether it would be possible for farmers to switch to untreated seeds at all. Some of the sweetcorn that Tecce Farm plants is only available in treated form, Wrocklage said.
She and another farmer, Chuck Souther of Concord’s Apple Hill Farm, called for more involvement of local farmers and New Hampshire experts, including those from the University of New Hampshire. As proposed, they said, they did not support the bill, feeling it did not adequately take into account the unique circumstances on New Hampshire farms.
“We do need to look at this, but we need to look at it under New Hampshire conditions,” Souther said.
Requiring action
Though conservationists and farmers agreed insect decline was a problem, at the Tuesday hearings, some senators and speakers questioned the necessity of the bills.
Sen. Howard Pearl, R-Loudon, who is vice chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, asked if a study committee was necessary given the associated costs.
MacDonald said it was. The committee called for in HB 1086 would be “targeted, efficient, and time-bound,” he said. It is designed to last through the summer of 2026 and deliver a report in November.
On HB 1431, speakers, including Robert Johnson of the New Hampshire Farm Bureau Association, suggested the task of restricting neonicotinoid use should be left up to the Pesticide Control Board. Johnson said he disagreed with directing the board’s actions through legislation.
But MacDonald said he had been part of conversations and a subcommittee with the Pesticide Control Board regarding neonicotinoids and had seen no action resulting from those meetings.
“This bill provides clarity on whether action is optional or whether it’s required,” he said.
Both bills have been amended from their original form. As introduced, HB 1086 proposed a ban on seed coatings rather than a study committee, while HB 1431 originally proposed more restrictions, including prohibitions on the use of chemicals on state property and on flowering plants. It also originally sought to make the violation of these rules a misdemeanor for individuals and a felony for organizations or companies. But as amended, the bill leaves more elements of the ban in the hands of the Pesticide Control Board.
Rep. Jonah Wheeler, D-Peterborough, said he had favored a stricter version of both bills in committee discussions, but believed the amended legislation would be a step forward nonetheless. The legislation “deals with a really urgent issue that our constituents are begging us to tackle,” he said.
“The more that we as a society find ourselves away from … symbiosis with the environment in which we live, the natural harmony that exists on this planet, then the more we will find ourselves with problems like pest infestations,” he said.
