A federal judge in Oregon last week confirmed the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s legal duty to consider preventative measures — rather than a “spray first, ask questions later” approach — in its program allowing insecticide spraying to kill native grasshoppers and crickets on millions of acres in 17 western states.
The court’s rulings also require APHIS to be more open with the public about where, when and why it is spraying pesticides on public lands.
“We’re looking ahead to an APHIS grasshopper program that centers non-chemical prevention as a primary focus, because pesticides also harm bees, butterflies, and all the other wildlife that depend on insects,” said Sharon Selvaggio, pesticide reduction specialist at the Xerces Society. “The court’s rulings will help keep public rangelands and wildlife healthy for the long term.”
In August 2024 the court ruled that APHIS violated the law by focusing only on spraying pesticides to suppress grasshoppers and Mormon crickets under the program, which seeks to prevent these insects from competing with livestock for forage. It also found unlawful APHIS’s state-level environmental assessments for Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
“The court’s message is clear. APHIS can no longer blanket millions of acres of western rangelands and important wildlife habitats with toxic pesticides and only then question the impacts of its actions,” said Andrew Missel, staff attorney at Advocates for the West. “For far too long, the agency has acted above the law. This should serve as the start of a new chapter for APHIS. We will be watching closely.”
The judgment finalizes the court’s ruling in the remedies phase requiring APHIS to complete a new environmental impact statement covering the 17-state program within two years. Importantly, the court also confirmed that APHIS has a legal duty to use integrated pest management — an approach to managing pests that combines multiple strategies to minimize economic, health and environmental risks — in controlling grasshopper populations. This should mean a reduction in harm to sensitive rangeland pollinators, especially native bees, butterflies and moths, and all the species that rely on them for food, including imperiled greater sage grouse.
“This ruling is a major win for anyone who cares about the American West and the amazing biodiversity that makes these lands so special,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Any authorization of pesticide spraying, especially when it’s covering millions of acres of our federal public lands, will now require careful analysis of alternatives and methods to minimize damage to the environment. It shouldn’t have taken a lawsuit to force federal officials to be open with the public, but now that we’ve prevailed we’ll be watching APHIS closely to make sure it complies.”
Represented by Advocates for the West, the Xerces Society and the Center for Biological Diversity sued APHIS in May 2022 over the agency’s failure to properly assess the broad environmental harm from the spraying, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act. States where the insecticide spraying is conducted include Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
In recent years APHIS’s secrecy and disregard for key cultural and environmental considerations has resulted in public outcry. It also prompted Congress to issue a statement in March 2024 directing APHIS to operate its program with greater transparency.
In June 2023 the Bureau of Land Management and the New Mexico State Land Office withdrew from a 25,000-acre aerial spray planned by APHIS on public lands in the Rio Chama watershed of northern New Mexico days before it was scheduled to begin. The spray area included a wilderness study area on Navajo Peak and a designated area of critical environmental concern, but Tribal, recreational and environmental communities were not informed about the spray by APHIS or land managers. In March 2024, APHIS pulled an environmental assessment for Arizona’s program after significant omissions dealing with Tribal interests and national monuments were identified during the comment period.
Public rangelands in western states are important, multi-use lands that provide critical habitat for bees, butterflies and other insects that –– along with native grasshoppers –– support a rich diversity of birds, wildlife and plants. Greater sage grouse, monarch butterflies and many other species inhabiting western lands are already in steep decline and vulnerable to harm from APHIS’s pesticide spraying. Multiple bumble bee species native to western states have disappeared or declined from areas they once occupied.
APHIS, an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, oversees and funds the application of multiple pesticides harmful to a wide range of wildlife on western rangelands. In recent years, APHIS has approved and carried out spraying adjacent to or within national wildlife refuges, popular public recreation areas, endangered species habitats and wilderness areas.