About the UP3 Project
Photo credit: SWAMP, S.F. Bay Water Board
Background:
Preventing water pollution from urban pesticide use is the goal of the Urban Pesticide Pollution Prevention (UP3) Project. Funded by a State Water Resources Control Board to the San Francisco Estuary Partnership, the UP3 Project addresses the California creeks with sediment that is toxic to aquatic life— toxicity caused by commonly used urban insecticides. Pesticides used by professionals and homeowners to kill ants and other insects can be washed into creeks when it rains (or during irrigation). Researchers continue to find evidence of widespread toxicity caused by a group of commonly used insecticides known as pyrethroids.
The UP3 Project works to reduce this toxicity in our creeks in three main ways:
- Providing tools to municipalities to support their efforts to reduce municipal pesticide use and to conduct outreach to their communities on less-toxic methods of pest control (e.g., baits, caulking, improved sanitation)
- Compiling the latest relevant scientific information and providing regular e-mail updates and informative annual reports.
- Providing technical assistance to California Water Boards and municipalities to encourage the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) and the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) to prevent water quality problems from pesticides.
A partner in the UP3 Project grant, TDC Environmental, LLC provides technical assistance with monitoring and science, and regulatory activities.
UP3 Highlights:
- Manage the Urban Pesticides Committee (UPC), a nationally unique statewide network of more than 150 agencies, nonprofits, industry, and other stakeholders that are working to solve water quality problems from pesticides.
- Organized biannual Public Agencies IPM Exchange meetings, which bring together municipal integrated pest management (IPM) coordinators, pest managers, and others to share resources and discuss ways to make IPM work “on-the-ground”
- Provided more than 200 UPC e-mail updates on science, regulatory, and outreach issues.
- Established the UP3 web site, which is cited by researchers, water quality managers, and regulators as a key resource for their work.
- Trained hundreds of municipal staff and pest managers on the links between pesticide use and water quality and how to manage ant problems using integrated pest management.
- Completed the only available analysis of urban pesticide use patterns to inform water quality and pesticide agency responses to pesticide-related surface water toxicity.
- Tracked the latest science and regulatory information and provided informative annual reports
For more information, contact
Athena Honore
UP3 Project Manager
San Francisco Estuary Partnership
1515 Clay Street, Suite 1400
Oakland, CA 94612
510-622-2325
up3@waterboards.ca.gov