Testimony of Judy Carlson, Project Safe Send Coordinator
House Bill 1066 with Senate Amendments
Senate Appropriations
Harvest Room
11:15 a.m., March 12, 2003

Chairman Holmberg, Committee members, I'm Judy Carlson, the Project Safe Send coordinator for the department of agriculture.

Project Safe Send was authorized by the legislature in 1991 to help farmers safely and legally dispose of unusable pesticides and to remove potentially dangerous chemicals from our environment. Funding for this program is from pesticide registration fees that are deposited into the Environment and Rangeland Protection Fund (EARP).

Two years ago, we received considerable amounts of rinsate from a few businesses. Our PSS Advisory Board has discussed rinsate-whether we should be collecting it, having a fee for it, and looking at other disposal methods (waste collected is incinerated). Most farmers are able to triple rinse containers and spray out the rinsate or rinse water. The large quantities we received were from custom applicators that are unable to spray out rinsate and accumulate large quantities.

During the 2001 legislative session, this was discussed in several committee hearings, and an amendment was put into the department's budget bill to allow us to charge for rinsate. The authority to charge was not put into the department's budget bill this session.

Since we have been charging for rinsate, the amount brought into the program has dramatically decreased-from 39,283 pounds in 2000 when there was no charge, to 8,601 pounds in 2001and 3,772 in 2002. Letters were mailed to all pesticide businesses notifying them that there would be a charge.

Without the authority to charge, we are concerned that very large quantities of rinsate from businesses would be brought to collections. By charging our cost of disposal, we can help pesticide businesses and continue to offer the program to all North Dakotans.

Thank you for your consideration.