NEWS

School Environment Protection Act Not In Final Farm Bill

WASHINGTON — The School Environment Protection Act (SEPA) — legislation seeking to protect public school children and staff from certain pesticides — was not included in the final version of the farm bill, which was signed by President Bush in mid-May.

Despite backing by a broad coalition of environmental, public interest and education groups, SEPA ran into congressional opposition from House members concerned that SEPA would have imposed an unfounded mandate on schools, according to Gene Harrington, manager of government affairs, National Pest Management Association (NPMA). Harrington said the biggest opposition to SEPA came from the House Agriculture Committee.

“We certainly knew they had some objections and we had hoped to resolve them but weren’t able to,” he said.

In essence, SEPA suffered the same fate in May that it did late last year when it was not included in the final version of H.R. 1, the Better Education for All Students and Teachers Act. The defeat of SEPA is a setback for NPMA and other pro-pesticide groups pushing for workable national school pesticide legislation.

“This is obviously the exact situation we had hoped to avoid,” Harrington said. “We still believe that SEPA is the best resolution to this issue that has been going on 10 to 15 years now. We believe SEPA was a workable framework that gave states the flexibility to adopt a program that met their particular needs and addressed their particular pest problems.”

Harrington said that without a national policy, states will continue to take their own action, a situation NPMA and others want to avoid. “Some obviously will approve policies we think are workable and laudable and other states will take actions that we whole-heartedly oppose,” he said.

The issue of pesticide use in schools will continue to be debated. For example, recent legislation has been passed in Pennsylvania and a state legislator in Utah has expressed interest in implementing a statewide school pesticide-use policy. “It shows you that there probably is no state in which this issue will not come up,” Harrington said. “When you talk about states as diverse as Pennsylvania and Utah I think that shows the staying power of this issue.”

Although the future of school pesticide use remains cloudy, NPMA continues to push for a workable policy, Harrington added.

Industry Mourns Loss Of J. Edwin Sameth

PARSIPPANY, N.J. — J. Edwin (J.E.) Sameth, a leader in the pest management industry and founder of Western Pest Services, died May 20. He was 94.

Sameth began Western Pest Services 75 years ago and developed the company into a major provider of pest control services. Western offices are located throughout the Eastern seaboard, with 30 branch offices from Maine to Florida.

J.E. Sameth is survived by his children, Robert (Bob), Richard (Dick) and Jeanne S. Burke, who are all Western executives. Expressions of sympathy can be sent to: The Sameth Family, Western Industries Inc., P.O. Box 367, Parsippany, NJ 07054-0367.

More information will be featured in next month’s issue of PCT.

Big Changes At Orkin

ATLANTA — Orkin Pest Control announced it has restructured management at its corporate headquarters in Atlanta as part of a new strategic growth plan. As part of this reorganization, 38 positions within the company were eliminated.

Among those let go by Orkin were longtime employees Harlan Feese, vice president of technical services, and Joe Malinowski, vice president of service support. Feese and Malinowski lost their jobs because, under Orkin’s new structure, technical services and service support were rolled into Orkin’s distribution company RSI/Dettel-bach. With Feese and Malinowski’s departure, Orkin is losing a pair of valuable, veteran professionals who are highly regarded throughout the industry.

“When we put our new organizational chart in place we had more leaders than teams, so we had to make some changes and some people ended up needing to leave,” Orkin Executive Vice President Glen Rollins said. “The decisions were made because of the organizational chart and not individual performance. We really tried to find the best leaders for the new structure.”

Tom Luczynski, a 17-year veteran, is now in charge of the newly enhanced RSI/Dettelbach operation. Having service support, technical services and distribution grouped together will enable Orkin to better partner with its vendors and branch offices, according to Rollins. “Now vendors and branches can talk to one team,” he said. “That team not only helps and advises them on the technical application of materials, but they are also the same people who sell and distribute these materials.”

Newly restructured Orkin management includes four departments: customer services, coworker services, information services and financial services.

Rollins said the reorganization was made in order to simplify Orkin’s home office structure. “We wanted to make it easier for our field operations to interact with the home office and we wanted the role of the home office to diminish a little,” he said. “We wanted more expertise in the field operations, more autonomy and more ownership of processes in the field operations.”

Rollins said the company began considering restructuring during the second half of 2001. The process involved benchmarking reviews with other companies within and outside of the pest control industry. A field input team with 16 delegates (representing all field jobs) was drafted from around the country to collaborate three times to make recommendations for the structure. In addition, the Orkin Executive Committee and an outside consultant worked on the company’s new organizational structure.

SPECKOZ, Superior Angran Join Up

ALPHARETTA, GA. — Speckoz Inc. recently announced that Superior Angran, a distributor headquartered in San Juan, Puerto Rico, will become the tenth stockholder member of Speckoz.

Superior Angran President Juan Angulo, Jr. said Speckoz has all of the same basic values that his company considers core to a business. “Superior Angran operates with family values at its core — family first, then the rest falls into place,” he said. “Many of our customers are small family businesses, and we know that they need more than just someone to sell them some pesticides.

They need training, credit, equipment maintenance, business advice, you name it. The current members of Speckoz all approach their customers the same way.”

Angulo said that the decision to become part of a Speckoz was made because recent trends in mergers in acquisitions, as well as a dwindling pool of suppliers, deemed it necessary for his company to become part of a larger group. “This decision will strengthen our position and credibility in the industry,” Angulo told PCT. “The decision was made after thorough legal considerations concluding that joining Speckoz would not affect in any way our protection under the Puerto Rican distribution laws. We understand that Speckoz is strong because of the strength of its members.”

Superior Angran has been an active member of the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) and UPF&DA (United Producers, Formulators and Distributors Association) for decades. In addition, UPF&DA has made scholarship contributions in memory of Juan Angulo Sr.

Superior Angran is a leading service and supply company in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. Angulo says Superior Angran is planning aggressive expansion into the Dominican Republic with the formation of Superior-Angran SA and into other island-countries in the Caribbean, such as Trinidad and Tobago.
“Speckoz will help us be more competitive because we can now offer a broad range of products and increase product stewardship and technical support,” Angulo told PCT.

Patrick Callahan, president of Speckoz said, “All of the members of Speckoz have known Juan Angulo and his family for years. The addition of Superior Angran to Speckoz expands the presence of the group, and it may create opportunities that we had not even considered.”

NPMA’S Rob Lederer Elected Mayor OF Fairfax City, Va

FAIRFAX, VA. — The National Pest Management Association’s (NPMA) executive vice president, Rob Lederer, was elected mayor of  Fairfax City, Va., on May 7. 

Lederer has served five terms as a Fairfax City Council member and received 2,623 votes (62.62 percent) to defeat incumbent John Mason. Mason had been Fairfax City’s mayor for six terms.

According to newspaper reports, the race drew significant interest from the community and set a city record for turnout in a local election with 31 percent of registered voters making it to the polls. Two of the campaign’s key issues were the city’s development and the traffic it draws. Fairfax City has 21,500 residents. 

Lederer, 46, is a life-long city resident of Fairfax City where he lives with his wife and three daughters.

In addition, he has been NPMA’s executive vice president since 1995.

Fast, Free Product Info From www.PCTONLINE.com

CLEVELAND, OHIO — PCTOnline has introduced an electronic reader service program so that readers can now request product information online and receive a response immediately. Just click on the “free product logo” on the left-hand side of the home page. There you can submit information requests directly to manufacturers. It’s a fast, free service that will help you find products you need.

CDC, Aventis Join To Offer Lyme Disease Prevention Product

MONTVALE, N.J. — After three years of research and testing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Aventis Environmental Science in May announced the launch of the Maxforce Tick Management System — a new product developed to control ticks and reduce the risk of Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections. Available in New Jersey and Connecticut, the Maxforce Tick Management System attacks the root of the Lyme disease problem by treating the primary hosts of the disease — the field mouse and chipmunk.

The Maxforce Tick Management System is a small, child-resistant box with insecticide. Boxes are placed around the perimeter of properties to control the ticks that live on small rodents. The Maxforce Tick Management System treats mice and chipmunks that enter each box with a small dose of fipronil.

“Contrary to popular belief, small rodents, not deer, are primarily responsible for transmitting the Lyme disease bacteria to ticks,” said Chuck Cole, product manger for the Maxforce Tick Management System. “By treating the rodents, we get to the root of the problem and break the cycle of Lyme disease.”

Hatched disease-free ticks feed off small rodents in the larval stage, when many are infected with Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections. Now carrying the bacteria, ticks in the nymphal stage feed once again, mainly on rodents but also on humans. “The Maxforce Tick Management System kills ticks during the critical larval and nymphal stages when they are contracting the Lyme bacteria and other tick-borne infections from small rodents,” Cole said.

UF Research: Methyl Bromide Kills Anthrax

Fort Lauderdale, FLA. — As anthrax and other biological weapons continue to be threats, a University of Florida researcher has found that methyl bromide is more effective and cheaper than current treatments in eradicating deadly bacterial spores from buildings.

“Tests indicate the fumigant… is a better option than current treatments such as chlorine dioxide for killing anthrax and other bacterial spores,” said Rudolf Scheffrahn, a professor of entomology with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

Methyl bromide fumigation would have cost less than one-fourth of the estimated $23 million spent to clean up the anthrax contamination in the 3,000-square-foot Daschle Suite in the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C, according to Scheffrahn. The cleanup estimate is based on an Environmental Protection Agency study ordered by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

At an office building in Boca Raton, site of the nation’s first fatal anthrax infection in October 2001, methyl bromide would be the most effective treatment because the structure is so heavily contaminated with anthrax spores, Scheffrahn said. The building has been closed since October, but could be easily decontaminated with methyl bromide at a lower cost than current EPA cleanup methods, he said.

“Another advantage of using methyl bromide fumigant is that it will not damage equipment, furnishings or sensitive materials,” he said. “Chlorine dioxide is corrosive and may damage electronics, fabrics and photographs, among other things.”

Scheffrahn said emergency use of methyl bromide fumigant should not be affected by a looming 2005 phase-out of the gas. It is one of many gases that deplete the Earth’s protective ozone layer, and many uses will be eliminated after 2005.

“When national security is at stake, we need to have the option of using this highly effective and economical fumigant to kill bacterial spores in buildings,” he said. “According to EPA, the 2005 phase-out will not affect at least three uses of methyl bromide, including quarantines, critical agricultural needs and emergencies.”

The new findings on methyl bromide are the result of research started in October 2001 by Scheffrahn and Mark Weinberg, general manager of Cobra Termite Control in Lauderhill.

“Methyl bromide gas was chosen for laboratory experiments because of its chemical properties, long track record in the pest control industry and its widespread agricultural use,” Scheffrahn said. “The tests killed the spores and proved that methyl bromide is more effective than chlorine dioxide gas as a building fumigant for anthrax,” Scheffrahn said. “Chlorine dioxide is an unstable gas and may not reach the desired target sites in buildings.”

Chlorine dioxide is the only structural fumigant that has been approved by EPA for anthrax decontamination, but agency officials will consider crisis exemptions for other chemicals such as methyl bromide on a case-by-case basis, said Jeff Kempter, senior adviser at EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs.

— News compiled by the staff of PCT.