A short time after a Lincoln County farmer sprayed the insecticide carbofuran on his 95-acre sunflower field on the Colorado plains in 2006, birds started turning up dead.

Mourning doves. Horned larks. Western meadowlarks. Red-winged blackbirds. Grackles.

All dead.

Nearly 2,200 birds were killed by what the Justice Department said was an intentional misapplication of the toxic chemical.

Now, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is trying to ban the pesticide – a first in 20 years – after determining that even legal uses are likely to kill birds.

But the agency, which banned DDT in 1972, is facing resistance from the one company that produces carbofuran and from congressional champions in agricultural states.

“Carbofuran is a product that has been around for some 40 years now,” said Don Carlson, product-development and product-registrations manager with FMC Corp., which produced about 2.8 million pounds of the chemical in 2005.

“It’s a product that, when used according to its label, can be used without causing adverse effects,” Carlson said.

The chemical, however, has been linked to 558 cases of bird kills, including six in Colorado, according to the Avian Incident Monitoring System database maintained by the American Bird Conservancy.

“The history is that it’s killed millions of birds,” said Steve Holmer, spokesman for the conservation group. “It’s really the last of the really bad chemicals that are still out there.”

“Better alternatives”

The EPA proposed a ban on carbofuran after determining that its risks to birds and other wildlife outweigh its beneficial uses, said agency spokesman Dale Kemery.

“There are new and better alternatives for it,” Kemery said.

In a 2005 environmental-risk assessment of carbofuran, EPA scientists determined that more than 85 percent of the most vulnerable bird species would die after foraging in treated alfalfa fields.

The agency received official reports of 31 cases of bird deaths in 12 states between 1972 and 2000. It noted that many incidents likely go unreported because there is no national monitoring system.

In the Colorado case, farmer Lyle Ravenkamp hurriedly spread granular carbofuran on the surface of a sunflower field near Hugo rather than burying it, and birds started dying.

“They landed, probably fed for a while and just keeled over and died,” said Shaun Deeney, an area manager for the Colorado Division of Wildlife who was called to the scene. “We found them all over.”

Ravenkamp pleaded guilty to violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and was fined $30,000 and ordered to make habitat improvements on his land. He declined to comment on the case.

Deeney said the team of investigators from the state and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were not familiar with other cases involving carbofuran.

Restrictions agreement

Philadelphia-based FMC Corp., according to the EPA, has agreed to restrictions on the use of carbofuran, including pulling it from alfalfa crops because of the likelihood of waterfowl deaths.

“We’ve narrowed things down to specific uses that we feel are still important to America’s farmers,” Carlson said.

The chemical typically is used on crops such as corn, alfalfa and potatoes to control pests such as beetles, nematodes and rootworms.

Chemical producers often voluntarily pull products facing EPA restrictions or cancellations, in part because they still may be sold overseas.

FMC is fighting the cancellation of carbofuran, however, because it is a moneymaker in the United States, Carlson said, and because most other countries tend to adopt EPA restrictions.

“A squabble like this one is unusual,” said Kemery, the EPA spokesman. “Usually when pesticides are canceled, the company caves.”

Members of Congress from agricultural states have asked that the EPA withdraw its proposed ban on the chemical.

“Utah farmers have expressed to me their mounting concerns over the reduction in the number of agricultural chemicals available to combat pests,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wrote in a 2006 letter to the agency.

An independent scientific advisory panel, which met in early February to evaluate the risks and benefits of carbofuran, is expected to offer a recommendation on canceling the chemical within two weeks.

The EPA likely will issue a final decision this year.