The state Department of Environmental Protection is under probe over its efforts to restore the state’s lobster industry while ignoring industry experts on the effects of pesticides lobstermen say continue to kill the animals. According to commercial fishermen pesticides used to combat mosquitoes caused the lobster die-off in 1999 that all but wiped-out the state’s $40 million lobster industry. But the DEP has not enough scientific data pointing specifically to the pesticides malathion or Altosid as the root cause of the die-off.
Senate Assistant Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk told that its right time to think over the issue. He added that if there were massive die-off on a farm in northern Connecticut, then the DEP would still be conducting tests and would ban everything to find out why. Fishermen and environmentalists agree with Roy. They say the restoration program little more than a waste of money if the DEP doesn’t ban malathion or Altosid.
Penny Howell, an environmental scientist with the fisheries division of the DEP, explained that there is simply no evidence pesticide could have covered the entire Sound to have the kind of effect that caused the die-off. It is found that the DEP itself appears divided over whether to enact even a limited ban on malathion and Altosid.
Dennis Schain, a spokesman for McCarthy, took a much firmer tack, said that they have banned other pesticides without hard scientific data, and I see no reason why this should be different. U.S. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman said he believes it’s time for Connecticut to adopt a shorter list.
