The American Beekeeping Federation Education Committee has been hard at work developing new ways to keep its members engaged and informed in between ABF annual conferences each year.
The Conversation with a Beekeeper Webinar Series is the first interactive venture to deliver information directly to the membership.
Currently we have a five part webinar series of presentations by the Environmental Protection Agency on Pesticides. The first two EPA webinars covered such critical and informational topics, the ABF Board of Directors agreed to open access to the last three to all of the beekeeping industry and the general public.
EPA Ecological Risk Assessment Process for Pesticides
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June 11, 2013
Presenter: Dr. Tom Steeger, EPA
SESSION DETAILS
This webinar will provide an introduction to the EPA Office of Pesticide Programs’ process for evaluating potential risks of pesticides to non-target animals and plants.
Dr. Tom Steeger is a Senior Science Advisor in the Environmental Fate and Effects Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP). He has worked as an ecological risk assessor at EPA for the past 16 years and is responsible for evaluating the effects of pesticides in a broad range of non-target organisms including insect pollinators. Over the past five years, Tom has served as the lead technical advisor to the OPP Pollinator Protection Team, and more recently he has served as the lead technical advisor on OPP’s proposed framework for quantifying risks to honey bees.
Dr. Steeger also served on the Steering Committee for the Pellston Workshop on Pollinator Risk Assessment hosted by the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in 2011, and he co-chaired the risk assessment workgroup of the Pellston. He is a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) expert group on pollinators, and he is a member of the International Commission on Plant-Pollinator Relationships (ICPPR) workgroup on semi-field and full-field pollinator studies. Tom’s doctoral research examined the effects of chemical pollutants on endocrine-mediated processes in fish, and he has nine years of experience as a research biologist conducting mammalian toxicity studies with pharmaceuticals.
EPA's Framework for Assessing Risks to Bees from Pesticides
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July 9, 2013
Presenter: Dr. Steeger and Ms. Garber, EPA
SESSION DETAILS
Join us as Dr. Steeger and Ms. Garber pick up from the preceding discussion of EPA generalized process for evaluating the ecological risks of pesticides and focus on bees. The presentation will describe the previous qualitative assessment and provide an overview of the recently developed quantitative risk assessment framework for bees. This discussion will include an overview of the new process that relies upon multiple lines of evidence to assess potential risks to bees.
Dr. Tom Steeger is a Senior Science Advisor in the Environmental Fate and Effects Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP). He has worked as an ecological risk assessor at EPA for the past 16 years and is responsible for evaluating the effects of pesticides in a broad range of non-target organisms including insect pollinators. Over the past five years, Tom has served as the lead technical advisor to the OPP Pollinator Protection Team, and more recently he has served as the lead technical advisor on OPP’s proposed framework for quantifying risks to honey bees.
Dr. Steeger also served on the Steering Committee for the Pellston Workshop on Pollinator Risk Assessment hosted by the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in 2011, and he co-chaired the risk assessment workgroup of the Pellston. He is a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) expert group on pollinators, and he is a member of the International Commission on Plant-Pollinator Relationships (ICPPR) workgroup on semi-field and full-field pollinator studies. Tom’s doctoral research examined the effects of chemical pollutants on endocrine-mediated processes in fish, and he has nine years of experience as a research biologist conducting mammalian toxicity studies with pharmaceuticals.
EPA – Assessing Pesticide Exposure to Bees
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August 20, 2013
Presenter: Mr. Baris & Dr. Steeger, EPA
SESSION DETAILS
Join us as Mr. Baris & Dr. Steeger focus on routes of possible exposure for bees proposed in risk assessment and how they are estimated using mathematical models and/or measured residues from monitoring data. Participants will have an opportunity to learn how different methods of application influence residues levels and how evaluations of pure chemicals may differ from evaluations of formulated products.
Incident Reporting
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September 10, 2013
Presenter: Tom Steeger, EPA
SESSION DETAILS
Join us as Dr. Steeger focuses on what incident reports are and how they are used in ecological risk assessments. Incidents are a critical line of evidence that the EPA uses to understand how chemicals may be acting under actual use conditions. The amount of information that is contained in incident reports can directly impact the extent to which the information can be used to support ecological risk assessment and influence regulatory decisions. Incident data are one of the areas in which the general public and particularly beekeepers can play an effective role in the risk assessment process.
