EPA Acts to Ban Farm Pesticides : Carcinogens: Permission to use five substances is revoked, and the government will deny petitions for 16 others. Seven crops are involved.

Complying with a mandate of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Environmental Protection Agency revoked permission Friday for the use of five agricultural pesticides and announced that petitions for 16 others will be denied.

The action will affect seven food crops--potatoes, tomatoes, hops, apples, rice, grapes and mint.

Tests have shown that the chemicals involved produce cancer in laboratory animals and they are known to become concentrated in processed foods.

Under a 1958 provision of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, all such chemicals were banned from use on food products. But the EPA concluded that the pesticides posed no more than a negligible risk to public health and for years had granted “emergency exemptions” at the request of pesticide manufacturers.

The Supreme Court, affirming a decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled in February that federal agencies must comply with the letter of the provision, known as the “Delaney clause.”

EPA Administrator Carol Browner said the agency continues to believe that chemicals affected by the announcement “pose only negligible risk.” But she said the Supreme Court decision “leaves us little choice but to deny emergency exemptions to pesticides that would be covered by the Delaney clause.”

The move will not have great impact on growers in California because the state has stringent pesticide controls. Only two of the chemicals are used in the state, according to the EPA. They are Triadimefon and Bifenthrin, both used on tomatoes. EPA’s action revoked existing permission to use Triadimefon and announced that pending petitions for Bifenthrin would be denied.

Environmentalists insist that the Delaney clause, setting “zero tolerance” for residues of carcinogenic pesticides in processed foods, should be strictly enforced. But the agricultural community and the food-processing industry maintain that the zero tolerance provision should be replaced with a negligible risk standard, giving the EPA some flexibility in determining the levels and circumstances of acceptable pesticide residues in food.

The court decision has generated pressure for new food safety legislation and Browner promised the Clinton Administration will work with Congress to develop it.

Altogether, the EPA grants about 300 emergency exemptions each year, allowing pesticides to be used on crops for which they are not registered or approved.

Browner said the agency will try to help affected growers with steps such as moving quickly to grant permission for the use of alternative products.