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Vol. 06 Issue 2, Spring 2001

Role of Cornell University in the Development of a New York State Pesticide Sales and Use Reporting (PSUR) Database.
The Ribbon 

William Smith
Senior Extension Associate
Pesticide Management Education Program

There are several key areas where data generated from pesticide use reporting can be beneficial. Given the appropriate information, a pesticide use database can generate data relative to risk assessment, applicator/worker health and safety issues, possible impact(s) on endangered species, environmental issues including ground and surface water impacts and pest management practices. The data will also serve to educate interested parties as to the types, quantities, and locations of pesticides used in New York State.

The Pesticide Use and Sales Database is being developed by the Pesticide Reporting Section of the NYSDEC and the Pesticide Management Education Program (PMEP) within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University (Cornell). Pesticide use information reported from commercial pesticide applicators, sellers of restricted and general use pesticides, and manufacturers, importers and compounders of restricted use pesticides that operate in the State is being processed and stored in the database for summarization and access. The regulated community is reporting their use and sales at least once per year, but no later than February 1 of the following year (for the previous year's use and sales).

Early Challenges

Given that the legislation contained specifically mandated reporting dates, there was virtually no opportunity to do an extensive analysis or assessment for evaluating the different methodologies that existed for producing such a large database. Two visits were made to California to meet with the Department of Pesticide Regulation staff and to review their pesticide use reporting system; a similar trip was made to Vermont. Below are some of the challenges that NYSDEC and PMEP had to overcome once the legislation was passed:

Primary Objectives of the Cornell MOA with NYSDEC

Objectives of the MOA can vary from year to year, depending upon priorities and specific requests by the Department. The current objectives that are in the Cornell/NYSDEC MOA are

PSUR Database Architecture and Production Process

There are five distinct architectures for the different applications that are being used to support and carry out the extensive amount of data storage and diverse tasks required. The team also utilizes numerous desktop, client/server, and web-based applications.

Currently, there are six phases that compose the PSUR production cycle:

  1. Media Administration
  2. File Verification
  3. Audit Check
  4. Data Validation
  5. Report Generation
  6. Web-based Report Preparation
The two phases of report generation are most likely of primary interest to the reader. There are twelve reports prepared, eight of which are mandated by the legislation:

Four additional Database Statistics reports are published in DEC report narrative:

The eight legislative reports are prepared for web publication on the PMEP Server.

Project Activities and Accomplishments

Under the present legislation, the database keeps track of the quantities and locations of pesticides applied by commercial applicators. It will also keep track of the quantities and intended application locations of restricted use and agricultural general use pesticides purchased by private applicators and quantities of restricted use pesticides sold by manufacturers in New York State. The preliminary system design of the PSUR database has been specified and developed. Cornell is in a continual process of refining this design in conjunction with the NYSDEC. That includes further system enhancements, reevaluations based on previous reporting years, and maintenance and operations of the system.

System, database, and network administration are ongoing tasks that consume a significant portion of our project time, yet are virtually invisible to the outside world unless something goes wrong. Recent modifications include stringent controls over duplicate files transferred by the data entry vendor and a simplified approach to storing pesticide applications that were reported for a range of dates.

The PSUR team initiated an investigation of electronic imaging processes and technologies for the Product Registration Section. The section needs their pesticide registration labels imaged prior to the NYSDEC move to a new building. We investigated technologies used by five organizations, met with representatives of some of these companies, and performed research on the Internet. Sample pesticide labels were sent to selected companies in order to test the quality of the images they could produce, as well as their image retrieval software. A vendor to do the imaging was selected in March 2001 and the imaging process has started.

The system development initiative for the Certification Section has business-process charts that provide simple, non-technical views of the Section's activities. We have created a model of the certification process data that the system will have to store and scenarios that describe the interactions of section personnel with the new system. At present, we have developed a list of over 120 outstanding analysis issues that need to be resolved with the Certification staff so that we can develop software that meets their business needs.

Finally, the PSUR web page has been redesigned and allows access to a wealth of additional information. Please find us at http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/psur/

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Last Update 06.18.01