pesticides

[Guest guest]

Pickers wade in pesticides

But training and oversight are lax.

By Stapleton

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Sunday, Dec. 7, 2003

Isabel Cruz remembers picking tomatoes, seeing the tractor and feeling a

light breeze.

" We were separated from that tractor by only a ditch, " Cruz recalled of

that day in the Immokalee field last April. " You see the chemicals in the

air, and there was a breeze and it brought it at us. "

Three days later, the itching started: " My hands and neck and face --

wherever that liquid and air touched me. " Then, her skin peeled off her

hands and face. She felt sick. She lost 10 pounds. Her fingernails turned

black. She had to quit her job.

" I couldn't mop because I couldn't hold the mop, " said Cruz, a 34-year-old

mother of four. " My husband had to do the cooking. "

She went to the doctor, despite her husband's fears she would be deported.

But she didn't file a complaint, and no one came to question her about what

happened or to offer help.

" Part of the tragedy here is that people don't know who they work for and

don't know where to start to go for a remedy, " said Vega, a Catholic

Charities case worker. " They don't do anything because they are afraid. "

Every year, one billion pounds of pesticides are applied to crops in the

United States. Every day, farm workers like Cruz work beside machines that

douse the crops with chemicals, then stick their hands through

pesticide-coated plants to pick the fruits and vegetables that wind up on

our tables.

Some of the pesticides are harmless. Others are known to cause cancer,

spontaneous abortions and serious neurological disorders. One thing is

certain: Florida growers -- who use more pesticides per acre than growers

anywhere else in America -- are rarely fined when they break the rules.

Of 4,609 pesticide violations found by inspectors at the Florida Department

of Agriculture in the last 10 years, only 7.6 percent resulted in fines.

The rest received written reprimands or warnings.

When it comes to pesticides, the department has made its position clear.

When the legislature had an opportunity this year to reenact a law that

required growers to provide workers with precautionary information about

dangerous pesticides, the department took no position. But in the political

battle to extend the phase-out of methyl bromide -- a pesticide that can

cause nerve damage -- the department has been on the front line, fighting

for growers who want to keep using the fumigant.

The bulk of the violations are for failing to follow federal rules for

training and notifying workers. When asked the last time they had been

trained in using pesticides, 30 percent of farm workers surveyed in 1999

for the National Agricultural Workers survey said they had never been

trained or not in the past five years.

Loophole in OSHA safeguards

" There are laws to protect farm workers but for almost every law, there is

a loophole, " said Tania Galloni, a lawyer for the Migrant Farmworker

Justice Project. For example, OSHA safety standards apply only to farms

that hire at least 10 workers. That covers about 471,600 farm workers

nationwide but excludes an estimated 1 million who labor on small farms.

EPA weakens protection standards

Even when tougher laws are passed, they are often watered down later. In

1974, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency enacted the Worker

Protection Standards. They required growers, regardless of the number of

workers, to provide: training and information about pesticides used on

crops; protective clothing; waiting periods for reentry into treated

fields; hand-washing facilities in the field.

Where are they from? But in 1996, EPA amended the standards. Now workers

who had never received pesticide training could work five days in the

fields without any information about the dangers. The new standards also

reduced the number of days that growers must provide water for hand-washing

(one gallon for every worker) from one month to one week for certain

pesticides.

A year after the new standards, Celeste -Green, then a doctoral

candidate at Florida Atlantic University, surveyed farm workers in Palm

Beach and Indian River counties. She asked if they knew when the fields had

been last sprayed. Eighty-six percent didn't know. Nearly 20 percent said

they often worked in the fields when pesticides were sprayed. Eighteen

percent said there was no water to wash off the pesticides.

Two years after EPA relaxed the standards, skin rashes reported by field

workers began to climb. In 1998, the rate was about 11 cases per 10,000

workers. By 2001, the rate jumped to nearly 27 cases per 10,000 workers,

among the highest for any occupation, according to the Bureau of Labor

Statistics.

Advocates admit that part of the problem lies with the farm workers. Most

are reluctant to miss a day of work and go to a doctor. Many can't read,

and most don't know they have rights.

christine_stapleton@...

[Guest guest]

Yannic and ,

I grew up on a fruit farm (orchard) - they spray pesticides on the

fruit trees there dont they? I will ask my parents that one.

Friday