Pesticide drift issues in Washington continue despite lawsuits

While working in a Toppenish area hop field this spring, Adriana Flores and 46 other farm workers were sickened by wafting pesticides being sprayed on a neighboring alfalfa field.

“We were working when we saw the small plane, and there was a very strong smell of pesticides, but they told us to keep working,” said Flores, 23. “One by one, we started feeling sick.”

It hurt to breathe, she recalled, and then she felt sick to her stomach. The crew boss eventually called an ambulance and sent some workers to the hospital, but Flores wasn’t one of them.

The mother of two from Wapato feels mostly recovered now, but worries the exposure to unknown chemicals could have a lasting health effect.

The hop workers are considering a lawsuit, a spokeswoman for United Farm Workers said. Last year, 10 farm workers who were poisoned by drift from an Orondo orchard won $180,000, and last week, eight orchard workers sickened by pesticides applied to a neighboring field in Mattawa filed lawsuit against the crop duster and farm owner.

Pesticide drift occurs dozens of times a year in Washington’s farm country, and state data shows that the problem has grown in recent years.

While farmers are required to notify their own workers of planned pesticide application and ensure they have proper protective equipment or are safely out of the area, there is no requirement to notify neighbors. That’s a big problem because pesticides can often drift across property lines during aerial and ground spraying, according to attorney Joe Morrison, who represents farm workers for Columbia Legal Services.

‘It’s kind of astounding, given the data that is out there, and this is happening over and over again,” Morrison said.

‘Thou shalt not drift’

A significant increase in reported pesticide drift cases — affecting 129 people — caught the attention of public health officials and lawmakers in 2014. But legislation requiring written notification to neighbors at least two hours before spraying, including pesticide specific information, stalled during the last legislative session.

Farmers opposed it, not because they want to apply pesticides recklessly, but because turning a common-sense action to notify neighbors, which most farmers already do, into a legal requirement is problematic, said Jon DeVaney, Washington Tree Fruit Association president.

Advance-notice requirements could limit farmers’ ability to apply under ideal weather conditions, DeVaney said. The hassle of a formal notification process could lead growers to favor less-frequent applications of more toxic, persistent pesticides than the “softer” pesticides many use more often today.

In addition, notifications could create unnecessary alarm with nearby residents, because the majority of pesticide applications don’t drift, and frustrate adjacent growers if they have to repeatedly move their workers for someone else’s spray that keeps getting postponed.

It also would put businesses and schools in the difficult position of deciding how to interpret and respond to the risk of the spray planned in the neighborhood, DeVaney said.

Some products that growers regularly apply pose only minor health risk, such as lime sulfur, which is used to thin blossoms and smells like rotten eggs. But others, such as neurotoxic organophosphate insecticides, are so dangerous that workers who handle them have to be monitored with regular blood tests. One, chlorpyrifos, has been shown to cause lifelong effects for babies born to women who were exposed while pregnant, even at low levels.

Notification aside, it is already illegal to allow toxic pesticides to drift.

The laws regulating each pesticide’s use are printed on its label, which spells out safe handling equipment, ideal weather conditions for spraying, and how long workers should stay out of treated areas.

“Pretty much any label says, “thou shalt not drift,’” DeVaney said. Notification requirements “would be the equivalent of warning people that you’ll be driving through the area in case you might have an auto accident.”

But accidents do happen.

24% of statewide cases came from Yakima

In the past five years, 117 people in Yakima County have been exposed to pesticides from agricultural applications, representing 24 percent of cases statewide, according to data compiled by the state Department of Health.

Last year, the state Department of Agriculture investigated 47 drift cases out of 123 total pesticide incidents. Yakima County had 10 reports investigated, allegedly involving exposure to six people, two horses, several residences, and fish.

Those county figures include agriculture exposure and commercial and residential incidents, such as when people return to offices too soon after fumigation or if a child accidentally sets off a bug bomb.

But the most severe and common complaint is drift from ground and aerial pesticide being applied to orchards and crops, said Alberto Isiordia, manager of the pesticide compliance program. About half the drift events investigated in 2015 were found to have affected people, and in eight incidents, or 28 percent of all drift cases, people got sick.

“Drift is often a product of when an applicator hasn’t been trained about weather conditions,” Isiordia said. “But we’ve also seen drift occur when applicators appear to be applying under ideal conditions. You can’t control mother nature, the wind changes, and folks try to shut off, but it’s too late and they drifted.”

His inspectors have seen improvements in recent years in how farmers protect their own workers from pesticides, which he credits to eduction programs, he said. This year, the agency developed new training specifically on preventing pesticide drift.

And farmers want such trainings, DeVaney said. In recent years, more people have sought training than the state had spots for. So industry groups sought grant funding, which was used to hold extra training sessions this year on how to reduce spray drift by better calibration of sprayers, DeVaney added.

Growers and pesticide applicators who aren’t careful can face lawsuits.

“We could see (the plane) perfectly ... I think yes, (the pilot) could see us well because he wasn’t high at all,” said Modesta Avista Gomez, 42, one of the farm workers who brought the lawsuit against Air Ag Flying Services of Toppenish and the Grant County landowner, Jones Produce.

It was a new apple orchard, Gomez said, so the tiny trees offered no protection. Initially, they paid no attention to the plane, but suddenly a strong odor surrounded them and her face felt numb. The crew boss told them to go home, change clothes, and return, but Gomez felt so ill that she went to a clinic instead, she recalls. While the stomach pain and diarrhea only lasted a little while, the sore throat and other problems have lingered.

“Everyday it’s like my face and my throat are numb,” she said.

The workers are seeking unspecified economic and emotional damages.

Focus on prevention is needed

A state Department of Agriculture investigation determined that 66 workers, including one woman who was pregnant, were sickened by the pesticide that drifted off target into the orchard. In April 2015, the pilot, Lenard Beierle, was fined $7,500 and had his license suspended for 90 days. That’s the maximum fine the state can issue.

Beierle has appealed.

Only a handful of cases resulted in fines and suspensions in 2015. Most, in which no one was in danger, result in a notice of compliance that explains how to avoid drift in the future, Isiordia said.

Morrison said that while it’s important workers who have been poisoned by pesticides have legal recourse, more focus on prevention is needed.

“There is protection in the sense that somebody can do something after the fact, but we’re trying to prevent them,” he said. “Nobody wants a personal injury lawsuit; they want a safe work environment.”

But while the best way to ensure that safety remains up for debate, drift still occurs on Washington farms.

“It continues to impact farm workers in a real way,” Morrison said. “We’re seeing a lot of women. People don’t think about how this is affecting women who are potentially pregnant or could be pregnant in the next couple years.”

Gomez, who has five children of her own, said she worries about every plane that passes by.

“Now, anytime we see something like a little airplane, we always have that fear that it’s going to happen all over again,” she said.

This story was originally published October 9, 2016 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Pesticide drift issues in Washington continue despite lawsuits."