New rules considered for pesticide notification
YAKIMA – State officials are considering a new rule that would require farmers to notify schools, nursing homes, hospitals and day care centers that are next to their orchards and farms when they plan to apply pesticides.
Farm worker advocates and environmental groups say the proposed rule, while long overdue, isn’t strong enough. Farm groups argue it’s arbitrary and places undue burden on growers.
The proposed rule would require growers to give written notice to those schools, nursing homes, hospitals and adult or child day care centers that are within a half-mile of their farms 48 hours before applying Category I pesticides, which are considered dangerous or poisonous.
The state Department of Agriculture proposed the rule after farm worker advocates and public health officials raised concerns three years ago about the potential for residents to inhale airborne chemicals that may drift from orchards and fields.
About a dozen representatives of various groups had sought a ban on all pesticide applications near those facilities when the discussions began, said Ann Wick, program manager in the agency’s pesticide management division.
But the six complaints filed in the past five years did not warrant a department recommendation that pesticides be banned, Wick said. Instead, she said, the proposed rule, a pilot project of sorts, would allow the agency to be more proactive to reduce the potential for pesticide drift complaints, rather than react after they happen.
“What it boils down to is communication between an applicator and grower and their neighbors,” she said. “I can’t say it’s a perfect rule, but it’s a trial.”
Cindy Dominguez, a Wenatchee mother, called the rule long overdue. Her daughter, Elena, was 12 years old when she collapsed twice at school four years ago. Doctors, including Cindy’s husband John, were unable to find a cause until eventually tracing it to organophosphates that had been sprayed at the orchard next to the middle school, she said.
“It’s critical, this rule,” Dominguez said in a recent telephone interview. Schools and other centers can be proactive as well, she said, perhaps by watering down playground equipment to remove residue and making children wash up after playing outdoors.
“I know it’s going to cost (farmers) money,” she said. “Humans are more important than apples, and this would be one step in the right direction – notification.”
Carol Dansereau, executive director of the Farm Worker Pesticide Project in Seattle, supports the rule and even stronger regulations.
“It’s a far cry from what we want to see done, but on the other hand, it’s a significant step,” she said. In a letter to the Department of Agriculture, the Washington State Horticultural Association called the proposed half-mile notification zone arbitrary, and said it could find no scientific justification for establishing the zone.
The rule also puts an undue burden on pesticide applicators to determine whether a school or other facility is located within the zone, the letter said.
State and federal laws already regulate pesticide drift, said Dean Boyer, spokesman for the Washington Farm Bureau.
Heather Hansen, executive director of the group Washington Friends of Farms and Forests, said the proposed rule is too broad in that day care centers are undefined. Besides, the vast majority of growers already notify neighbors when they plan to apply chemicals, she said. “It’s good business, it’s good policy, it’s good neighbors just to go visit with them anyway.”
The Agriculture Department is holding a series of public meetings to get comment on the proposal before making a recommendation to Valoria Loveland, the agency’s director.