Couple Complains About Pesticide Says Boise Cascade Sprayed Their Property With Toxin

Some residents in the rural area along the Snake River west of Ice Harbor Dam are complaining they were exposed to a common but toxic pesticide sprayed on a tree farm.

As a result, Jeff and Ann Smith, both Kennewick firefighters, are taking off their shoes before going inside their house, worried about tracking the chemical inside.

“This is dangerous stuff,” Jeff Smith said. “We’ve got little kids.”

The Smiths say they were exposed Thursday during aerial spraying at a nearby, 8,600-acre cottonwood farm owned by Boise Cascade.

Jeff Smith, who used to be part of a hazardous material cleanup team, said that when he arrived home about 5 p.m. Thursday, he noted a strong smell of a chemical later identified as Lorsban.

“Our motto was, ‘If you can smell it, you’re way too close,”’ he said.

The odor remained Friday, he said.

Boise Cascade officials said it’s possible the Smiths smelled the Lorsban, which was being sprayed for an aphid infestation about a half-mile away. But it’s unlikely the family was actually sprayed by the company’s contractor, tree farm manager Chuck Wierman said.

Wierman also said the wind at the time would have blown the pesticide away from the Smiths.

Wierman said the Smiths’ complaint is the first against the tree farm’s applicators. But it’s not the first problem with pesticides in the rural area.

Bill Ingalls, who lives about a mile from the Smiths, has called state Agriculture Department investigators to his property a dozen times in the last decade. Since 1988, he said, he has videotaped spray planes flying over his house dripping pesticides and spraying in windy conditions.

Ingalls said the result has been dead tree limbs on his property, deformed leaves, and health problems for him and his wife.

A spokesman for DowElanco, which makes Lorsban, said Friday that Lorsban includes an inactive ingredient that emits a strong odor, similar to the smelly additive in gasoline.

“Just because you smell it does not mean you are being exposed to any high concentrations,” said James Zahand at DowElanco’s Spokane office.

DowElanco says Lorsban is one of the nation’s best researched and most common pesticides.

The state Department of Ecology, however, considers Clorpyrifos - sold under trade names including Dursban, Lorsban and Killmaster - a “chemical of special concern” that is “considered to be of high toxicity,” according to a 1992 report.

A Boise Cascade official and representatives from the applicators visited the Smiths on Friday and promised to do soil tests.

Jeff Smith said he plans to file a complaint with the Agriculture Department. “That’s a good way to get some hopefully unbiased tests,” he said.