United States y •"• ^
Environmental Protection
Agency
Prevention, Pesticides arid
Toxic Substances
(7506C)
EPA 735-R97-001
March 1997
A National Dialofue on the
Worker Protection Standard
Part I: Transcripts of the Public Meetings
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A National Dialogue on the
Worker Protection Standard
Part I: Transcripts of the Public Meetings
Office of Pesticides Programs
Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
March 1997
prepared by:
Gilah Langner
Stratton Associates, Inc.
under subcontract to EPA/USDA
Cooperative Agreement No. 58-0790-2-205
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National Dialogue on the Worker Protection Standards
Location of Public Meetings, Feb. 22,1996 - Aug. 21,1996
Pasoo, WA
June 19,1996
Salinas, CA
July 25,1996
Fresno, CA
July 23,1996"^
Portageville, MO
Aug. 7,1996 Tipton, IN
Aug. 21,1996
Biglerville, PA
June 26,1996
Stoneville, MS
April 10,1996
Winter Haven, FL
Feb. 22,1996
McAllen, TX
April 25,1996
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
2.
Florida
Transcript of Public Meeting
Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Written Comments
3. Mississippi
Transcript of Public Meeting
Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Written Comments
4. Texas
Transcript of Public Meeting
Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Transcripts of Meetings with Farmworkers
Written Comments
5. Washington
Minutes of the Public Meeting
Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Transcript of Farmworker Meeting
Written Comments
6
45
49
52
53
54
67
69
72
73
75
100
102
105
121
123
125
130
132
136
146
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Pennsylvania
Transcript of Public Meeting
Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Written Comments
California
Transcript of the Fresno Public Meeting
Registered Participants in the Fresno Public Meeting
Transcript of the Salinas Public Meeting
Registered Participants in the Salinas Public Meeting
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Transcripts of Site Visits
Written Comments
Missouri
Transcript of Public Meeting
Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Written Comments
Indiana
Transcript of Public Meeting
Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Written Comments
147
148
183
186
189
191
193
211
213
238
241
249
289
291
292
308
309
311
313
314
354
357
360
EPA Participants
State Participants
For More Information
361
363
367
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Acknowledgments
The Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) and the EPA Regional Offices would like to acknowledge
and thank the farmworkers, growers, industry and trade association representatives, public interest
groups, labor representatives, health professionals, and others who took the time to participate in
the public meetings and site visits around the country. Their in-depth comments and "frontline"
observations provided us with important insights into the impact of the WPS on the agricultural
community, successes and difficulties in implementing the standard, and recommendations for
improvement.
We wish to acknowledge the efforts of our state and county extension partners for supporting this
effort and for their invaluable help in identifying participants in outreach activities and site visits.
We extend our gratitude to those who allowed state and federal officials to tour their facilities.
These tours provided the regulatory community with an opportunity to observe and ask questions
about WPS implementation in progress. Migrant health clinics, unions, and legal services graciously
opened their offices and facilitated exchanges between the Agency and farmworkers. We appreciate
the willingness of farmworkers to share their experiences, issues, and concerns during the after-work
discussion sessions. We would especially like to recognize the following individuals for their
outstanding contributions in making arrangements and facilitating discussions during the WPS
National Dialogue:
FL: Dr. Mari Dugarte-Stavanja, Florida Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services;
Dr. Marion Fuller, Bureau of Pesticides; O. Norman Nesheim, Florida State Cooperative
Extension
MS: Robert McCarty, Mississippi Department of Agriculture; Charles Armstrong, Arkansas
State Plant Board
TX: Randy Rivera and Jose Sanchez, Texas Department of Agriculture
WA: Anne Wick, Washington Department of Agriculture; Dr. Alice Larson, Work Group on
Pesticide Health and Safety
PA: David Bingaman, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture; William Kleiner, Adams
County Cooperative Extension
National Dialogue i
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CA: Dan Lynch, California Department of Pesticide Regulation; Doug Edwards, Fresno
Office of Agricultural Commissioner; Don Villarejo and Celia Prado, California Institute
for Rural Studies, Luis Magafia, Organizacion de Trabajadores Agricolas de California;
Francis Pabrua, Monterey Office of Agricultural Commissioner; Terry Gomez, Clinica de
Salud del Valle de Salinas
MO: Paul Andre, Missouri Department of Agriculture; Pasquale Lombardo, Illinois Legal
Services
IN: Joe Becovitz, Office of the Indiana State Chemist; Dr. Fred Whitford, Purdue University;
Dr. James Wolf, Tipton County Extension Service; Ray Noble, Ray Brothers & Noble
Canning Company, Inc.; Scott Smith, Sharpview Farms; and Jose Perez, Indiana Health
Centers, Inc.
A special note of thanks goes to Debbie Thomas of the EPA Federal Register Staff for her rapid
response in publishing the public meeting notices; to the facilitators and interpreters at each of the
public meetings; and to Gilah Langner for editorial services. To the many individuals at EPA
Headquarters and Regional offices listed at the back of this document who provided support and
time, we extend our sincere appreciation for their contributions to this important national effort.
ii National Dialogue
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1. Introduction
This document is the record of a National
Dialogue of public meetings and site visits
held during the spring and summer of 1996 on
the Worker Protection Standard (WPS). The
WPS is EPA's primary program to ensure that
agricultural workers and employers have the
information they need to protect workers
from pesticide risks. The National Dialogue
on the WPS represents EPA's first effort to
assess the effectiveness of the revised
standard, which took effect in 1995.
In 1992, EPA issued a major revision of
the Worker Protection Standard, aimed at
improving protection of employees on farms,
forests, nurseries, and greenhouses from
occupational pesticide risks. Implementation
of the new WPS provisions was phased in
over time, with the standard coming into full
force in January 1995. After the first year of
full implementation of the WPS, EPA
conducted nine public meetings between
February and September 1996, to evaluate
progress and hear the experiences of the
people most affected by the WPS.
In all, EPA met with over 1,000 people,
including 560 who attended the public
meetings and another 500 who met with EPA
in 43 site visits at diverse locations, ranging
from union meeting halls and crop fields to
health clinics and processing plants. Partici-
pants included agricultural workers, pesticide
handlers, farmers and growers, health
professionals, representatives of agriculture
and labor organizations, and a variety of other
individuals.
The meetings are an initial step in EPA's
ongoing effort to monitor and evaluate the
performance of the WPS program. Meetings
were held in the following states: Florida,
Mississippi, Washington, Texas, Pennsylvania,
California (two meetings), Missouri, and
Indiana. The locations were selected to offer
a wide representation of agricultural situations,
and to involve frontline stakeholders with
whom EPA in the past has had limited and
less direct contact.
Background on the WPS
The 1992 Worker Protection Standard
strengthens safeguards for over three and a
half million people who work with pesticides
at over 560,000 workplaces. The provisions of
the Worker Protection Standard are directed
toward the working conditions of two types of
employees:
• Pesticide handlers—those who mix, load,
or apply agricultural pesticides; clean or repair
pesticide application equipment; or assist with
the application of pesticides in anyway.
• .Agricultural workers—those who perform
tasks related to the cultivation and harvesting
of plants on farms or in greenhouses,
nurseries, or forests.
National Dialogue 1
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The Worker Protection Standard
In 1992, EPA issued a final rule revising the Worker Protection Standard for agricultural
pesticides. Implementation of the revised WPS was phased in, and the new standard came into
full force on January 1,1995. Its provisions are designed to achieve three basic goals:
Inform employees about the use and hazards of pesticides:
Workers must be notified about treated areas so they may avoid inadvertent exposures
to pesticides.
Handlers and workers must be informed of pesticide safety requirements and
information. Employers must post information about recent pesticide applications in a
central location on the agricultural establishment.
Training is required for handlers and workers who enter recently treated areas, and a
pesticide safety poster must be displayed.
Eliminate or reduce exposure to pesticides:
Handlers are prohibited from applying pesticides in ways that would result in unnecessary
exposure of workers or other people. Agricultural workers are excluded from treated
while pesticides are being applied.
EPA-established restricted entry intervals (REIs) must be specified on all agricultural
pesticide product labels. Workers are excluded from entering a pesticide-treated area
during the restricted entry interval, except under certain conditions. REIs generally range
from 12 to 72 hours, depending on the toxicity of the chemical.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) must be provided and maintained for handlers and
early-entry workers, as specified on the EPA-approved pesticide label.
Mitigate the effects of exposures that occur:
Employers must make available to handlers and workers an ample supply of soap, water,
and towels for routine washing and emergency decontamination.
Employers must make transportation to a medical care facility available if a worker or
handler may have been poisoned or injured. Information must be provided about the
pesticide to which the person may have been exposed.
2 National Dialogue
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After a review of its existing standards in
the early 1980s, EPA determined that they
were inadequate to protect workers and
handlers from pesticide risks. The revised
regulations, developed over a ten-year period,
are intended to reduce the risk of pesticide
poisonings and injuries among agricultural
workers and pesticide handlers through
specific exposure reduction measures, training,
and information (see box on previous page).
The National Dialogue Meetings
At each National Dialogue meeting, as a
framework for discussion, EPA asked farm-
workers, growers, and other attendees to
address the following questions:
• What successes have you had in imple-
menting the WPS requirements?
• What difficulties have you had, and how
do you suggest EPA improve the program?
• How well did the assistance you have
received so far (from EPA guidance, training
materials, etc.) help you, and what additional
assistance would you like in the future?
At each of the three-hour meetings, an
EPA official opened the dialogue with brief
introductory comments. Participants were
asked to sign up to speak and were given five
minutes or more to speak, depending on the
number of speakers in the room. Open
registration on the day of the meeting was
done on a first come, first served basis. In the
days before and after the public meetings,
EPA staff made 43 site visits to farms,
nurseries, farm labor camps, health clinics, and
aerial applicators to obtain a close-up
understanding of the issues and challenges
involved in implementing the WPS.
This report presents the transcripts from
the nine public meetings, as well as a list of
participants who registered at each meeting
and a summary of the site visits made by EPA
staff. In some cases, the transcripts are
incomplete due to failures in tape recording
equipment In these instances, EPA prepared
minutes of the meeting, which were reviewed
and approved by the speakers. Where EPA
had received permission to tape the site visits
and small group discussions, transcripts of
those meetings are included as well. Written
comments submitted by participants in the
public meetings are appended to each chapter.
Next Steps
Agricultural workers, growers, pesticide
handlers, health professionals, and others
who participated in the National Dialogue
meetings provided unique insights into the
effects of the WPS requirements. The input
received thus far will be supplemented by data
generated from additional, ongoing outreach
efforts during the course of EPA's longer-
term evaluation effort.
This document is the first of two reports
on the National Dialogue outreach effort, and
is intended to present a strictly factual account
of the meetings. An analysis of the feedback
received on implementation of the WPS and
a discussion of next steps will be the focus of
a subsequent report.
National Dialogue 3
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2. Florida
Public Meeting:
Winter Haven, FL
February 22,1996, 7:00 p.m.
• 85 participants (82 registered), including 26 speakers
,<
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions:
Farmworkers, Citrus Orchards, Hillsborough County, FL
February 23,1996, 5:00 a.m.
• EPA staff met with citrus workers as they harvested oranges, accompanied by Fernando
Cuevas, Sr. and Jr., of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC)/AFL-CIO.
Alcoma Citrus Packing & Processing Company, Lake Wales, FL
February 23,1996, 9:00 a.m.
• Tour of large citrus growing and processing operations.
• EPA staff met with Bob McKown of Florida Citrus Mutual; Phillip Herndon and family
of Alcoma Citrus.
Fancy Farms Strawberry Production, Plant City, FL
February 23,1996,1:00 p.m.
• Tour of medium-sized strawberry production facility.
• EPA staff met with Carl Grooms, manager/owner of Fancy Farms; Chip Hinton of
Florida Strawberry Growers Association; Fernando Cuevas, Sr. and Jr. of FLOC (AFL-
CIO).
Migrant Housing, Lake Apopka, FL
February 23, 1996, 5:00 p.m.
• Tour of migrant housing.
Farmworkers, Apopka, FL
February 23,1996, 6:00 p.m.
• EPA staff met with seasonal and migrant farmworkers; Tirso Moreno and staff of the
Farm Workers Association of Florida.
Florida 5
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Transcript of Public Meeting
Winter Haven, Florida
February 22,1996
Steve Rutz: I'd like to thank our working
representatives, as well as our grower and rural
representatives, for attending this evening's
first meeting on worker protection being
hosted by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA). My name is Steve Rutz. I'm
the Division Director for the Division of Ag
and Environmental Services for the Florida
Department of Agricultural Consumer
Services (DAGS). I'd also like to thank the
EPA, in particular Dr. Goldman, for coming
down this evening and showing and
expressing the interest that she has in learning
more about how the worker protection
program is working here in Florida as well as
some of the problems and obstacles that you
see in terms of its successful implementation.
I'd like to go across the table and real
briefly just make a couple of introductions.
Dr. Marion Fuller, Chief of the Bureau of
Pesticides for the Florida Department of
Agricultural Consumer Services, Dr. Norm
Nesheim, Pesticide Information Coordinator
for the University of Florida Institute of
Agricultural Sciences, and Dr. Lynn Goldman.
Lynn is the Assistant Administrator for the
EPA Office for the Preventions of Pesticides
and Toxic Substances. We also have Mr. Jesse
Baskerville, Director of the EPA Office of
Regulatory Enforcement in Compliance
Assurance, and Mr. Dale Dobberly, Chief of
the Bureau of Compliance Monitoring for
Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Again, Dr. Goldman, I want to thank you
for being here. Just as a matter of protocol
this evening, Dr. Marion Fuller will be serving
as our workshop facilitator here. She's going
to be sort of a traffic cop who deals with time
allowance issues and things like that. So if you
see Marion standing up and waving her hands
acting like she's in some sort of a panic, that
means that probably she wants to try to move
on to buy time for each speaker to cover the
topic they want to cover. And with that, I'd
like to introduce Dr. Goldman and ask that
she make some introductory remarks to the
group.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: What I'm going to
do is, given the size of the room and the size
of the crowd, I thought I'd move down a little
closer to all of you and maybe do this a little
bit less formally. I do want to welcome you all
here and wish you a good evening. I and my
colleagues, the EPA with the Florida State
Department of Agriculture, are here to listen
to all of you about your experiences with the
implementation of the Worker Protection
Standards [WPS]. And I should say that this
is, I think, a very important thing that we're
doing here tonight. Too frequently in the
government we put into play new regulations
6 Florida
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and measures and then we don't evaluate how
effective those measures are. I think it's part
of our effort to evaluate how well the standard
is working. I also think that too often we in
Washington are the nameless and faceless
ones, the people whose names you see but
think you don't have a chance to meet with
'and speak with. Much of the purpose of this
whole meeting is to maintain that face-to-face
interaction—communication that you need to
have to really be able to understand what's
going on.
The Worker Protection Standard is a very
basic set of protections for workers that work
with pesticides. It informs the employees
about the hazards of pesticides, eliminates
exposures to the pesticides, and helps us to
mitigate the exposures when they do occur
and to treat the exposures when they do
occur. It does represent a major strengthening
of the standards that are on the books on the
federal level compared to what existed in the
past. And, I should say that it's taken well
over a decade to achieve the strengthening.
It was not an easy contest within the EPA,
and within our country, to develop the
regulations. When I joined EPA two and one-
half years ago, the regulations had already
been enacted but I had the job of making sure
that we could implement the regulations. I
must say that, just as the development of the
regulations was not easy, the implementation
likewise was complicated and has required a
lot of effort. We estimate there are 3.5 mil-
lion people (farmworkers and other pesticide
handlers) who receive protection today
because of the regulations. So that is a very
important group people whom we wish to
protect. The implementation efforts, in my
opinion, have been one of the most extensive
sets of efforts that we have ever done. We
have produced and distributed a very large
number of training materials, some of which
are available out in the lobby today. We have
supported educational efforts. We have
supported state efforts. We have also needed
to respond to some specific concerns that
have been raised both by farmworkers and by
agricultural groups in the process of
implementation. And, I have to say that not
every situation that occurs in agriculture is
foreseen by the people who write the rules.
Also, many specific questions have come up
that actually were covered by the rules but that
needed interpretation so that everybody could
understand exactly how to carry out the rules.
When you think about it, that's inevitable-
when you have a process that requires the act
of cooperation of so many people in this
country, and so many people involved in it—
not only every single worker but all of the
farmers and the pesticide workers—that's a
complex process.
Some of the amendments that we made:
We accelerated the transition from 15 days to
five days for the training grace period and also
required that employers assure that untrained
workers receive basic pesticide safety
information before they enter the working
area. We exempted qualified crop advisors
frpm some requirements. We allowed early
entry into pesticide treated areas to perform
certain limited contact and irrigation activities.
And we established criteria that would allow
us to establish a class of low toxicity pesticides
that can qualify for reduced restricted entry
Florida 7
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intervals (REIs) of 12 to 24 hours. As a result
of the 1995 changes, training is now required
within five days of employment on an
establishment if the workers will be entering
recently treated areas. Basic pesticide safety
information must be provided before
untrained workers enter a treated area; and
critical irrigation and certain limited contact
tasks can now be conducted during the
restricted entry intervals. Nearly 80 low
toxicity end-use products have received the 4-
hour REIs. We have some actions in place to
add to the list some other low toxicity
pesticides under the new criteria.
As we work to carry out this program, we
will continue to work closely with those of
you who are affected by it to address and
identify new issues of concern. We don't
believe that the work we've done over the last
couple of years is the end, in terms of our
understanding the full impacts of the bill and
what we need to do to make it work for all of
you. I know that many of you have concerns
about the requirement—about the costs of
complying with the requirement, about the
enforcement of the standard, and probably
other issues. Really, tonight's the night for
those of you who have concerns to talk and
for those us who work for the EPA and for
the state, for listening. So I really do want to
take the time to hear it straight from you—
your thoughts about worker protection
and/or what is working and what is not
working.
I want to close by saying that we have a
very strong commitment to making this pro-
gram work, in a way that protects the health
of the public in that it lessens risks while pro-
viding flexibility. We have to find concrete
ways to achieve our goals and that has been
our approach over the last few years. I'm
looking forward to hearing all your comments
and I want to thank you all for being here
tonight. I'm now going to turn things over to
Marion Fuller who is our facilitator.
Dr. Marion Fuller: I'll be serving as
facilitator and sort of a timekeeper to make
sure that everyone who signed up has an
opportunity to be heard. It's very important
for us tonight to hear what everyone has to
say. What we're doing is taking each speaker
in the order of which you signed up (and
that's been provided to me right here). I'll call
your number and that person having that
number (and, everybody has your card?)
should come up here and speak. You'll be
given about five minutes and as your five
minutes is coming to an end, I'll stand up and
if you'll just take that as a signal to wrap it up,
I think we can keep things moving rather well.
For those speakers who do not speak English,
we do have both a Spanish and Creole
translator here at our table. They will translate
for us so you don't need to be too concerned
about our understanding. If you're more
comfortable speaking in Spanish or Creole,
feel free to do so and pause every two
sentences so that they can translate that for
us. And, if you'll work with them, I think that
we'll move along fairly smoothly. With that,
we'll take our first speaker, number 26, I
believe that's Charlie Matthews.
Charlie Matthews: Good evening, my
name is Charlie Matthews and I'm with the
8 Florida
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Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association.
FFVA is a voluntary association and
represents the majority of the fruits and
vegetable growers in the state. FFVA has
been working with WPS—more than 10 years
were the original negotiations—and has been
involved in the process throughout, and
currently we are providing a training service
for our rural members. So we're well familiar
with WPS and I think that some of our
comments will reflect on what our growers are
telling us. We sincerely appreciate you folks
being here this evening, particularly the people
from Washington—that you support us, that
you hear us, and we're glad that you're here
and take the time. I'd also like to congratulate
our Department of Agriculture and tell you
and Dr. Goldman that the people in Florida,
in my opinion, have been doing a yeoman's
job in handling this very difficult regulation.
I want to cover five quick things and I
believe we have about a half of a minute for
each. The first thing is the regulation is
extremely complicated. If you'll remember a
year ago this was the Worker Protection
Standard: When you talk about the basics,
these are the basics—about spraying people,
about violating the entry intervals—those types
of things that are easy to remember and
provide Florida with a great deal of protection
for our workers. Since that time, and I want
to give you a quick example, this is a dual or
split label, a widely used product in the state.
The label is 71 pages long. So if I'm going to
make an application, I, of course, read my
label. The next thing I do is refer to the
Worker Protection Standard and that's 65
pages long. If I don't understand that, I move
to the abbreviated version of the "How to
Comply" manual and that's 149 pages long.
Then, in 1995, we added some revisions to
WPS, a 33-page Federal ~Register notice. Then in
September of 1995, we had another addition
to WPS and that would have been 10 pages.
And then, if you have any questions about
this, yes, there are almost a hundred Q&As
and that's 114 pages long. If you're making a
recording, that's a total of 442 pages that we
must know and comprehend in order to make
a;legal pesticide application in the state. In my
opinion, that is extremely complicated and
hpw we ever went from one page to 442
pages, I don't quite understand. Complicated!
The next thing, the decontamination unit:
We added the "plus thirty" days right at the
last minute when the WPS was finally passed.
The decontamination facilities are very
expensive for our growers. They don't mind—
I don't think they mind—providing decon-
tamination facilities for mixer loaders and
within the restricted entry intervals. But to
add another 30 days, I think, is very
erroneous, particularly when you think about
some of our cultivation and low contact
activities that currently are now exempted
from the regulations. The decontamination,
at least the "plus thirty" days, is a real burden
here in Florida. And the "plus thirty" days got
slipped in right at the end. Over nine years
nobody had ever talked about the "plus thirty"
days, but then right at the last minute, at least
from what I'm aware of, the "plus thirty" days
got slipped in. The reason it was put in there
was, at least the way it's been explained to me,
is California data—there were instances where
they were having worker exposure and toxicity
Florida 9
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problems for the workers that would go in
beyond the re-entry interval. If you talk with
our compliance people over the last ten years,
or as long as they've been keeping records, we
have never had this problem in Florida where
workers have entered fields beyond the
restricted entry intervals. We have had
problems with misuses and those type of
things but never have we had a toxicity
problem beyond re-entry. Correct?
So decontamination. The next thing is
about [Inaudible]... in Florida. We have a
complicated system for storing both fruits and
vegetables. The WPS is meant to cover
everybody all the way from the worker to the
owner. In more simple terms, soybean fields
and those types of things, it's two people. In
Florida, you go from the owner that's living in
Wisconsin, that's living in Nebraska, back
down to the caretaker who's doing the day-to-
day business, back through the processor or
packer who's actually calling the shots, all the
way through to the workers, and it's very
complicated. Then add that to the exchange
of information—who tells who what they've
done, who's liable.
Finally, the restricted entry intervals. The
EPA has placed a tremendous burden on the
producer community. They have not placed
the burden on the manufacturers. EPA asked
the manufacturers to place certain REIs on
the chemicals. Well, it's real easy to slap it on
the label and then walk away from it. And I
can't really blame a manufacturer for doing
that. In Florida, we have several problems
when we have to send hand labor into those
fields. Our hand labor is extremely important
to us, extremely. If we don't have hand labor,
we don't grow certain crops in the state of
Florida. With these re-entry intervals that
have been reduced, things have gone from
"dust has settled and sprays have dried," to
"48 hours" for elemental compounds like
copper, sulphur, and some of other basics.
This has caused an extreme burden for our
scheduling and how we can harvest crops.
Those are five things we'd like you to look
at and if the EPA would like us to give a little
detail in written comments we will be happy
to provide them. Thanks again for coming to
Florida. Glad we had good weather for you.
Hope it will remain the same over the next
couple of days.
Dr. Marion Fuller: EPA has requested
that speakers provide their comments in
writing to make sure that the points you wish
to make are made and are a part of the record.
Keep that in mind and provide them.
Perry Sparkman: Good evening. I want
to speak with two voices tonight. First, as
chairman of the Pesticide Review Council,
which is a statutory council, whose mission is
to review all activities on pesticides in the state
of Florida and make recommendations to the
Commissioner of Agriculture and other
agencies and to the University of Florida as
needed. We were involved from the vety
beginning in the implementation of the WPS,
and every meeting from the past whenever we
started, we've either had Norm Nesheim or
somebody from DACS giving us an update,
input, and the implementation process. As we
went through this it seemed to me that, as
complicated as this WPS was, the major
10 Florida
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problem the state people were encountering
was trying to get replies back from the EPA
on interpretations of the rules. And this, I
think, held up the state effort more than
anything else. Just to close on that, I think
that DAGS and CES and the growers have
made very admirable progress in
implementing, given the time that was allotted
to get this thing going.
As a small grower, there's two things that
really bother me. One is, I do some of my
own spraying. The other is done by a
caretaker. As a small operator, I'm now
required to wear the same PPE as a worker. I
resent this. It is a big brother telling me what
I should do for my own health. I see no
difference from telling overweight people that
they have to lose so many pounds or they are
going to be fined and penalized. Ironically, as
an owner, if I was caught by Dale's
enforcement group not wearing this PPE, I
could be fined and penalized for this. Yet a
worker who has been trained by a grower,
given the PPE, is not required or would not
be penalized if he did not wear, or follow the
instructions that he's been given. I find this
sort of ironic that I can be penalized regarding
my own health and yet a worker can ignore
everything that he's been told.
The other thing that I object very
strenuously against is, as the owner of the
property I am liable, regardless of the
circumstances of the workers who come on
my field. We have a peculiar situation in
Florida (it may be in other fruit growing areas,
I don't know), but where I sell my fruit to a
contractor, I have absolutely no control over
the workers that come into my groves to
harvest the fruits. Yet according to all the
legal advice we've gotten, I am still liable for
any actions mat might occur if that worker has
not been trained or if something happens to
him. Now this is not true in any other type of
business in the United States. It only applies
to agriculture and I feel this is certainly a
situation which should not occur. Along
those lines of trying to work something out,
we came up with the idea (and a number of
people were involved in putting this together)
of a checklist to be used by a grower, a
caretaker, and a harvester. The Farm Bureau,
USDA, Dale Dobberly's office, Norm's
offices, and the grower—we had a grower
meeting here in Winter Haven—we came up
with a form that could be used, where each
person would check what his responsibility
would be on the WPS. I feel that if we could
get some legal interpretation, that if the
grower does this, and he has done everything
within his power to see that everybody is
meeting the WPS—the caretaker, the harvester
that come in his operation—then he should be
cleared of any liability in court. Thank you,
that's all I have to say.
Tommy Smith: I would like to say that
I'm glad that you all took the opportunity and
that I got the privilege to come down here
and meet with you all. I do think I could find
something I'd rather be doing than meeting
here but.. I want to add to something that
Charlie said a minute ago on this maze of 400-
and-some pages of stuff just dealing with this--
because that doesn't take into consideration
OHSA requirements, requirements of the
Department of Health Administration,
Florida 11
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migrant requirements, state environmental
requirements dealing with the restricted type
registrations, and the Right-to-Know (and you
could stack them up out here and the books
would be way above this podium)—that people
in agriculture are responsible for knowing
everything! And the human mind actually can
really just go so far and this is really just
pushing it.
Ms. Goldman, could you tell me how may
people were injured last year by pesticides in
this country?
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Our latest estimates
for the number of people who have had
pesticide-related illnesses are not from last
year. They're from several years back from
when we did the standard. And, correct me if
I'm wrong, Cathy and Kevin, but I think that
the number for people actually becoming ill
was something like 10,000 people. But last
year, we're hopeful, it was far fewer than that
because the standard was going into place.
One of the things that we are doing, not in
Florida but in some other states, we have what
we call surveillance going on, to actually count
how may illnesses there are and see if the
numbers are going down. There's some states
that have tracked them over the years.
Unfortunately, in Florida, we have not tracked
them.
Tommy Smith: Do you know how many
people might have been killed?
Dr. Lynn Goldman: The numbers of
deaths that we had on record in the '80s have
never been more than something like 10 a
year.
Tommy Smith: Well, actually what I'm
trying to get to—I'm not trying to pick on you
at all—but there were in excess of 50,000 killed
in automobiles. It's been said that over
400,000 were killed on the highways. Now we
haven't stopped driving automobiles and we
haven't stopped smoking cigarettes.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I should say that
although we haven't stopped driving
automobiles, we have done a lot of things to
make the highways safer and the cars safer and
I don't think that we're saying, stop using
pesticides. We're trying to make the use of
pesticides safer in a very cost-effective away.
And I think part of what we're here tonight to
talk about is that we want to do this for the
good of public health but we want to do this
in the way that uses common sense and that is
cost-effective.
Tommy Smith: All right; let me say first of
all, that I am a consumer as much as I am a
farmer. I don't know why the American
Medical Association could encourage people
to eat fresh fruits and vegetables if all we're
doing is poisoning the people. My feelings
towards these regulations—and I do not say
for one minute we should not have some
controls on how these things are used—but I
feel that you've got an overkill situation on it.
These regulations are cumbersome,
burdensome, unrealistic, impossible to comply
with. I had two people yesterday, that are not
active in using these materials, tell me that
12 Florida
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they could go through that book and they
could come to my farm and they could
penalize me for something. Now laws like
that should not be on the books if it's
impossible for me to comply with it and I
have people telling me that they could come
in and find things wrong. I mean, no tractor
manufacturer in this world makes a tractor cab
that will comply with the requirements.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: What I can say is
specifically for pesticide regulations, the
Worker Protection Standards, is that if there
are aspects that you simply can't comply with,
those specifics, those particulars, that's what
we need to hear, that's why we're here because
that doesn't make sense. I agree with you.
We cannot have a regulation on the books
that you simply cannot comply with, so if you
•want to write it down that would be very
helpful.
Tommy Smith: Well, there's no need in a
group of laws making criminals out of people
who are basically honest and quite proud of it.
And that's my biggest concern. I look at re-
entry intervals that absolutely make no sense
because there's no scientific data available that
states that this level of [Inaudible]...is at such
a point after 24 hours after use but therein
you have a 48-hour re-entry. Scientific data is
what we need. Thank you.
Bert McKee: I just generally would like to
make some observations that I made during
my [Inaudible]... and preface that with my
qualifications for having made those
observations. I spent 13 years as the Deputy
Chief, Hazards Materials and Manager, in this
county. During that time I wore a patch that
said Emergency Medical Technician and I was
also a volunteer fire-fighter for this county.
At no time during that time did I transport
someone that had been poisoned with
pesticides. During this time, I also served as
the Chairman for the Local Emergency
Planning Committee for these five counties.
I also served this state as a member of the
State Emergency Response Commission and
I'm able to review data of chemical releases
that occur in the state. For the last six and
one-half years, I have worked with farms and
farmers, not only in Florida but across most
of the states. I have conducted training
sessions for 20 years teaching people from
pre-school ages to senior citizens—all
languages and all nationalities. These were
fire-fighters, professionals, farmers, nursery
workers, and I've come to the conclusion that
the people in Florida are doing a real good job
at trying to implement this law. Apparently
there are some laws that haven't worked out
but I would like to say that the American
farmer does find a way to do this. You'll find
poster boards when you go out, central poster
boards that are excellent, and some of those
have been in place way before the Worker
Protection Standard ever started because they
had OSHA posters, and migrant posters, and
other posters out there. I would like to
encourage growers to continue doing the
good job that they have, but keep in mind that
slips and falls on the farms are the ways the
people many times are going to get hurt.
Tractor injuries, forklifts, general safety dealing
with lightning and other issues—there are
Florida 13
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many things out there that can influence
worker comp rates. And, while I think we've
looked at pesticides as a way that a person can
be injured, there are certainly many things on
a farm that we need to address anyway to
make protective and safer.
James Yowell; I'd like to thank you for
the opportunity to speak to you. I represent
Griffin Corporation and tonight I'm
representing two of my major competitors. If
this is a "consortium," then the three of us are
consorting. [Laughter]
The Worker Protection Standard requires
all copper hydroxide products, regardless of
toxicity, to have a 48-hour restricted REI.
The 48-hour interval is unnecessary and
unjustified given the safety characteristics of
copper hydroxide and its long history of use
in the fields of Florida. We know of no
incident ever occurring in Florida with skin
irritation of any kind. It is our understanding
that EPA based this 48-hour re-entry interval
on California incident monitoring data instead
of the toxicity data that companies are
required to supply. EPA has ample toxicity
data and we've had experts review this data,
and we've had experts outside EPA review
this data showing that all of the copper
compounds are basically identical
toxicologically. And yet the different forms of
copper have REIs from 12 hours to 24 hours
to 48 hours. It makes no sense. There are a
number of other coppers being used—copper
oxychloride, copper count-N, and tribasic
copper—all replacing copper hydroxide in the
field. They all have a 24 hour re-entry interval
and copper hydroxide has 48. These farmers
have to get in to their fields. They can't wait
48 hours to pick their tomatoes, to stake their
tomatoes, to tie their tomatoes and their other
vegetables. EPA should be more even-
handed in instituting these REIs.
In addition to that, these other copper
compounds, such as oxychloride, require a
larger amount of copper per acre to be
effective—more applications, and they're more
water-soluble and less effective than copper
hydroxide products. So you're creating an
environmental loading of more coppers.
Copper hydroxide is a necessary tool in the
production of millions of crops grown here in
Florida. EPA should reduce the copper
hydroxide REI to that of other copper
compounds so the growers can choose the
1 most efficient management tool based on field
conditions and not on an arbitrary REI. We
feel that the REI for copper...and there's a
proposal before the Agency for all copper
products to be 24 hours until the data is
complete from the task force. Industry has
put lots of money forward and we're
producing a lot of data for the Agency
including field worker safety data. That data is
18 months away and we have two more
growing seasons to go before that data shows
up. The market is switching to less efficient
coppers and less environmentally-sound
coppers. My company in particular makes all
of these so we sell one or we sell the other,
but it just makes no sense to use a less
efficient product. We would prefer to market
the best product to the grower. Griffin
Corporation, Agtrol Corporation, and
Cuproquim Corporation—three biggest
manufacturers in the country—and the Florida
14 Florida
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Fruit and Vegetable Association have offered
to meet at EPA with Bill Jordan who is
currently working on our requests. It's been
at the Agency for over a year. This matter
needs to be resolved. We'll be coming up on
another growing season and we're going to
have much less efficient coppers going out,
we're going to have more copper in the
environment than is necessary, and we'd like
to see EPA take a reasonable stance here—
issue us an interim 24-hour REI for all copper
products pending the completion of the data
from the copper task force.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I thought that the
application that we had was for a 4-hour REI?
James Yowell: No, we had submitted two
applications. Before the 4-hour application
came out, we had requested that the Agency
review the toxicity data.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I'm sorry, I'm not
really up-to-date with this but my
understanding was that it was for a 4-hour
REI, that we did review the data, and that we
had some concern about eye and skin
irritation for the 4-hour REIs. This is the first
time I've heard about this request for an
interim 24-hour REI, but we will certainly
look at that and ask people to look at that
quickly because I think that this is an equity
issue. But as I said before, this is the first time
that I have been aware that we were asked for
this interim.
James Yowell: The interim REI was
requested this week from Bill Jordan. Over a
year ago, before the 4-hour notice came out
on EPA, we had asked the Agency to look at
the data. We had been requesting the Agency
to look at the data and set a fair REI for this
product, or reduce it. The specific 24-hour,
we feel, is a good compromise. I think when
the data comes out you're going to have less
than that justified.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: We will look at that.
It does make sense.
James Yowell: But I think we need a level
playing field on compounds that have equal
toxicity. They all need to be at least the same
so they can choose the chemical not based on
the REI.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: The others are 24
hours.
James Yowell: Copper oxide is 12 hours.
A number of them are 24 hours. Hydroxide
is the only one that's 48. It's the most used
pesticide in the copper line and the reason it's
the most used is it's the best one.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: We will look at that.
We sure appreciate that.
James Yowell: Thank you.
Chip Hinton: My name is Chip Hinton
and I'm Executive Director of the Florida
Strawberry Growers Association, and unlike
many of the specialists that you had the honor
of hearing earlier, I am a generalist. Our
entire membership is enrolled in the Florida
Florida 15
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Fruit and Vegetable Association. And since
Charlie Matthews was making his statements
with a lot of input from the Florida
Strawberry Growers Association, I'll limit my
technical presentation to some brief
comments that will be followed with a written
record of this presentation.
There are a couple of things I would like
to say. First of all, we rely heavily on others to
assist us in doing what is right. We have one
reason we are here: to make sure we have a
safe work-place for our workers. We want to
do that and at the same time we want to
produce safe, nutritious food. We have relied
very heavily on people like Norm, who has
done an excellent job at educating; people like
Steve, who has done an excellent job—with a
fair and expeditious manner—with the
implementation of this particular program.
We've heard some frustrations and I won't say
that we're exempt from them. But I think
that this and the myriad of other convoluted
issues and problems are not as difficult as
some others. There's some concerns that this
will be a foot in the door and that this will be
a continuing process soon in other areas
where it becomes "the tail wagging the dog."
There are additional programs, additional
problems, additional time, additional costs that
are not based on science that have occurred—
some of those concerns...
And I want to thank you for being here
tonight. It's a very good sign—the fact that
you are here, that you are listening, and that
we are here for the same reasons. There are a'
couple of things that we'd like to say.
Number one, a few years ago we received a
request from the state Department of Safety
to inspect our strawberry industry as relates to
their activities and they requested a training
session with us. Because I knew of our
record, I asked them if in fact they would not
be better served if they choose someone with
a lot more problems in the safety area. Based
on the workers comp information we
provided them, they agreed with me and went
to another commodity area.
Based upon our workers compensation
for the past five years, our workers comp
payback was averaging less than 4%. We have
one of the lowest areas of incidents or
problems of any work force of any type.
There are several reasons for that. One is that
the strawberry industry is one of the last "ma
and pa" operations that you're going to find.
Our average farm size is 19 acres. I have two
people tonight with me (we're right in the
middle of our production and it's difficult to
break people away to get here) but my
president and vice president are here. My
President, Mike Watt, if you were to stumble
off of his back steps, you'd probably hit a rain
bird. My Vice President is Billy Simmons, if
you go 64 feet out his front door you're going
to be in the second row of the strawberries.
Our workers live with us, live out the back
door. Our kids play together. We are in that
same environment that we're talking about.
We are typically the person who's doing all the
mixing, loading, spraying. Who's the owner?
He's our grower. We want to make sure that
everything is done right according to
specifications and we are extremely concerned
about that.
I want to thank you for this opportunity.
I'd like to thank you also for the time that
16 Florida
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you're going to be taking tomorrow to see
where it stands on the situation and I look
forward to that opportunity. Thank you.
Baldemar Velazquez: My name is
Baldemar Velazquez, I'm President of the
Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOG).
Although we're a union in the State of...By the
way, I walked onto the Spring training site of
the great Cleveland Indians! [Laughter] Had
to get that in, it's my team! Although we're a
union from Ohio, the workers that we
represent, the majority of them migrate back
to Florida during the winter time and are
employed with the various crops throughout
the state of Florida—strawberries, citrus,
vegetables, and the like.
If s surprising to me that I'm hearing some
of the comments that's been made by the
speakers before me, that I'm sitting here
agreeing with these guys. It's very interesting.
You see, we represent, I think, now close to
6,000 workers under collective bargaining
agreements in the States of Ohio and
Michigan on about 125 individual family
farms. These are collective bargaining
agreements where we have engaged the
exclusive buyers of the crop—the big food
companies like Campbell's Soup, Heinz USA,
Aunt Jane, Green Bay Foods, Dean Foods
Corporation—to sit at a bargaining table with
us and with the "ma and pa" growers who
grow the pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, and
the like. And what we learned from this
experience is that a lot of the questions in
terms of farmworkers' safety that we're seeing
now, because we're trying to administrer
agreements and we're trying to make
production work for the benefit not only of
the growers and the companies but for the
benefit of our people—because the more
productive our people are, the more money
we make—and we're coming up against some
of the "irregulations" that are overburden-
some to the small operators on the farm. So
we're finding ways in which to elaborate and
overcome some of these issues in training
workers on the Worker Protection Standard.
EPA needs to hear from us how to
resolve some of these problems—instead of
somebody thinking up in Washington, "Well,
how can we fix it, we'll just make up this law
and tell these guys to do it." Then when you
try to implement it, you figure out it doesn't
work, because agriculture is different all over
the country. In Ohio it's like here: a lot of the
people who are the driving initiators of an
industry aren't the growers. I mean these are
the big food processing companies—the fruit,
oranges, big multinational corporations—and
they're partially invested in this and partially
invested in many other things.
So what I'm getting at is that there is a
great dysfunction within the industry because
there is not the negotiating collaboration. I
think the negotiating rule-making that began
10 years ago which we were part of (I was in
those meetings) didn't work because there was
no collaboration, there was no meeting of the
minds, there was no forum for people within
that industry to sit down at one table and try
to sort out what could be done and what was
realistic and what wasn't. Because all of us
have the same desire to see a healthy, vibrant
industry that we make a living in. Whether it's
the corporations, whether it's the growers, or
Florida 17
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whether it's the farmworkers, we all want to
support [Inaudible]... That's really the bottom
line.
Now I found some of the areas in which
EPA can focus on (and I'm part of the
National Environmental Justice Advisory
Council and I'm the Chair of the International
Subcommittee)... The thing that interests me
more on how to support industry in this
country is, are you applying the same
standards that you're applying to the growers
in the industry in this country to make the
environment safe for our people, to
competing fruit that comes from other
countries. You know because of NAFTA and
free trade that maybe you're tearing down the
tariffs for tomatoes, for citrus, and for
everything else. But are you requiring them to
have the same Worker Protection Standard in
their country as you're requiring from us~
because that involves cost, that involves an
advancement, that involves a whole lot of
things? And, I'm going to be pushing through
NEJAC, through that council, to make sure
that EPA does something incollaboration with
USDA, with DOL, with the integrated
government bodies,to be able to do that to
make our growers competitive here.
I find it interesting that I'm defending
these growers because, hey, this is where our
people come and make a living and we've got
to keep the work site whole so it becomes a
job security issue for us. So if our jobs are
being threatened by competition overseas or
other places—which these same food
companies buy all over the world. You take a
corporation like Campbell's Soup—well, they
buy tomatoes in Brazil, in Mexico, they have
their operations in Europe. I mean in today's
transportation system, fruit is moved around
the world like nothing. And I'm telling you
that EPA has got to focus its attention on
seeing how whole industries are integrated-
whether it's oranges, whether it's tomatoes-
you got to break it down little by little, crop by
crop, product by product and see where you
make the best influence at keeping this
industry whole.
The one last recommendation I want to
make is what I touched on in terms of EPA
integrating with the Department of Labor, the
Department of Agriculture, in terms of the
concerns that overlap. There has to be a
collective effort so that these rules don't fall all
over each other. There are among the
growers, those 120-some growers that we
represent the workers on those farms—many
of those small growers have problems meeting
all of the standards of all the regulations that
have come down combined on a particular
farm. There is no grower in Ohio that is not
in violation of some regulation. And if the
force would be 100 percent implemented,
everyone of our farmers would be in jail!
Which is a ridiculous thought. So we have to
do something to keep out EPA, USDA, and
come to some kind of forum to see what can
be massaged in that situation to create the
dialogue that needs to take place on the
ground between workers, between growers, to
offer up some solutions to some of these real
problems.
Thank you very much. Oh, incidentally, I
got some cards, if any of you guys would like
to talk to me at some point down the road, I'd
18 Florida
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really like to talk to some of you guys!
[Laughter and applause]
Fernando Cuevas: My name is Fernando
Cuevas from the Farm Labor United
Committee. I'm the First Vice President,
National FLOG, but I live here in Florida.
I've been calling Florida my home state for 33
years but I migrate every summer with the
workers to Ohio, to Michigan, to North
Carolina, wherever we need to go for my work
as an organizer. I want to be able to be active
with these regulations, directly with the
workers but with no interferences from the
workers or the growers. It seems to me that
every time there is an accident out in the
fields, the workers call upon myself or my
staff and the growers get angry. I don't think
you should get angry. I think that you should
be cooperative to see how we can work
together resolving the accident that happened.
Most of the time it is not intentional but it's
an accident and the workers are always in fear
of what to do. And one of the main reasons
they're in fear is they don't know what's
happening to them, they don't understand
what's happening to them.
A perfect example was in 1989, in the
Goodsome Farm, an accident that happened
here in Baalm, Florida. It was sad when I
interviewed some of those workers and them
telling me that they thought they were getting
sick because of the breakfast they had that
morning. They kept working until they
dropped. Other ones, because they had just
peeled an orange and started eating it, that's
why they thought they were feeling dizzy,
nausea, and almost ready to drop. And on
and on, more stories that they told me. I
went there because the workers called me the
night after the incident. The same night that
they called me, I heard it from the workers
that called me and I heard it from the media,
but I didn't hear anybody else trying to be
concerned about what to do for those
wprkers. Fortunately, the week before, the
Farm Labor Organizing Committee had put a
tour to bring Dr. Marion Moses to give some
orientation and training to the committee staff
to be able to deal with incidents like that.
Otherwise, I don't know what would have
happened if the local doctors and nurses
didn't know the symptoms of OP
[organophosphate] poisoning and what to do
to handle a severe incident and accident like
that. All of them ended up in intensive care.
Some of them are still permanently damaged.
But again, I don't see enough involvement in
looking out for those folks and seeing how
they can be helped.
Of that incident that happened, for the
first time I can say there's some data about it
(because when I first presented in 1986 on the
rule-making, the first thing that everybody
used to tell me on any panel was, "Fernando,
where's the data?"1). Well, there's some data
there—1989 incident on the Goodsome Farm
in Baalm, Florida—but what is being done by
EPA or the industries to help those workers
that are affected permanently because of that
accident? We have to start paying attention to
that so that all growers or all industries in the
state don't get the finger pointed that they're
all bad. They're not all bad. There's just a few
that are delinquent and not facing the
Florida 19
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responsibilities of the problems that create
accidents like that.
We need to work jointly to take care of
the accidents, to see to the needs of those
workers that got affected and damaged from
those kind of accidents. They'll be damaged
for the rest of their lives and some of them do
not understand why they got damaged because
they never got explained that those medidnas
[medicines] that they're putting in the crops
are very dangerous, very toxic, and you should
stay away from them. They should explain to
them, it's better for everybody. If you have a
gun loaded, laying around, you're going to tell
somebody, "Don't touch that gun because
that bullet can go off." Well, don't touch that
field of pesticides because that bullet of a
chemical is going to go off. And that's what
we need to tell those workers before they
enter into the field.
I would appreciate if we can work together
in making sure that all of those workers are
well aware of the dangers when there are toxic
chemicals used on any crop in the state. We
are from the state and we are the ones who
harvest the crops so we should be also the
ones that know what that label says. Not only
the ones that mix it and apply it but also the
ones that harvest the fruit should also be
aware of what that label says, of when it's re-
entry time or when it's safe to go in there, or
if we need protective clothing or not. We
should be told that. And we're more than
happy to facilitate and make sure, you let us
know and we'll communicate it to the workers
if for some reason you're not doing it. We
want to do that.
The other thing is that I got firsthand
experience in participating in some of the so-
called trainings that are being done because of
this 1995 regulation that says that all
farmworkers should be trained before they go
into the work site. It's a joke. To me, it's a
joke, some of those "trainings." They do it in
15 minutes, rushing through there and flipping
the chart at the same time. I grant you, they
are doing it in Spanish, but Castilliano
Espanol, and we don't understand a lot of the
words that they're using because it's not
typical Spanish that we speak out in the fields,
it's Castillian. That means it's the kind of
language that we don't even know what they're
talking about, a lot of those words. And the
other thing is that while they're flipping that
chart and throwing it out in Spanish,
somebody else is over there bothering me:
"What's your name, what's your address,
where did you come from?" So how can I
pay attention in a 15-minute session? I could
go on and on but she stood up, so thank you
very much.
Kevin Morgan: As I mentioned before, I
do appreciate the opportunity for you all to
come down and hear what we have to say.
My name is Kevin Morgan and I represent the
Florida Farm Bureau Federation. We are a
membership organization with 110,000
families here in the state of Florida. This is a
problem for a large portion of that
membership. During the 12 years that I've
been with Farm Bureau, few of the rules have
caused the magnitude of problems that this
one regulation has. Most of the people that
know me would say that I'm a pretty positive
20 Florida
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person, but when I sat down and tried to
follow your guidelines on implementation of
the thing, I really had problems finding
something positive with it because there's not
a lot of positives to this Worker Protection
Standard. I will say that the goal of protection
for workers, for farm families, is quite noble,
but as someone said, I think we had that
before, before these standards came into
effect.
As you well know—on to the
implementation part—when everything
happened, when the changes were made back
in '95, there was not material available. It was
quite a while before anything drifted down. I
know we worked with Marion, we worked
with Norm, we worked with EPA trying to
develop some materials. The Farm Bureau
was instrumental in coming up with some
things that I think helped. They didn't do as
much we would have liked to but we did have
some success with a record book, we had
some success with citrus duties and
responsibilities forms. We worked on a
•worker protection compliance kit and tried to
disburse a few of them and it's gone a long
way. And I think that you •would have to say
by the number of inspections that have been
done in this state recently (we learned that
back in June, I think)—the Department of
Agriculture completed a two and a half month
check where Dale and them did, I think, 500-
some inspections—there were almost 200
partial non-compliance areas. Of those, 100
of them were just basic "signage" problems
and real small things that were easily corrected
within a day or two. This is an excellent... the
farmers have done an outstanding job in
trying to comply with a very, very difficult
standard. But even though they've done this,
there's still some problems here.
One positive that I did see in the way
things are being done here in Florida is I'm
glad of the enforcement system that has been
put in place. In other words, I don't think
that agencies that are seeking compliance, they
shouldn't become addicted to a system that's
built around the immediate ladling of expenses
or excessive monetary penalties for non-
compliance. These agencies that issue these
types of high fines sometimes find themselves
in the position of negotiating the amounts of
settlements with the full knowledge that the
penalized parties are going to be apt to settle
because those same penalties are a lot cheaper
than going to court. And this current system
is working much better than that and I'm glad
that's the one that you all used.
Even though the farmers are making this
great effort to comply, they're not in
compliance yet. They still have a long way to
go and it has been said that maybe they can't—
there are some things in this standard that you
just cannot comply with. The complexity of
the standard has already been mentioned—the
141 pages, the 85, and you know, I hear that
every day! But when you want to get to the
real problem of it, you take that tremendous
volume of literature and then you mesh it with
about 200 different crops we grow here in
Florida, and each of those crops has a
different chemical and a management practice
that go along with it, when you try to mesh
those requirements with those crops, then you
got a lot more problems added on to it. Then
you go to the OSHA requirements and on and
Florida 21
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on and on. And although this is [just] one
thing, it's a lot. One of our real fears—and to
my knowledge this hasn't happened yet, but it
is a big concern of ours—is that the inability of
every farmer to comply with every aspect of
the Worker Protection Standard could provide
advocates with technicalities that could be
used to launch legal battles against growers.
And in doing so it would make attorneys
become the actual enforcement arm of the
Worker Protection Standard, and that's
something I don't think you intended to do
and that's something that I don't think we can
live with. Thank you.
Monty Knox: Good evening. Thanks for
allowing me to speak and thank you for
coming down here. My name is Monty Knox,
I am a greenhouse grower in the Orlando,
Florida area. I've got 300,000 square foot
under irrigation.
The Worker Protection Standard is a good
thing. It has brought the growers kicking and
screaming into the late twentieth century.
Thank you, we needed you! But, there are a
few things that the greenhouse is really having
a tremendous problem with. One of the
major ones is the re-entry periods for non-
pesticide nursery chemicals—things that are
not toxic. The re-entry period for the non-
pesticide nursery chemicals such as growth
regulators is basically my major problem in the
nursery, the total 24-hour re-entry period for
chemicals that, after drying, the only way to
get a negative reaction would be to ingest it by
mouth, or stick it in your eye, or stick in your
nose, or cut yourself and stick it on your skin
for a few minutes. These things, if we saw
someone doing that, they wouldn't be
employed very long. And we don't have
people doing that.
Unfortunately, one of the side effects of
the overly stringent REIs is something I'm
sure no one ever thought of, but here in
Florida it has reduced our spray times to after
3:00 on Friday afternoons when it cools off
here in the State of Florida to (during the
summer) 8:00—that's five hours. And we get
from sunup till about 10:30 or 11:00 on a
Saturday morning because of the 48 hours,
sometimes the 24 hours. And unfortunately,
one of the things that could possibly happen
(and I have seen happen in other nurseries) is
that they're doing all of their spraying in that
period of time, and if they're not careful
they're going create a toxic cocktail—not in the
spray release but in the actual greenhouse,
because the previous chemical that has been
sprayed could still be wet. And there are
some fungicides that cannot go out on a
spreader/mixer and if it hits that plant it's
going to burn it.
One of the other things that came up, as
•'soon as we got the Worker Protection
Standards, I handed them to our attorneys
and I said, "What is this going to do to our
hiring practices?" Because one of the codicils
in there is that we must communicate with our
employees and if we don't, we are liable for
any accidents. Well, I don't speak Korean, I
don't speak Creole. I'm lucky enough to have
a grower who does speak Creole but how can
I communicate with a person who doesn't
speak English? I could have signs in every
language on the face of the earth.
Unfortunately, it has really cramped my ability
22 Florida
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to hire immigrants. You know, it came down
to, "Who do we want to face?" Do we want
to face the EPA for Worker Protection
Standards or do we want to face the
Department of Justice? I appreciate the
opportunity to talk. Thank you.
Steve Rogers: I would like to welcome the
panel here to central Florida. We've had some
great weather and it's nice to be able to
participate in meetings like this when the
weather is nice, too. My name is Steve
Rogers and I wear three hats in the agricultural
industry: I'm a grower, I'm a crop consultant,
and I'm a scientist. I work in all of the areas
of harvesting and production with my family,
and I have been for about eight years or so, so
I'm familiar with the practical aspects of
dealing with the WPS logistics. I'm also on
the research staff at the University of Florida
where my publications and research are in the
area of micro encapsulation. So I also have
my hand in the academic aspects of all this.
But I'm primarily talking today as a crop
consultant. I handed out to you a recent
reprint of an article on plant disease which
describes the role of crop consultants in the
agricultural industry. Certainly there aren't
very many details to the aspects of our
business, but our goal is to work with both
producers and workers in helping the world
sustain a safer but affordable food supply.
When the Administration and the United
States Department of Agriculture approved
the National IPM Initiative, we found that was
a very positive thing in our industry. The key
to helping the world sustain these goods
through food supply is IPM, and for the
benefit of the people who might not
understand the acronym, IPM is integrated
pest management. The brief definition is: you
use pesticides only when they're needed. As a
crop consultant, I'm often called out to review
agricultural producers' production operations
and, critically, the decision process is
[Inaudible]... to use pesticides in the first place.
I think we would all agree that the best way to
reduce pesticide exposure is to not use
pesticides in the first place. But what we're
finding is that when growers are tied down
with regulatory and administrative issues,
they're being pulled out of the field. And if
you look on page 8 of my reprint, the core
foundation of a sound IPM decision process
is the survey—what's going on out there in the
crops, you got to know. What's happening is
that this survey is suffering because growers
are in their offices managing paper work. And
my point is this: as you deal with the logistics
of a WPS, please consider the IPM process
and please understand that farmers have to be
out in the fields a good part of the day to
make the right IPM decisions. Thank you
very much.
Pat MacMartin: Thank you. I appreciate
the opportunity to speak this evening. A
couple of the items that were listed or that
you wanted some input on: implementation
and how local and government agencies have
helped. The local county extension offices
throughout the state should be commended
for their assistance in helping growers get
education about this WPS. Also, Dr. Norm
Nesheim here probably helped more people
than any other single individual in the industry
Florida 23
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in spreading information about the law. Of
course, the interpretations of the law have
been very diverse. For example, one of the
best questions I ever hear is, "Where's the
entrance to a grove?" The implementation of
this law has been accomplished through trial
and error. Training is done mostly (from
what I understand) through the use of
[Inaudible]... First, we thought we were going
to do it with flip charts and the flip charts
kind of flopped. The posting requirements
are being done in the barns, in the crew
leader's van, and this type of thing.
The most difficult aspect in my opinion is
the decontamination of supplies and
maintaining that day-to-day—you know, where
is your soap and where your paper towels are
-they tend to disappear, the water frequently
you'll find stale in the containers that you put
it in. So that's something that's just a daily
maintenance that's hard to keep up with,
especially when you're talking about a 30-day
period in a field or in a grove.
Back to the training real quick. The
documentation of who's been trained for
employers in agriculture who have a stable
work force is not that big of an issue because
you document that they're trained once every
five years and you're pretty much done.
Although you repeat that once a year again,
the same thing for your hazard
communications, for the Right-to-Know law
and under the DAGS you do it every time you
apply a pesticide because, of course, the label
is the law. The other side of the coin is when
you have transient or migrant labor, I think
what you'll find the majority of the time is that
the employers, or the growers, the owners, are
relying on the crew leaders or the contract
labor foremen to supply them with
documentation that the employees have been
trained. Therefore, I think a lot of emphasis
needs to be placed on the migrant labor
contractors to ensure that they are complying
with their end of this law and not relying on
the growers to do that because the growers
are relying on them to that.
Also, as far as notification as to when
applications are made, I don't think that that's
a big issue because I feel that that's what's
being done anyway. So that's just putting in
writing that you will tell people when you've
•been spraying, you know, that's part of the law
I think has always been met.
The re-entry periods (as you've heard
many times and I've heard) are way out of
line. They're just not reasonable. Thank you
very much.
Jim Hinkle: Good evening. My name is
Jim Hinkle. I'm the Safety Director for a
family-owned citrus organization in central
Florida, in Highlandstown. I was also asked
tonight to represent the Highlands County
Citrus Growers Association which has over
100 growers in it. I can't say, in fact I can't say
it as well Charlie, Terry, Tommy, and the rest
of them have, the problems...! know this, I've
heard them from day one...I did write a letter
so I don't even want to go over the re-entries
and so forth. I would like to say a couple of
things, though. I'm a positive person also, and
a bright spot in this, and just to show that it
can be done, I believe I was the first or the
second company inspected in Highlands
County. I don't know why small growers
24 Florida
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usually draw people to them. Elaine was
there, spent an hour, and left with zero
problems found. And I feel that it should be
noted that it can be done. The problem is not
every organization is fortunate enough to have
a person hired as a full-time safety director
and I can tell you that as a person in that
position, I do spend a lot time. It is a full-
time job just trying to comply with all the rules
on what can and can't be done.
I would like to note, specifically, the
harvesting part. I think training our own
employees, our own handlers, and so forth
has never been a problem. Our own central
posting and all that has never been a problem.
But it's an absolute nightmare when it comes
to the harvesting. We have groves in three
counties that stretch (I'm guessing) 120 miles,
100 miles. We don't have the crews that come
to our barn everyday from without, or from
another county or something. The central
posting area is a real problem. I've even gone
so far as to put them on the bathrooms. I
figure everybody's going to go by there.
That's where I put my central posting. I'm
not sure if that's even legal, which brings up a
point: I don't know, except for it says "any
central position," that it really says where to
put the central posting, so that's where I put
mine.
The other area I had a little problem
understanding is decontamination. I've seen
people with five-gallon buckets and two-quart
containers, and bring paper towels, and a
partridge in a pear tree and all that, just the
bare necessities. And I've seen people with
$150.00 five-gallon containers with all kinds of
stuff put in the middle of them and so forth.
I'd like to see somebody really specify...!
mean, we know the amount, we know the
water amount, but when you're talking about
several people and so many gallons a person,
I don't think anybody's really visualizing where
you put that, or how you put that. I would
like to see a little more emphasis put on the
decontamination area.
The only other thing that I really had a
question about was the cost involved. Is it
five minutes already? Well, maybe I should
run for politics, I thought this was a tough
job. [Laughter] The cost: A lot of people
can't afford it. I mean, we spent $7000 on
computers, computer programs, videos,
everything, I mean everything, decontam-
ination kits. And I don't know whether every
organization can afford to spend $7,000. So
I'd like to see maybe some help in that area.
Thanks again for coming. I wish that there
were more people from Highlands County
here. Thank you.
Silvester Rodriguez: My name is Silvester
Rodriguez. I'm what they call here in Florida
a crew leader, a citrus crew leader. My
problem is not pesticides, or any other thing
like that. With the crew leaders, the problem
is faulty equipment. The company that I work
for has a lot of faulty equipment. It's a lot like
pesticides, you know, a lot of smoke—you
know what they call in citrus the "fruit
loader." This company I work for has got a
lot of problems with its equipment and it's
killing me. It's a lot of smoke from the pipes
and it's not any help not to stop all day when
I'm out there driving that thing. Now, how
come we don't get any protection or we don't
Florida 25
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get any help from the EPA when it comes to
that? I really wish we would for the future.
But that's about all I got to say. I wish we
could get some kind of help. A lot of people
they just don't want to talk about that, they
just don't want to worry about it. I do. That's
about all I got to say. I wish we could get
some action on this matter. Thanks a lot.
Israel Baez: Good evening. First of all, I'd
like to welcome you all to central Florida. I'm
out of south Florida. The weather's been a
little bit prettier than in south Florida. I'm
Israel Baez and I'm manager of labor relations
for Duda and Sons, a family-owned
agricultural company that probably employs
over 3,000 seasonal employees to cultivate,
not just cultivate, to harvest our vegetable and
citrus crops. And like Mr. Velazquez stated
earlier, I think people are the main part of our
business and the Duda family like many other
agricultural families have known that, and
safety practices and procedures were probably
in place prior to the WPS coming into effect
in 1995. Realistically, with the experience that
I've had in the 19 years that I've been with
Duda, we've had zero accidents that I know of
that have been chemically-related.
Now what has WPS done to a company
like Duda? To me, it's given me a lot of gray
hairs. I used to have jet black hair and a nice
black beard and it's changed—not just WPS,
but many of the other regulations. But what's
it's done is changed a lot of the focus of our
department in Personnel Human Resources to
become more trainers, not only with our field
workers, but also with our supervisors. It's
been a major task for a company our size to
make sure that we stay in compliance, not
only with in-house training, but with training
that's been provided by IFAS, FFVA, and
many of the other associations. But,
fortunately, Duda is large enough to be able to
realize or to afford a support staff. I'm not
just talking about myself, there's about four or
five like me—there's training directors, safety
directors, and an R&D department that's quite
large and quite expensive. Unfortunately, the
smaller growers don't have that luxury or
cannot afford it. And to a point, I don't know
how much longer Ed Duda and Sons will be
able to afford to keep on paying our salaries as
a support staff to keep up with standard
compliance. But we have managed to do a
good job, a fair job, primarily where worker
safety comes into play. Like any other
organization, you come through there with a
fine-tooth comb and I'm sure you're going to
find some minor violations. It's impossible
for anybody to be 100 percent clean. You
know, like the OSHA inspector comes in to
inspect our housing, he says, "If I'm going to
write you up because you got a little tear in
your screen and that's the only thing I can
find wrong, they think I'm not doing my job."
In managing the WPS, we are experiencing
some problems. The training of the workers
has not been too serious of a problem because
most of our operations are centered at a
personnel office in their location. We've been
fortunate enough to not have a lot of
contractors that develop a lot of monitoring
problems in making sure that the people that
work with them are properly trained. But
those contractors that we do have, they go
through services that are provided by FFVA
26 Florida
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to make sure that their people are properly
trained.
The training of the mixer/loaders has
been in existence for years and we've been
doing that as far back as I can remember. The
WPS was not really needed for that—the
safekeeping of the employees. Again, larger
companies, larger growers have always had the
employees' safety in mind. The posting
requirements, that's simple, because like the
gentleman who spoke before said, the best
place to post any information at all in the field
in on the portable toilets. Even though we
have centrally located bulletin boards, we also
post them in the "little white offices" that you
see out in the field.
The decontamination creates a major
nightmare. An example is the location where
my office, where my desk is located in
Belleglade, we peak out at about 800 to 1,000
seasonal workers. You know, decontam-
ination, to provide that for that number of
people for a 30-day period—that realistically
has not been proven to be needed because
maybe an incident took place in California.
You know, it hasn't happened. Our records
show that. It is a nightmare.
The other nightmare is required posting of
the pesticides that are used on a daily basis on
the crops. I don't know how many of you all
are familiar with vegetable crops. Vegetable
crops require numerous sprays. And, some
crops are not entered by any people until
ready to be harvested, but we have to post it.
In Belleglade, we have a room that's
designated because we have so many crops—
we got radishes, celery, all your leaf items,
corn, sugarcane, it takes a room to put the
required posting.
And, oops my time's up—that's that Latin
blood in me, I like to talk. But one of the
things that realistically (to cut the moment
short) needs to be looked at and changed is
the paper trail that WPS has created. The
gentleman before spoke about the time that it
takes supervision to do this paper work—and
it's not only with WPS, it's many other
regulations that have to do with a lot of paper
work—that keeps them out of the fields. The
other thing is re-entry periods. Re-entry
periods are a nightmare when it comes to
perishable commodities such as vegetables
they sell in Florida where Mother Nature is
very unpredictable and there are times when
you have to reenter a field after a two-inch
rain, or three days later you got to go in there
and spray it, maybe you have to send a weed
crew. You know, I think the practical side is
using common sense. And, most of the
growers that I've dealt with in my 19 years of
experience in agriculture do have that kind of
common sense... [Taping suspended
momentarily]...the right to go in and keeping
the people out when the conditions are not
safe enough. Again, I would like to thank you
all for taking you all's time to meet with us and
I look forward to talking to you all again.
Dr. Marion Fuller: We're going to be
taking a short break, but before we do Lynn
Goldman would like to have the opportunity
to say a few things here first.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I think we still have
some 20 people who are going to speak and
Florida 27
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so I would ask all of you to stick around if you
can. I think that this is an opportunity. What
I'm seeing here is, not only for those of us at
EPA and the state Agriculture Department to
hear from all of you, but also for some of you
to hear from each other and hopefully some
of the things that you're hearing are new and
as informative to all of you as they are to us.
There were a few specific things that I
wanted to respond to that were raised and,
you know, instead of waiting until the very,
very end to respond to everything, I thought
I might take this opportunity. One is, in
terms of what I believe the farmers need to
know in order to be able to implement the
Worker Protection Standard (and it certainly
isn't all of those 446 pages): I don't have
expectations that farmers will have read and
memorized all of those pages. There will not
be a quiz at the end of this meeting on those
pages! But you do need to understand that we
have a tension between—I think we heard
some of it here today—on the one hand,
wanting to put in all on a page (which we have
done, we have the one-page version) and on
the other hand, a lot of people (and
sometimes even their attorneys) wanting the
specific details.
My approach to this is the one-page-
version, the core of it, and using common
sense. We shouldn't have to write interpretive
guidance that says, yes, you can put it on the
door of the bathroom if that's a central
location. Of course, being a regulatory agency
we could specify exactly what kind of portable
toilet—if it's a white one, if it's a yellow one,
you know we could get into infinite detail on
this. And there may be people who have
questions like that for us.
The interpretive guidance that we put out
was simply in response to those kinds of
questions that we got which are legitimate
questions, and because many of you do have
attorneys who are going to say, "You need to
clarify this," and we do consider it our job to
do that. But just because we've done that
doesn't mean that everybody else is obligated
to read through all of that and memorize it.
That's something that I just wanted to make
clear to all of you, that although I think it is
our job to give that clarification, it is not my
expectation that those are things that will be
read and memorized by everybody. It should
just be viewed as a tool for you—if you have a
question, you can look it up and get the
answer. So if that is helpful at all—I'd hope
that it would be.
I would say that I do think that in this
area, along with so many of the things that we
do, that it is the excessive reliance on the law
and the whole system and a lack of reliance on
common sense that has brought us to some of
the places that we are today. We do not want
to be a part of encouraging that. I think that
that has been one of the problems in our
system. The other issue that has come up that
is very much related is the issue of liability.
The question was raised by several people
that, regardless of the circumstances, even if
you don't have any control over the people
that are using the pesticides, the truth is
strictly, legally, in the strictest, legal
interpretation of the law, everybody with an
interest—the owner, the contractors, and so
forth—is liable. However, it's also true that
28 Florida
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EPA's enforcement policy (and I know the
philosophy of the State of Florida, because
I've talked to these folks) is that the people
who we are interested in are the people who
actually have control over how the pesticide is
used, and not only who are legally responsible,
but are responsible in fact. Those are the
people we are interested in working with to
ensure compliance. And those are the people
who we will be interested in also making sure
that there is enforcement if they are failing to
do their job, which, thank goodness, is a rarity.
Someone raised the issue of the United
States and our trading partners and on that
issue I think all of you do need to pay
attention to that—hold our feet to the fire on
the agreements that we have made. We made
some very strong agreements under the
NAFTA. There are side agreements on labor
and side agreements on the environment, but
I will tell you that the way the government
works, that if you're interested in making sure
the side agreements are strictly adhered to,
you need to pay attention to it. The
government does respond to the "squeaky
wheel" in the system and there are those who
would push that we not very strictly comply
with those. There needs to be people who are
making sure we are accountable to them. My
personal belief is that the GATT is not as
strong as it could have been in this area.
There are some provisions in the GATT that
could serve as leverage but there was also a
commitment to move forward in this area by
all of the countries and that's another place
that the United States government and other
governments are going to need to be held
accountable to the agreements that we all
made when we completed the GATT.
: I heard one idea (and I realize that I'm
jumping from topic to topic) but I heard one
idea and I thought it was a great idea. It was
the idea of the EPA, the Department of
Labor, and the USDA getting together to look
at the regulations that we all have created—the
standards that we have created, the paperwork
burden that we have created for the farmers,
and I think this is an excellent idea. I think
the time has come. And, I also think that this
is an idea that the President, President Clinton
and the Vice-President, with the reinventing
government initiative, would really like. I
guess I should say that in our second term,
this wouldLhe a good one for us to address. It
would be right in line with some of the other
things that we have been doing. We have
been working with the Department of Labor
on the asbestos regulations and it is the same
kind of issue where the same people are
impinged upon by the DOL regulations and
our regulations. And we really can bring them
together and we're working with them to do
that. I think we ought to be able to do that
with the farming issue as well.
In closing before the break, I want to
reiterate how much I appreciate all of you
being here tonight. I know that you've taken
time away from your families and work day
and you could have been doing a lot of other
different things. I am learning a lot and I'm
looking forward to the things that we're going
to hear in the second half of this. I am
hearing, or beginning to hear, something
which is very exciting to me, which is a
dialogue, not only between us and you, but
Florida 29
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perhaps between some of you. I actually
heard things in common between people in
this room who I thought would be more at
odds with each other. You know, the
farmworkers, the farmers, the industry, the
pesticide industry, you all have a prominent
interest in a healthy and vibrant agricultural
economy, safe work places and reducing
liability, and safe foods. I am very hopeful
that maybe one result of the discussion that
we're having here tonight is that we can all
identify that common ground and continue to
work together.
So, we need to be back here in what—10
minutes? Ten minutes if we can do that.
Take a stretch. Thank you all.
[10 minute break]
Pr. Marion Fuller: OK. To send your
written comments to EPA, it's EPA (7506 C),
401 M Street SW, Washington, DC, 20460.
Address your comments to Public Docket
#OPP-00427. And, if anybody needs that
again, it will be available here at the table.
Andrew Esposito: I just want to mention
a few points that are somewhat bothersome to
us. The first one is the labels. We try to
teach, or tell, our handlers that the label is the
law—don't just read the label but know the
label (although some of the labels could be
written better). This one comes from PPE
provisions. We had one recently where a few
owners familiar with the closed
systems...[Inaudible]... decides what we're
supposed to have and then it goes on to say,
"If it's an enclosed system then the PPE
requirements are reduced." And I've done
this annually-you have to go to the office, get
the book, get a copy of it and show the
handler what these provisions are, and to me
if it could just be on the label to begin with..!
don't see the reason it's set up the way it is. It
makes it awfully confusing for a lot of people.
The second thing: oral notification. I see
some problems with the actual enforcement
of that or compliance where [Inaudible]...
myself have gotten on a bus at a pick-up
point, ridden with the crew; when the bus
stops, the crew leader reads information about
the price, productivity, production, and the
pesticides. Now, whoever gets off the
bus...Two to three hours later, I'll go back and
start asking people, "What did they tell you?
What were we told before we got off the
bus?" "Well, I don't know. Well, I was told
$7.00 a tub." "What else?" "Well, I don't
remember, I wasn't paying attention." I mean,
you have a situation where an inspector comes
in—now this is what I worry about—where
we've done everything else and he asks those
questions of people and they don't remember
anything about pesticides. Well, we told them,
but were they notified or were they not
notified? Are we going to be fined because
there's two or three people out of 30 or 40
that didn't hear the notification? I mean, were
they notified? I don't know. I never told
them, they didn't hear, or maybe they were
notified. It's something that bothers me and
it hasn't happened yet but I can just see it
occurring if you had a very zealous or very
picky inspector. And I just don't think if we
30 Florida
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do everything else right that we should be held
accountable for that.
One last thing. We feel that some of the
30-day decontamination requirements can be
very burdensome. In our situation, we have
over 10,000 acres of groves, we'll have our
central location, we'll have a map, we'll have
this and that, we'll have all kinds of
particularities, but if you're not the average
worker you may have some trouble picking
which block out of that 10,000 in that
particular area has been sprayed. It can be
rather burdensome. And after the KEI is over
and the signs are taken down, well, which one
out of all of those blocks has actually been
treated? It can be somewhat burdensome and
very difficult to understand for the average
worker. That's all I think I wanted to say.
Miguel Montalvo: I'm an attorney with
Florida Rural Legal Services and I just want
talk about the fact that we are having a
problem with pesticides enforcement in
Florida even though there are not a lot of
cases reported. I see people in my office
come and in and say that they were exposed
to pesticides and they suffered all of the
symptoms clearly of pesticides. But most of
the time, by the time that they go to my
office, usually most of their sickness seems to
have gone.
I remember before I was in this business
I was a farmworker and I used to pick
tomatoes. We would pick them during the
day and at night we'd have this rash like when
you have food poisoning and then in the
morning it was gone. I heard a farmer last
week saying that the condition is caused by
some fluid in the plant and it causes the rash
when it gets together this way, but the fact of
the matter is that, through my own personal
experience, I notice that when the plane was
spraying near us in the fields we used to suffer
the symptoms, or when the fields were
actually wet with pesticides. So, the farmers
follow the rules and everything—probably
they're not liable for the chemicals because
they follow the rules and everything. The
problem is I'm talking about obvious
violations. So we have problems in some
areas.
I have problems filing my cases on
pesticides because it's very difficult to prove it
in court, because by the time we go to court
it's not like you had an accident where you
have the scars, or a missing arm, or whatever.
I'm here to suggest that maybe we should do
like they do in California. In California, even
the doctors know who has been exposed to
pesticides and we know there's some
mandatory requirement that they report these
cases. The law doesn't have to fight—I mean,
in California if they don't do that, if they don't
report it, they're criminally liable. But not in
Florida, and we would like to have something
like that. Florida will have more cases
reported because compared to California
there's four or five here in Florida and
thousands of them in California even though
we're using as many, or maybe as much,
pesticide as they use. The way people talk,
when the workers come and tell me that they
have problems, they talk a lot about being in
the fields—those applying the pesticides,
tractors with no coverings, spraying the fields,
all the wind going—they get completely wet,
Florida 31
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completely wet with pesticides. And a lot of
the workers I know don't have documents and
they don't want to say anything because
they're afraid of Immigration. But that's what
I want to say.
I was reading some material—they said that
they were testing this pesticide and they had
400 tests to test how the pesticides affected
the leaf or the plant, but they didn't have a
single test to see how they affect the
farmworker, or the one who picked the fruit,
or the one who applied the pesticide. Thank
you.
Sharon Bigger: Good evening. I'd like to
welcome you all to central Florida again. I'm
not from Florida, I work with an organization
called East Coast Migrant Health Project. We
are an organization committed to improving
the health of migrant farmworkers and I
might say that we're called East Coast Migrant
Health Project because we work with
farmworkers and we, ourselves, are migrant as
well. For example, last season I spent in
South Carolina, and I'm here for the orange
season, and next season I'll go somewhere else
up north. I see a great difference between the
application of the Worker Protection Standard
in South Carolina as compared to Florida. In
South Carolina I spoke with crew leaders and
mentioned the words "soap and water" and
they said, "No, no, no one's going to use it,
why should we put it out there?" And when
I talked to the workers they said, "What?
Washing hands?" When I came to Florida, as
I drove down the roads, I saw toilets (porta-
johns) in the fields and I saw water on the
back of the trucks. I said, "Wonderful, this is
great." And as I go on learning and talking
with farmworkers and crew leaders and
growers as well, I'm learning more about the
acceptance of the Worker Protection Standard
and its acceptance here in Florida.
As I said, I work with an organization
called East Coast Migrant Health Project and
our board of directors is made up of
farmworkers, of growers, of health
professionals, and of independent citizens.
And I guess that would be my main point or
suggestion to growers (small growers and large
growers): to include farmworkers, as well as
growers, as well as crew leaders in the process
of health education, in the process of teaching
health education better. Acknowledge that
farmworkers' experiences are valid, that their
experiences with pesticides are true and real,
and also that the growers have an interest to
maintain as well. I think the growers—like
someone said before—the growers and the
farmworkers pretty much have the same
interests: protection as well as profit. I think
we need to keep both of those in mind.
I guess what I'm suggesting to EPA is
creating an inspection evaluation tool of the
educational process because as of now, as
some people said, we started with flip charts
and they flopped and now we're on to the
video. And I talk with people in Florida:
"Yeah, yeah, I've seen the video. Don't talk to
me anymore about it." But what I would
suggest is that we create an inspection
evaluation tool to see if this is really effective.
'Because it's very common that I'll talk to a
farmworker [for whom] itching is a daily fact
of life. Skin itching is a fact, so much so that
it's almost not even an issue anymore.
32 Florida
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Random rashes are just a fact of life for
farmworkers, from what I have learned, from
what I have seen. So my main suggestion to
EPA would be to create an effective
evaluation tool on the educational process for
teaching the Worker Protection Standard, and
to the companies to include everybody in the
process of teaching and protecting. Because
it should not just be the grower's
responsibility, it should not just be the
farmworker's responsibility. I think it needs
to be all of our responsibility in protecting one
another. Thank you.
Roman Rodriguez: Buenos noches. I'm
very concerned about the time. Some of our
brothers and sisters are here who only
understand one language so I don't know how
long I'm going to have, but I really would like
to speak in Spanish for them. [Speaking in
Spanish with English interpreter]: He's going
to talk in Spanish but he also wants some time
for the translation. He has been working for
at least 12 years on the coast. He has followed
all of the harvestings. He is the coordinator
here in Florida of the Worker Association for
Florida. A coordinator who not only has
experience as a new coordinator but also as a
worker. He had been...[Interpreter is
interrupted by Roman Rodriguez who
continues]:]
About six months ago, I had a family
experience where my mom and my sister were
so swollen, coming running from the fields,
and they were intoxicated from the chemicals.
And that's just one of the ones that I had in
my family. But that's just to tell you that I had
that experience in my hands. When I'm
talking about pesticides, I might not be able
to prove it with papers and numbers and all of
that, but I can tell you how it feels to be in the
field and feel the pressure of pesticides.
[Speaking in Spanish with English
interpreter]: As coordinator, one of my
responsibilities is to coordinate the trainings.
We are being approved by EPA as trainers. I,
myself, am a master trainer so I can train
trainers to train the workers. And we have
come across all different kinds of trainings.
There are trainings that are not as effective as
the ones-well, I don't like to talk about me as
an example, but I have seen a big difference
between the trainings that we give and the
trainings that are given around by video.
Even though some of them are well-explained
and well-meaning, some of them are even in
Spanish, but as the brother here was saying,
some of the words are not like the Mexicans,
like the Puerto Ricans use. Even though
you've been sitting there for the 15, 20
minutes, as long as the training takes, then you
don't get as much. One of the things that you
don't get is where to comply with the law—
who is going to be responsible, you don't have
nobody to report to, the workers to file
complaints to follow-up on things that are
happening.
. I have heard and I've seen some of the
cards that are not EPA exactly, the EPA
official cards. There are some places where
the official cards have been sold, so this isn't
any joke. I mean, we are not concerned about
giving the people the card. To me, myself, I
don't care to give you the card or not, what I
care, or our main concern, is that people learn.
Florida 33
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Another thing that we have faced, and it is
a very sad experience myself: I have taken
some workers to the doctors and health
providers and different places. And one of
the brothers was saying before (I think
Miguel) that even though some doctors are
willing to help, they don't have any
experience. They honestly tell you, "You
came to the wrong person. Even if I wanted
to help, I can't help, I cannot help." On the
other hand, I think six cases last year were
reported to Tallahassee. I have seen six cases
within a single day. Horrible.
OK, about the accidents. As an
experience, I really haven't seen a good case
where an accident happened and a good
follow-up was done. I've been part of various
complaints and most of those complaints I
haven't seen a good response from DACS. It
was a big case in [Inaudible] ...on a big ranch
where over 200 workers were undirected.
They were using the tractors and the air was
blowing the pesticides and suddenly the
people started bleeding and falling down,
passing away, and nothing was done. Rural
Legal Services complained about it and—I
don't have the facts right here with me-but it
was a joke. Even though it was many people
falling down in fields as they were spraying, I
believe they said they could not prove it
because the workers didn't know what kind of
chemicals they were exposed to. Plus, nobody
knows, you know, they get confused who has
the responsibility—should they follow the
contractor, crew leader, or the farmer?
So one of the things we would really like
to ask you to turn attention to is where we
complain. I myself put in a set of complaints
on a few companies from Broward County
and a representative from the state came and
talked to me. I was very upset when I heard
what he had to say to me. And I have those
documents, I have this letter here telling me
the requirements for a farmworker to file a
complaint. He wanted to get a picture (and I
have it in writing here), he wanted to get a
picture of who complained, he wanted to get
an affidavit, he wanted to get a state legal ID,
and I think that's it. That's enough! Is this
really willing to help? You know I wasn't
scared, I was very upset. So it helped, I wrote
a letter later on and I very strongly disagreed
and it did help. Now, you know, we're
working better.
But how it helps to have these laws if we
have to really face these people, to force them
to do the job? This is not human for people
to be exposed to chemicals. We're not asking
anybody not to use chemicals, but what we're
asking them is to use them properly. That's all
:we're asking for, that's all I have to say.
Thanks for the time you allowed me to be a
translator.
Luckner Millien: Hi, my name is Luckner
Millien and I'm representing the Farm Worker
Association. I'm coming from Broward
County. It's about three hours and a half
driving to here and one thing that I would like
to suggest is that the next time you have
something like this make it for, especially for,
Broward County. In Broward County, there
are over 7,000 farmworkers and they are very
interested in hearing all these opinions that
everybody is giving.
34 Florida
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I think the Worker Protection Standard is
a good thing. It's something that farmworkers
have been asking for many years. And one
thing that I'm talking about is Right-to-Know
pesticides. It's helping farmworkers to be
concerned more about pesticides. But I
would like to make a specific issue. I don't
know if the Labor Department and the
Agriculture Department are here or not. The
reason I'm saying this is because there are
many regulations that are not in effect. For
example, in Broward County it's hard for us to
see as farmworkers the posted warning signs
when...|Tnaudible] And I believe that the
farmworkers aren't the only ones who are
having contact with pesticides every day, every
single minute and every single hour until they
finish the day of work. In many companies
we don't see the access to central information
from the companies. And if there is this
access to information, the growers will not tell
the farmworkers what is this information.
Related to the re-entry times, we feel that
there have been violations, especially with the
small growers. Why? Because sometimes they
have small acres, or a farm, or other fruits, and
they apply the chemicals for one day and the
next day the farmworkers are picking these
fruits. In Broward County it's very normal to
see, especially in the community where it is
very easy to see, many farmworkers with
swollen hands. Roman, my friend Roman,
was telling you about pesticide symptoms.
There are a lot of farmworkers that have been
working for over 50 years and right now we
can identify very easily farmworkers with long
term symptoms, as he was mentioning.
For me it's a new word—decontamination
sites. We don't know if they will exist or not.
It's something that I haven't seen yet, a
decontamination site in Broward County. I
believe that, not only as Roman was
mentioning, we are registered to be a pesticide
training site by EPA, and believe more in
safety education—as Fernando Cuevas and
Roman Rodriguez mentioned, the Spanish is
different from the workers.' Sometimes there
are many of them that don't know how to
read. A lot of pesticide training is given to the
farmworkers in English and they don't know
how to read it, and writing in Spanish is hard
for them too, and so is to understand English.
The solution that many of the trainers have
given to farmworkers on pesticides, they just
put a video in English and that's it—they don't
even ask questions of the farmworkers, they
don't even ask how the farmworkers are
feeling about the symptoms. So I feel there
has to be special training for the growers and
crew leaders—they are the ones who are
dealing with farmworkers and they have to
have a more specialized training so they can
do more education about pesticides.
: There is much lack of enforcement about
this regulation, so I would like to see the
Labor Department deal better with this
Worker Protection Standard regulation. I
hope they can go to Broward County. We
have a lot of documenting on companies, we
could show it to them so they could go in and
start doing their job. Thank you, and excuse
; my English.
Cruz Cabrera: Good evening, everybody.
Welcome to Florida. My name is Cruz
Florida 35
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Cabrera and I work for the Farm Workers
Association in Florida. And before I went to
work for the Farm Workers Association I
used to work in the fields doing all kinds of
work-picking oranges, vegetables, and so
forth. I used to work for two different places
in this country. This time I want to tell
something about my work in Apopka. I call
myself a community worker because I work
with the community. In Apopka, I am also
the employer because I sometimes try to
convince the employees to receive our
pesticide training and sometimes they are
afraid to receive it because they don't want to
lose their job. And when I talk to employers
I receive a lot of complaints. These are their
complaints, sometimes they are the appliers—
they apply pesticides without license, without
understanding the idiom, the English.
So my point is the employers are really
sending the employees directly to danger
because they don't know why to apply it, and
they don't know for what it is, how bad it can
be, and how it can affect their health. And I
noticed times when I tried to talk to
employers about offering our pesticide
training to the workers, they said, "I gave
some information to my employees." So they
don't know what I say, what I am doing, but
I didn't see any sign in their label and their
nursery to say why it is that way, a sign that
says why apply this kind of chemical in this
area. I did not see nothing like that. So really
I think that from EPA we need more
enforcement in those areas because I noticed
times when there were some employers who
told me, "I don't know nothing about EPA."
I think they ought to know because they are
the persons who have the workers. There is
nothing wrong to try to give the pesticide
training to labor workers because that helps
the employees and that helps the employers,
too. The worker can work safely and without
problems.
Another tough situation I used to find is
someone from my company, or as we say in
Spanish, my co-workers, sometimes...[Taping
suspended while tape was changed]...and they
continued with the same symptoms because I
know some people cannot breathe very good
because their noses are covered. I know some
people who have problems with swelling
when they go to their work. And that is
because of the pesticides. But also, I guess
some of them don't know about pesticides.
So I think one of the things we need to tell
the doctors is how to detect the pesticide
symptoms, so when one worker goes to see
the doctor, they can find if this is caused by a
different disease or caused by pesticides. And
we need some lawyers too, because we need
some lawyers to cover these cases. Some
people, they lose their jobs, they cannot work,
and they don't have unemployment, they
don't have any kind of benefits. So what can
we do? That is my worry. We need to be
more .qareful in these situations because it
makes me sad when I try to teach the people
about pesticides, how to be safe, and then
when they have problems and they come to
rne..,really, there is not a lot of help I can offer
to them- So, that is all I can say. I don't have
a lot of English to speak because I only use a
little of it. So that is one part of my methods
on this, so thank you very much.
36 Florida
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Orlando Yanez [Speaking in Spanish with
English interpreter]: My name is Orlando
Yanez. I'm coming from Dade county. This
is a very long and hard trip to do. We have a
very big interest in giving our opinions with
this matter. For the farmworkers, ourselves,
me implementation of WPS is very important.
It's very important for us. Some people might
say that this is working for us. It's not
working. I want to mention, a couple of
comments, specific examples, for the reason
that I'm saying this.
I know places where the bottles, the
containers, of pesticides are being burned in
the open air. And since we are working and
living very close to these places, the smoke is
coming all over our places. I myself live in
this town where over 200 families live, which
is very close to this place where they use
airplanes to apply the chemicals. They often
burn the containers, so when the air is
blowing through our community, it smells
very bad, because all of the containers are
burning and it comes to our houses. As a
worker I have the experience of going to these
public, portable toilets. As a worker and an
organizer, I have the experience of feeling the
symptoms, or what it feels like, of going to
these restrooms that haven't been cleaned for
more than a week.
Another joke that I found is that some of
the farmers that are supposed to be
responsible to train their workers, instead of
training them, they force them to be trained
somewhere. If they don't get trained, they
deduct more than one dollar out of their
paycheck-$1.25/hour is deducted from the
worker that doesn't get trained. A clear
example is on this ranch where the workers
who are getting trained are getting $5.25, while
the others who aren't being trained are getting
$1.35 less.
To explain this, you have to believe that
the farmers don't really understand that they
can really get into a big problem because they
could really kill people. In many cases
(especially the avocados and the mangos)
there have been cases where [Inaudible] ...has
been picking and has been sprayed directly
with chemicals, without knowing what kind of
chemicals. I was mentioning those two types
of crops, but you could see it on all the
different crops—squash, tomatoes, chili, hot
pepper. To mention one of the cases that
happened in the last four months, where 10
workers were exposed to chemicals, all of
them got symptoms but one of them died.
The results from the doctor were that he died
from a heart attack or something. Well, I
would say that we cannot prove that but it was
scary, very scary. For us, there are so many
problems and we could go on and on all night
long. We really hope that by doing this the
laws could be really enforced. A very good
night to all of you.
Tirso Moreno: All of us who work at the
organization, we have experience as
farmworkers. I guess that's one of the things
that makes us effective in what we're doing. I
worked from 1971 to 1983 full-time as a
farmworker, picking many fruits and
vegetables. My family and my wife still work
in an orchard. After we stopped picking fruit,
she worked for nine years for [Inaudible] and
Sons. Me and my wife, we had experiences
Florida 37
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that were the effect of pesticides which we did
not recognke right away until years later. And
doctors and people did not tell us nothing
until years later when we could do nothing. It
is also very hard to cope—the relationship
between the pesticides and the dangerous
health problems. But we had a lot of people
who suffered. As my co-workers who were
talking about people who suffered immediate
symptoms, or immediate problems, people
who truly got chronic health problems. I
witness a lot of that in our community and I
get a lot of reports from my co-workers about
what's happening in the fields, what's
happening to our people.
So, I just want to say that I think that
having the Worker Protection Standard is
progress. I think it's good. We have a lot to
improve on those Worker Protection
Standards. It will take a long time to get them
improved. And I mean, I think it's good. I
think probably it's going to take a long time
also to put them in practice. They're not
completely good. There are improvements
and you know what those improvements are.
And we point out those things that make the
Worker Protection Standard not effective
enough. In putting them to practice, I know
it's going to take time. I think we need
collaboration from the employers, especially
the employers' agents such as crew leaders,
labor contractors. I think the heads of the
agricultural companies—what they say is one
thing and what they're representing because
their agents are saying it, is another thing.
When we bring a case to the company, what
we're saying, and what workers say, and what
the company agent is saying—they go by what
the company agent is saying. That's very true.
It's their agent, it's their people, and they go
by what they're saying. They don't believe in
the workers and that is the problem.
And I think practice has to change. The
crew leaders and the labor contractors have to
help. They have to tell the workers of the
dangers of the pesticides, the danger of
exposure, and the consequences in the time
after the exposure. If they don't start saying
that to the workers, it's going to be very hard.
It doesn't matter how much we tell them. I
mean, if they don't do it, we're going to make
complaints. I think it's important to make
complaints and I think it's important that
EPA, that the Department of Agriculture, that
the Department of Labor go and do
inspections. We have to work on some
problems that we had in terms of having
inspections because, as you know, some of the
vegetable workers move around too much,
and then by the time the inspectors come it's
very hard to find proof of what has happened.
So I don't know how we're going to work
those problems but we have to work those
problems because otherwise it's not going to
be possible to take care of the inspections or
to enforce the regulation.
We do trainings. We do a lot of trainings.
And I give credit to my co-workers for doing
good, effective trainings. Out of those
trainings we get people's information so we
can put complaints. I think it's very hard for
workers to protect themselves. First, they
don't know...if they're not well-trained, they're
not going to recognize the violations that are
there. First, they have to be trained. Second,
somebody else has to make the complaint for
38 Florida
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them. It's not easy for them to complain, they
are afraid of the company agents, and I've
been a worker and I know how you feel to put
in danger a job that you need to support your
family. So we are making complaints. I'm not
afraid to say it, especially with those employers
who are not helping in enforcing the WPS,
we're going to have to make complaints.
The last thing I want to say is that we have
applied for funding from the original office of
EPA to do education (and that education is a
form of training) and we have been denied
funding. The funding, I think is for
environmental justice purposes and I want you
to think it out, because we need more money
so we can do more work. We can prove that
the work we're doing is effective work. So, I
think we qualify. I don't know where the
funding is going— to rich and poor, but I
think the farmworkers also have problem of
environmental justice because we are what
people call a "minority" and we have
environmental problems at work. Thank you.
Sergio Duran [Speaking in Spanish with
English interpreter]: A good night to
everyone and my name is Sergio Duran (and
he has asked me to be his helper). I am
coming from Homestead, Florida—it's just
about a five-hour drive. This is a big issue so
I'm hoping that whatever I speak will be
heard. I have been trained and I have seen
many things that are not the way they are
supposed to be—the way I was trained—they
are not legal. Many times when we are
working with the tomatoes, the sprayers come
in and spray us without asking us to leave the
place. It's not only that they spray it on
directly, but we have to keep having contact
with the plants. I know about re-entry time
and nothing is being done about that. All of
them, they don't announce anything at all
when they apply chemicals.
On one of these occasions, one of my co-
workers started feeling diarrhea, sweating, and
stomach ache a lot and the workers said that
it was related. So when the crew leader asked
the farmer to take this person to the doctor,
that it was the farmer's responsibility, his
response was, "You should go to a particular
doctor, I shouldn't have anything to do with
it, it's not related to the chemicals." Being
afraid of losing our job, we sort of gained
confidence among ourselves and we told the
farmer that he had to do something about
this, knowing that he could fire us. We
pushed him that he had to take this person to
the doctor. In the beginning, he started
laughing at us, saying that he had enough
money to erase us from the earth.
Afterwards, I think he started really thinking
about the words that we told him and he sent
a crew leader to look for this person, finally to
take this person to the farmer's doctor. And
the diagnosis from this doctor was saying,
"Yeah, the crew was trying to catch this
person."
I would really like to see more people
involved and coming to our area of
Homestead—to check people for not being
trained and for those cards we are supposed
to have. It has been a good while since the
law has been in operation, and I've been
working for a long time and I've never seen
any inspector coming around, checking to see
Florida 39
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how things are. I want to thank you all for
listening to me.
Domingo Gomez [Speaking in Spanish
with English interpreter]: Good night. First
of all, my name is Domingo Gomez. I'm here
as a member of the Farm Workers
Association and we're based in Homestead.
I'm also here as a farmworker with experience
as a farmworker in the field. I have a very
good example that I would like you all to hear.
I was •working for this farmer who was paying
$5.50 per hour. At that moment, I did not
have my EPA card. So because I didn't have
it; and I didn't have a way to get a copy of it,
I started getting only $4.25 an hour. It
happened only two weeks ago. I'd really like
to see something done about this. We are
used like a negotiation, like a tool for the
farmers. I feel like this is discrimination that
they're doing against us.
I want to make this clear—that this was a
farmer doing this and that I was part of that
process, that action. He gathered all the
workers and he stepped on his truck. The
only words that he mentioned—while
everybody was working and he called
everybody from the fields, standing on his
truck—he said, "Everybody should take
showers and wash when they get home. I
don't want anybody touching their babies as
you're coming from the fields. What I'm
saying here is in case somebody comes and
investigates me. So you better understand
what I'm saying. I don't want to get in any
trouble so you better understand what I'm
saying. Now that you understood what I
meant; sign here for my protection." To
defend himself he made us sign this paper for
him to use whenever he needed it. I
understand about the training and I
understand how they need to be done. I
mean, that's nothing in comparison to what
he did—to say just take a shower and don't
touch your baby.
In the field where we work there are
many, many violations. I have been myself a
farmworker for 10 years. I have many cases
of experience that I could mention. Last year
I was tying the tomato up on a stake so it
wouldn't break and the sprayer was on top of
me.
I drove five hours from Homestead with
some other co-workers. This is not a joke for
us—to drive five hours one way and to go back
another five hours—it's not easy. I would
really like to see that all of the farmworkers as
we work we'd really be protected. We really
wish that you see that the laws are really
complied. In the name of the Farm Workers
Association, I want to thank you for all of
your attention.
Alfonso Serno: My name is Serno and I
am with the Farm Workers Association of
Florida. I have been listening to all of these
things that people had to say about the
situation out there and I hope that you paid
good attention to them—to listen to what they
said and also to take important notes about
that. Many things that I have been thinking
about, especially the kind of training owners
are giving to people, you know it's a kind of
training that's like, "Well, since you have to get
a card, let's give you a 10-minute training, or
15 minutes, or a 20-minute training and then
40 Florida
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get rid of this situation." And I hope that you
really pay attention to that because when it's
time to train people about pesticides, I don't
think that it's 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20
minutes—I think it takes a good amount of
time to have a really good training and
understanding of the situation. So that's one
thing—while I was listening to some people
which I never had much chance before
tonight—it's something that I see every day.
And even in listening to my people in my
area who are working in that particular field
Pnaudible]... in that section, in that area, and
not far from you the airplane is passing right
there and spraying while you are in the field.
And this is something that's happening every
day, always happening out there. Because like
me who is from Apopka ... I think you EPA
people ... Apopka is famous for being the
capital [Inaudible] ...of the world, but don't
forget there is a big farm operation in
Apopka. Me, I remember one day when I was
in the field, and that day it was about 90
degrees high, and then the airplane was
coming back and people had to run away fast,
I mean run real fast in order to escape this
way. Could you imagine, I mean the airplane
is passing in the air and then the wind is
blowing, when it's passing by and spraying, the
wind just takes it right on you. So this is really
a direct spray on people.
And my question, for EPA especially is,
how do things like that keep happening? You
know how it's happening? Because I
remember (when was that, Sunday) I was out
visiting people in my neighborhood, and there
is a group of people who live in an apartment
complex which I am very friendly with, and
they told me, "You know, it's been happening
to us with the airplanes. If the airplane is still
spraying, why are we working?" And the
question which came in my mind was, how do
things like that happen anyway? I mean, how
can growers, farmers, whoever they are—why
are people out working for you in the field
and having the airplanes spraying at the same
time? I am sure it's not happening in every
area. I am sure it's not happening in every
state. But it's happening all over Florida
wherever there are farms, wherever they are
farming. The people, while our people are
working the fields, they are spraying, OK?
Pesticides are being used.
And so are the greenhouses. There are
cases in the greenhouses where people are
being used to spray, people who don't know
nothing about pesticides, I mean nothing,
OK? You can have someone from Haiti—last
week it happened—and he was being used as a
sprayer with no training. It is happening.
Maybe you don't know it. Maybe you have
not seen it. Do you know why? Because
maybe you are not really out there. But
people like me who are out there every day, in
different fields, in greenhouses, I know it's
happening because I have seen it. And you
could be a fool if you think people are not
concerned about it, especially the Haitian
people I know. When I talk to them they are
very concerned about it—they are thinking
about it, they are talking about it. So, I think
it's a big, big, big mistake when we are talking
about the WPS and then here we are working
in the fields and having the airplanes spraying
not too far, you know just a few feet. And
then when you are working in the field, I
Florida 41
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mean no matter what kind of distance the
airplane is from you, the wind can easily take
the spray and drop it on you.
So if we are talking about the worker's
protection safety, we need to know...I think
EPA has a responsibility to let the growers,
nursery owners, whoever they are, know: I
mean business! I mean business, OK?
Because pesticides, no matter what kind, they
are poison. They are poisons. I mean, human
beings and pesticides don't mix. They cannot
be mixed, you know? Because no matter who
they are, no matter where they are from, rich
or poor, they are human beings because God
used his precious hands to create them. And
then therefore everybody has the duty to
respect people as human beings no matter
who they are. Thank you.
Dr. Marion Fuller: That wraps up our
speakers and I'll turn it over to Lynn in just a
second. I'd like to express my appreciation to
all of you for observing the time (the few
times I had to stand up) and I do appreciate it.
And I think I speak for all of us when I say
thank you for bringing a whole number of
things to our attention and I'll let Lynn take it
over from here.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: OK, I'm going to
make it brief but I wanted to repeat some of
the things that I've heard here, partly to let
you know that we were listening to what you
had to say. First, I want to start out though
by acknowledging the excellent work that I
think has been done here in Florida to comply
with the Worker Protection Standard. And I
think that some of the things that I have
heard here today are testament to that—that
the state has worked very hard at this, that we
have here in Florida farmers who are aware of
the requirements of this standard and are
trying their best to comply. Many of them are
complying very successfully and that was
heartening. And we have far more workers
who understand the standard—understand the
standard well enough to know what their
rights are. I think that is very important. And
so, I believe that over the last year—really it's
been just in the last year that we've had full
implementation-that a lot of progress has
been made here and I feel good about that.
I hear some issues that I believe EPA
needs to address—probably the state, probably
all of us are going to need to work on. There
is one issue that is clearly an issue for the
EPA, and was raised by a number of the
growers here tonight, that has to do with the
issue of decontamination equipment and how
we deal with that. That is something that we
are working on right now in the EPA in terms
of clarifying that and seeing if there is some
room for reducing some of the burden—if
there are some common sense changes that
we can make.
The second issue has to do with the 48-
hour re-entry interval. I have a couple of
things that I want to say to those of you who
are left here. First, to say that the low-risk
pesticides for which we provided a shorter
REI, the 4-hour REI, we did that using what
I would say was a very blunt tool. I wanted to
very quickly shave off the ones that were
clearly low-risk so that we were not doing an
absurd thing like having a 48-hour REI for a
pheromone or some very low risk thing. But
42 Florida
-------
we recognize that there are some pesticides
that also belong in that category that also
don't require a 48-hour REI. We did use
science to make that cut. We did use science.
And we do have a lot of scientific data for
each and every pesticide registered in the
United States. But to cut other ones out,
we're going to have to do a much more time-
consuming, a lengthier, more difficult,
scientific analysis than we did on that initial
cut. And we will be looking to, in some
instances, the registrants to make the case for
these shorter REIs. Because this is going to
be a case-by-case examination and there will
be some responsibility on the part of the
registrants. I'm sure in some instances the
growers will want to help with that.
There were many comments about the
Worker Protection Standard training and the
need to evaluate the training and we do agree
with that We do have some efforts underway
to do that. I too am concerned about some
of the specific issues that people have raised,
such as the language, the materials, and the
issue of literacy of the training. These are very
challenging issues. These are not questions
where there are simple "cut and dried"
answers. And I think we are going to have to
all work together in order to find the right way
to do the training in the future. The
evaluations will help. I think also meetings
like this help. It helps to hear from everybody
about how it's going.
The issue of implementation of enforce-
ment was raised by several people, especially
many of the farmworkers, and we too are
concerned about this. It's probably true that
the standard has not totally penetrated into all
of the agricultural sector yet. Some growers
are doing all of the things that they should be
doing—some probably -were doing them
before we did the standard (and we
understand that), some are doing more today
than they were before, some have not yet
adopted all of the provisions of the standard,
and I think we realize that. And I think that
there is work underway. I think that the state
is doing a good job in trying to address that.
One thing that may have happened here
tonight is that perhaps they have learned
about some specific areas where they're going
to need to concentrate their efforts. That's
useful to hear about. Some of the issues like
posting the central signs are important
components of the standard and are going to
have to be dealt with. One that was very
tough, and I don't know the answer to, but I
think is going to have to be worked out, is
how do you deal with complaints? What is
the appropriate way for a complaint to be filed
and how do you deal with that? And how do
you deal with the possibility of fear of
retaliation because of a complaint? This is a
very serious problem and one that I would
encourage all of you to work together on. I
don't think that we should necessarily dictate
everything about how the procedures are done
from Washington. On the other hand, in
terms of the credibility of the process, it is
very important to us that there be a guide to
deal with problems if they do arise.
The issue of poisoning was another one
that came up. I am a doctor myself and I do
know that the training that doctors receive in
the area of pesticide poisoning is not what I
would like it to be. I think that doctors do
Florida 43
-------
need to have better recognition of poisonings.
There were some comments made about
reportings and I think that is something that
the state can certainly look at. I will tell you
that I worked in the State of California, and
even there with the law, many times the
doctors do not report the illnesses. But at least
there is some reporting; And it is useful having
the reporting. But I think there are many
reasons that they fail to report.
At EPA there are a couple of things that
we are doing that I wanted to mention that I
think are important tools. We do
have...[Taping suspended while tape was
changed] ...The other thing that we have, that
I think is a very wonderful resource, is a
hotline (I don't have the phone number, I
think it is on some of our literature out there).
It is an 800 number and it takes you to
Oregon State University, where some of the
top experts on pesticides in the country are in
terms of understanding the toxicology. And
that's available to any doctor in the country
who has a question and needs to consult with
somebody who's really an expert.
We are doing some work on the problem
of spray drift—that was raised by some of the
workers. We are doing what we call a "data
call-in" with the pesticide registrants to get a
better handle and they have been very
cooperative with us. It is a problem and we
need to have the proper science in hand to
solve the problem and that's how we are
approaching it.
In closing, I want to say that we take the
responsibility to protect workers from
pesticides very seriously and that's why we're
out here tonight. I should have said at the
beginning that this is the first of a number of
these meetings that we're holding across the
country. This is really a national dialogue on
pesticides—we hope to learn something about
your region but we will be out in other regions
of the country as well. We do believe in
continuous improvement. We want to make
the standard work and in order to do that we
need to get the feedback that we got tonight.
And I do again want to thank all of you for
coming here and doing that. This has been
very helpful. Thank you. Bye.
Dr. Marion Fuller: Thank you all.
[Applause]
[Meeting adjourned]
44 Florida
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Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Osiel Aguirre
Farmworker
Ben Albritton, Jr.
Florida Agriculture Spray Technology
Scott Almon
Florida Dept. of Labor
Raynaldo Avilas Contraras
Farmworker
Israel Baez, Jr.
A. Duda & Sons, Inc.
Alfredo Bahena
Farm Workers Association of Florida
Kathie Barghad
Alcoma Packing Co. Inc.
Sharon Bigger
East Coast Migrant Health Project, Inc.
Ramon Bueno
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Cruz & Alfredo Cabrera
Asociacion Campesina de Florida
Chad Chandler
ISK Biosciences
W.P. Cockrell
Florida Farm Bureau
Ray Crawford
Florida Farm Bureau
Fernando Cuevas, Jr.
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Fernando Cuevas, Sr.
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Richard Dole
Bowen Brothers Fruit Company, Inc.
Ricky Dorman
ISK Biosciences
Frank S. Dowdle
Southern Gardens Groves Corporation
Sergio Duran
Farm Workers Association of Florida
John C. Durkin
Orange-Co Inc. & Subsidiaries
Margarita Espinoza
Turner Foods Corp.
Tina Espiricueta
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Andrew Esposito
U.S. Sugar Corporation
Jose Esquivel
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Florida 45
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Raphord Farmington
Grower
Gary Fish
Cargffl
Dominique Gomez
Farm Workers Association of Florida
Felipe Gonzalez
Farm Workers Association of Florida
Strick Gresham
HESCO
Mary Hartney
Polk County Farm Bureau
AlHelm
Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association
Ronald Hill
The Agricultural and Labor Program
James T. Hinkle
Smoak Groves, Inc. &
Highlands County Citrus Grove Association
Chip Hinton
Florida Strawberry Growers Association
Nate Jameson
Grower
Monty Knox
Knox Nursery Inc.
Mike Lott
FSGA
Mac Martin
Peace River Citrus Products
Alberto Mata
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Juan Mato
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Charles Matthews
Florida Fruit & Vegetable Assocation
Burt McKee
United Agri Products
Bobby F. McKown
Florida Citrus Mutual
Juan A. Mendez
Cargill Juice
Jesus Mendez
Turner Foods Corp.
Florencio Mendoza
Farmworker
Luckner Millien
Farmworker Assocation of Florida
Miguel A. Montalvo
Florida Rural Legal Services
Tirso Moreno
Farm Workers Association of Florida
46 Florida
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Kevin Morgan
Florida Farm Bureau
Juan Sanchez
Farmworker
O.N. Nesheim
University of Florida
Pesticide Information Office
Epifanio Pena
Farmworker
Benite Plillien
Farm Workers Association of Florida
Guillermo Sanchez
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Florence Sergile
Florida Museum of Natural History-
University of Florida
Alfonso Serno
Farm Workers Association of Florida
Pepe Porro
U.S. Sugar Corporation
Roman Rodriguez
Farmworker Association of Florida
Silvestre M. Rodriguez
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Reyes T. Rodriguez
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Clementina Rodriguez
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Sementero Rodriguez
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Rosa Rodriguez
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Steven Rogers, Ph.D.
Ecostat, Inc.
Bill Simmone
FSGA
Darin Simmons
Lykes Bros. Inc.
Thomas B. Smith
Thomas B. Smith Farms
Perry L. Sparkman
Pesticide Review Council & Citrus Growers
John Stephens, Jr.
John Stephens Inc.
Robert Swanson
Florida Dept. of Labor
Julian Tentes
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Larry Tiner
Grower
Florida 47
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Laura Vasquez
Florida Rural Legal Services
Jovier Velazquez
Farm Workers Association of Florida
Marta Velazquez
Farm Workers Association of Florida
Baldemar Velazquez
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
Charles Wilson
United States Sugar Corporation
Travis Wise
Cargill Citro
Lucy Wood
Florida Legal Services
Orlando Yanez
Farm Workers Association of Florida
James Yowell
Griffin Corporation
48 Florida
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Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Farmworkers, Hillsborough County, FL
• February 23, 1996, 5:00 a.m.
• Meeting with citrus workers in Hillsborough County, Florida as the workers were entering
citrus orchards to glean fallen fruit.
• EPA staff, accompanied by Fernando Cuevas, Sr. and Fernando Cuevas, Jr. of the Farm
Labor Organizing Committee (AFL-CIO), spoke with the workers about their awareness of
safety training and other WPS provisions.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— AFL-CIO representatives noted what they saw as a recent trend among Florida
growers of hiring independent contractors and expecting them to assume
responsibilities for WPS training and other labor requirements.
— Concerns were expressed about child labor issues, including very young children
(possibly under 10 years old) working in the fields.
— When asked, some workers said they had not received any pesticide safety training.
Others had received training, in some cases in other states, such as Michigan and
New Jersey. Those who said they had been trained were knowledgeable of the basic
safety concepts, such as washing clothes separately, washing hands before eating, etc.
— Most of the workers, including those who had received pesticide safety training, were
unaware that a regulation existed specifically to protect them from pesticide exposure
and risks.
Alcoma Citrus Packing & Processing Company, Lake Wales, FL
• February 23, 1996, 9:00 a.m.
• EPA staff, accompanied by Bob McKown of Florida Citrus Mutual, and Phillip Herndon of
Alcoma Citrus, toured Alcoma's growing and processing operations.
• Among the issues and observations raised at the meeting were:
— Visitors observed the control of pesticide mixing, loading and application operation
for citrus products. Alcoma representative stressed the engineering controls used to
maintain a safe mixing and loading operation.
Florida 49
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Alcoma representative stated that there was a need for safety training for pesticide
handlers. Training was considered neither disruptive nor problematic; handlers are
permanent employees.
Training large numbers of seasonal/migrant farmworkers was seen as problematic by
grower because of language differences, time pressures to harvest, etc.
Fancy Farms Strawberry Production
• February 23,1996,1:00 p.m.
• Tour of medium-sized strawberry production facility in Plant City, FL.
• EPA staff met with Chip Hinton of Florida Strawberry Growers Association; Carl Grooms,
manager/owner of Fancy Farms; Fernando Cuevas, Sr. and Jr. of FLOC/AFL-CIO.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
Concerns about REIs interfering with continuous harvesting of strawberries.
Concerns about liability and nuisance suits. Recent experiences with inspections by
other federal agencies focused on issues perceived by growers as minor rather than
focusing on major issues or problems.
Grower's observation that workers seem disinterested in training and central posting
of pesticide application information. Central posting in particular is burdensome to
maintain, especially when it appears not to be used by workers.
Migrant Housing, Lake Apopka, FL
• February 23,1996, 5:00 p.m.
• EPA staff, accompanied by Tirso Moreno, Farm Workers Association of Florida, toured
migrant housing.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting was the concern raised by Tirso Moreno and
others that the housing situation was overcrowded and substandard.
•
Farmworkers, Apopka, FL
• February 23,1996, 6:00 p.m.
• EPA staff, accompanied by Tirso Moreno of the Farm Workers Association of Florida, met
with seasonal and migrant farmworkers at the union hall in Apopka, Florida.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
50 Florida
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— Concerns expressed about spraying when workers are in the fields; potential
exposure risks for fern workers; greenhouse workers' exposure to wet pesticide
residues on foliage; growers ordering workers to enter fields shortly after spraying;
confusion regarding rights and protections provided by WPS.
— Farm Workers Association of Florida representative proposed that farmworker
organizations be allowed to act as enforcement agents and take action against
violators.
— Concerns that doctors are misdiagnosing pesticide-related injuries and illnesses.
— Questioning of the Agency's commitment to follow through on the information
gained from these meetings, and a general plea for better working conditions.
Florida 51
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Written Comments
"EPA Must Reduce Copper Hydroxide's Unnecessary Restricted-Entry-Interval"
Bobby F. McKown
Florida Citrus Mutual
Kevin Morgan
Florida Farm Bureau Federation (2)
Charles H. Matthews, Jr.
Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association
W. Gregg Hartt
Highlands County Citrus Growers Association, Inc.
Smith & Johns, Inc.
James T. Hinkle, Sr.
Smoak Groves, Inc.
Robert R. Roberson
Tran Trex Foliage
52 Florida
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cl-
os-
tss-
MAR 8 19i
EPA Must Reduce Copper Hydfoxide^s Unnecessary
Restricted-Entry-Interval
The WPS requires all copper hydroxide products, regardless of
documented toxicity, to have a 48-hour restricted-entry-interval (REI).
A 48-hour REI is unnecessary and unjustified given the safety
characteristics of copper hydroxide and its long history of use in the field
without incident in Florida.
EPA says it based the 48-hour REI on California incident monitoring
data. However, dried copper hydroxide has posed no known hazard to
agricultural workers entering treated fields over many years of use in
Florida.
All other copper compounds have lower REFs than copper hydroxide
while data on file with the Agency demonstrate nearly identical toxicity.
The other copper compounds being used instead of copper hydroxide,
solely because of the unreasonable REI established by the WPS (copper
oxychloride, copper count-N, and tribasic copper), all have comparable
safety risks but are less effective and require higher overall application
rates to obtain equivalent disease control.
Copper hydroxide is a necessary tool in the efficient production of many
crops grown in Florida.
EPA should reduce the copper hydroxide REI to that of the other copper
compounds so growers can choose the most efficient management tool
based upon field conditions, not on an arbitrary REI.
The copper hydroxide REI should be no more than 24 hours.
Griffin, Agtrol, Cuproquim, and the Florida Fruit and Vegetable
Association have offered to meet with EPA's Bill Jordan, in Washington,
to express the urgent need to reduce the copper hydroxide REI. This
matter needs to be resolved immediately. Copper hydroxide is a very
valuable tool that has become unusable for growers because of the
unnecessary and arbitrary REI established by EPA in the WPS.
_
&
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Florida Citrus m Mutual
TELEPHONE(8I3)682-IIII • P.O. BOX 89 • LAKELAND, FLORIDA 338O2
(OHYF.UcXOWN
mcunvE vice PMSBCTT
AMD
CINUUL UJUUGEK
February 23, 1996
Ms. Lynn R. Goldman, M.D.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
401 "M" Street S.W.
Washington, DC 20460 •
Dear Dr. Goldman:
It was indeed a pleasure to have you and other members of
your EPA team visit Florida for the purpose of conducting a
workshop on the Federal EPA Worker's Protection Standards.
Florida Citrus Mutual, a voluntary cooperative association
whose active membership consists of 11,867 Florida citrus
growers, advances its comments relative to the Workers
Protection Standard meeting held at the Noro Mayo Citrus
Building, Winter Haven, Florida.on February 22, 1996 at 7:00
p.m.
Florida Citrus Mutual respectfully 'requests, that the
Environmental Protection Agency give serious consideration to
the idea of amending the Worker's Protection Standards in two
instances in particular.
The two instances are: Restricted entry intervals (REI) and
the time f rames_;related.1.ta:M^^^^ _ Citrus
MuEual"believes that climatic conditions has a significant
impact on time df re-entry, and that data should indicate and
demonstrate that restricted entry intervals could be reduced
substantially for Florida citrus. Florida Citrus Mutual
further believes that timely decontamination time frames in
most instances could coincide with the restricted entry
intervals.
We are hopeful that you and your staff found the tour of the
Alcoma Packing, Inc. facility to ' be iriformative_ and
demonstrated the s-irm-i f-i nant: nrocrress the Florida citrus
growing industry
the significant progress the Florida
growing a-iu-iustry has made in its use and handling of
pesticides and its processing of quality citrus juices.
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Ms. Lynn R. Goldman, M.D.
February 23, 1996
Page Two
If I can be of any additional assistance, do not hesitate to
call this office. Warm regards.
McK/erc
. McKown
ive Vice President/CEO
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Florida Fruit &
Vegetable Association
4401 E. Colonial Drive
Post Office Box 140155
Orlando, Florida 32814-0155
(407) 894-1351 • Fax (407) 894-7840
John C. Morris, President
Glenn R..Rogers, Vice President
Michael J. Stuart, Executive Vice President
March 11, 1996
Written Comments from
Ms. Jeanne Keying
Field Operations Division (7506C)
Environmental Protection Agency
401 M Street, SW
Washington, DC 20460
Re: National Dialogue on the Worker Protection Standard (WPS)
Florida Meeting
Dear Ms. Keying:
The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association (FFVA) appreciates the opportunity to
comment on the WPS. The WPS is a far-reaching new regulation which has added a significant
burden on Florida's fruit and vegetable growers.
FFVA is a voluntary grower association which represents the majority of Florida's fruit
(including citrus), vegetable and sugar cane production. All totaled, these three industries
represented over $3.5 billion in farmgate value during 1995.
FFVA has been involved in the re-write of EPA's WPS since the negotiated rule making
approximately 10 years ago. FFVA also provided detailed comments on the proposed rule.
FFVA has provided numerous educational opportunities for Florida's agricultural industry over
the past 7 years. FFVA responds to grower WPS questions on almost a daily basis. Finally,
FFVA offers an EPA approved worker training program for the membership's growers.
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Ms. Jeanne Keying
March 11, 1996
Page 2
There are five general areas in which we would like to comment. These general areas
have been identified based upon grower comments over the last two years. The five areas
include:
1) Extremely complicated rule that is difficult to comprehend and comply with;
2) Providing decontamination facilities for 30, days beyond an expired Restricted
Entry Interval (RET) is expensive and unnecessary based upon Florida
environmental conditions and Florida's history of pesticide exposure incidences;
3) Liability chain from the farm worker to the owner;
4) Confusion regarding the responsibility in the exchange of information; and,
5) Impact of REI extensions for extremely important pesticides.
The following summarizes our grower's problems with each area. A proposed change to correct
these problems is also provided.
Extremely Complicated Rule that is Difficult to Comprehend and Comply
Previous to the new WPS regulations, WPS involved four important and easy to
understand provisions which were printed on one page of the Code of Federal Regulations.
Today a grower must read and comprehend approximately 442 pages. This large number of
pages consist of the following:
Pesticide label (Metolachlor as an example, EPA Reg. No. 100-673) .... 71 pages
WPS (August 21, 1992) 64 pages
How to Comply Manual (July 1993) 149 pages
WPS Revision (January 11, 1995) ; 33 pages
WPS Revision (September 29, 1995) 10 pages
EPA WPS Question and Answer (March 15, 1995) 144 pages
GRAND TOTAL 441 pages
Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association
4401 E. Colonial Drive P.O. Box 140155, Orlando, Fla., 32814
-------
Ms. Jeanne Keying
March 11, 1996
Page 3
The statement that growers do not need to comprehend all 441 pages is not correct. In order to
comply with WPS growers must comprehend all 441 pages because an inspector or a worker's
lawyer will hold the grower responsible for all 441 pages.
Because of the voluminous pages of WPS regulations, the WPS is extremely complicated.
This complication makes the WPS not only difficult to comprehend, but also difficult to comply
with.
An indication of the difficulty growers are experiencing with the complexity of WPS is
the amount of time growers are having to set aside in order to comply with WPS. Larger farms
must designate at least one employee to handle WPS compliance. Smaller farms have noted that
25% to 50% of a manager's time is spent complying with WPS regulations. As Florida growers
are "price takers" and not "price setters" for the products that they grow, WPS is having a
negative impact on our growers' bottom line. Employees who are responsible for WPS are not
assisting in producing the crop, but, are considered overhead that U.S. farms must absorb which
makes our grower less competitive in a global market.
Recommendation #1:
Revise WPS to remove complexity and boil down into six to
twelve easy to understand rules.
Not Necessary to Provide Decontamination Facilities Beyond REI
WPS requires that employers provide decontamination facilities for 30 days after the
expiration of an REI. Under Florida's growing conditions, this 30 day requirement is unnecessary
for several reasons. First, Florida climate is considered semi-tropical. This means that our
temperature and rainfall are relatively high as compared to the rest of the country. In fact,
Florida annually receives between 55 to 65 inches of rainfall. Also, almost every day the relative
humidity reaches 100%. These environmental conditions results in the rapid breakdown of
pesticides. Second, FDACS has reviewed their data base on pesticide exposures incidences and
they have told FFVA that there are no pesticide related cases of human illnesses after the
expiration of an REI. The only problems associated with worker exposure have been when
workers re-enter a field before the expiration of an REI. This was the case in the highly
publicized Goodson Farms incident.
Many people suggest that the reason Florida's human exposure incidents are low is
because Florida does not have a good reporting system. This is not true! Physicians are required
by law to report all potential pesticide exposures to the state. Most physicians are aware of this
law as FDACS has many times mailed out this information and FDACS employees regularly give
educational presentations to state-wide meetings regarding the reporting law.
Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association
4401 E. Colonial Drive P.O. Box 140155, Orlando, Fla., 32814
-------
Ms. Jeanne Keying
March 11, 1996
Page 4
It is our understanding that the "plus 30 days" provisions were added to WPS as a result
of the review of California data. FLORIDA IS NOT CALIFORNIA. If California has problems
dealing with worker exposure to pesticides for 30 days beyond the REI, then deal v/ith California.
The rest of the country, in particular states with humid climates like Florida, should not have to
be burdened with additional regulations because there have been reports of pesticide poisonings
in an arid state like California.
Decontamination facilities are expensive, particularly when they must be provided for 30
days beyond an expired REI. The way this part of the regulation is worded, all employees who
work in a field must be provided with a decontamination facility. This means that all cultivation
tractors, all worker vehicles, and/or all fields must have an operational decontamination facility
throughout the production season. Estimates from some of Florida's larger farms for
decontamination facilities is $70,000 annually.
Recommendation #2:
Eliminate requirement for decontamination facilities beyond the
expiration of an REI.
Liability Chain From the Farm Worker to the Owner is Too Broad
The notion that the owner of a fanning enterprise is ultimately responsible for WPS
compliance does not provide responsibility in the appropriate place. Also, in many instances, the
owner has no control over die day to day operation of the farm. There are numerous instances
in Florida where the owner resides in another state. In many instances the owner is unaware
what pesticides are used, when pesticides are used, and when workers are in the field. It is not
fair to place WPS responsibility on owners unless they are involved in the day to day activities
of the farming operation.
Since the beginning of FIFRA, the burden of responsibility has been on the applicator of
the pesticide. .The person who makes the pesticide application or oversees,;the pesticide
application knows what pesticide is used, what are the pesticide label restrictions, and
when/where the pesticide was used. The applicator is the individual who is knowledgeable about
pesticide use and, therefore, should be responsible for WPS since WPS is a label-drive regulation.
Workers also have an important role, if not the most important role, in WPS compliance.
All the training, knowledge of WPS, providing PPE, etc. can not result in the worker being any
safer unless the worker takes on the responsibility. As a policeman gives a speeding ticket to
the person driving the car and not to the person who taught him how to drive, so must WPS
enforcement apply responsibility to workers if all provisions of the law are provided by the
grower.
Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association
4401 E. Colonial Drive P.O. Box 140155, Orlando, Fla., 32814
-------
Ms. Jeanne Keying
March 11, 1996
PageS
Recommendation #3:
Better define responsibility to the pesticide applicator or the person
overseeing day to day operation of the farm and provide more
incentive to workers to demonstrate their responsibility.
Confusion Regarding the Responsibility in the Exchange of Information
The responsibility in the exchange or flow of information is somewhat related to the
previous issue. WPS requires that several different people on a farm communicate with each
other. In some instances, these people have had very little contact with each other. Applicators
'must comprehend the pesticide label's WPS information (REI, notification, etc.), then relay this
information to the farm workers.
As is the case with liability, exchange of information is difficult for absentee owners or
farm managers who have little day to day interaction with the farm. Also, if information is made
available, is it the responsibility of the applicator to see that all farm workers have this
information? Again, farm workers must take on some responsibility in the exchange of
information. It is practically impossible for owners, pesticide applicators, etc. to be personally
responsible for making sure that every farm worker knows about every pesticide application. If
owners or applicators make information available, then the farm worker should have the
responsibility to obtain and use this information.
Recommendation #4
Better define each parties responsibility in the exchange of
information.
REI Extensions Impacting Production
During WPS's most recent revision (Part 170), very little attention was provided to Part
156 because it primarily was written for registrants to review and comment. Many-bf the
sections in Part 156 were extremely technical to the extent that most people outside of the
registrant community understood the potential impact of the revisions. Also, even if growers
understood Part 156, growers did not have the basic pesticide data to determine the impact on
the end use restrictions to be placed on the label. In fact, EPA could not even tell us which or
how many pesticides would have increased REI's.
Part 156 had very little impact on registrants in terms of economic impact. While all
labels had to be revised, all a registrant had to do was add the generic WPS statement and follow
Part 156's "decision tree" in regard to PPE, REI, etc. After the labels were updated, the
registrants' responsibility was achieved.
Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association
4401 E. Colonial Drive P.O. Box 140155, Orlando, Fla., 32814
-------
Ms. Jeanne Keying
March 11, 1996
Page 6
Significantly different from the registrant's responsibility, growers must comply every
working day with the use restrictions on the label. Some of the changed use restrictions have
had a significant impact on growers effecting every working day. For example, FFVA submitted
data and information for an exception to the federal label REI restrictions for chlorothanonil and
copper hydroxide on several vegetable crops to reduce the REI from 48 hours to 24 hours. EPA
denied this request Some crops must be harvested on a regular basis at the height of their
maturity in order to be shipped across the country. Also, many crops require other types of hand
labor (hoeing, etc.) at regular intervals. As high pest pressure and adverse weather conditions
are added to this dilemma yields are lost just because of an increased REI.
One way growers are coping with the increased REI's is to apply additional pesticides.
In cases where scouting, pest pressure, beneficial populations, etc. were all important factors in
determining whether or not to apply pesticides, the increased REI's causes growers not to risk
losses due to pests and go ahead and apply additional pesticides. For example, a pest is present
in the field and the harvest data or cultural practice (hoeing, etc.) date is approaching where the
use of a reduced rate could possibly control the pest. However, with a 48 hour REI the grower
can no longer risk not controlling the pest. The increased REI's are having the opposite effect
that EPA had intended in that in certain instances more pesticides are being used as a result of
the revised WPS.
Recommendation #4:
Reduce REI's, particularly for labor intensive crops, and/or approve
new products which control hard to control pests with shorter
REI's.
FFVA appreciates EPA's willingness to review the WPS. With only a few minor changes,
EPA can make WPS more efficient for growers while maintaining the same high standard for
worker protection.
As a side note, FFVA has a subsidiary which offers Florida growers worker compensation
insurance. In fact, FFVA's worker compensation company is Florida's largest provider of
agricultural workers compensation. When one inquires what types of hazards they are concerned
about, pesticides fall to the lowest priority. Important hazards to farm workers are accidents,
back injuries, etc. There are very, very few chemical exposure cases that have even been
reported over the last ten years. Based upon their data and FDACS reporting data, worker
exposure to pesticides is not an important worker hazard in Florida. Part of this excellent record
is the value employers place on their employees and the excellent educational opportunities
available from the University of Florida and FDACS. With such a positive pesticide exposure
record, our growers became extremely frustrated trying to comply with such a complicated
regulation. Any efforts EPA can provide to streamline WPS will enable growers to spend more
resources on more important work place hazards, reduce pesticide use, and allow growers to
remain competitive in a global market.
Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association
4401 E. Colonial Drive P.O. Box 140155, Orlando, Fla., 32814
-------
Ms. Jeanne Keying
March 11, 1996
Page?
Again, thank you for seriously considering our comments and if you have any questions
or if we can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to call.
Sincerely.
Charles H. Matthews, Jr.
Assistant Director
Environmental and Pest Management Division
CHM/eag
Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association
4401 E. Colonial Drive P.O. Box 140155, Orlando, Fla., 32814
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FLORIDA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION
P. O. Box 147030, Gainesville, Florida 32614-7030 Telephone (904) 378-1321
RECEIVED
MAR 8 (996
QPP PUBLIC DOCKET
February 19, 1996
Ms. Jeanne Keying
Field Operations Division
Office of Pesticide Programs (7506c)
Environmental Protection Agency
401 "M" Street, SW
Washington, DC 20460
Dear Ms. Hey ing:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Worker Protection Standard (WPS) and its
implementation. During my twelve years with the Florida Farm Bureau Federation, I have
seen few rules that have created the magnitude of problems for growers that the WPS has.
I'm sure you will hear, and receive by mail, many personal examples of how WPS has
affected individual growers. '
As you well know, when the new requirements of the WPS went into place there was no
information available for several months. This caused delays in farmers' effortslo educate
themselves about the WPS and to decide how to implement the requirements into their
specific operations. Florida Farm Bureau Federation was very concerned with the lack of
materials and joined forces with The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer
Services (FDACS), the University of Florida/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
(IFAS) and Extension to create and distribute various materials that would help growers in
their efforts to comply. Materials that have proven to be the most popular are the Florida
Farm Bureau Record Keeping Booklet (with over 5,000 copies sold), the WPS Compliance
Kit, and the WPS Inspection form. Growers really like the inspection form because it's the
same one used by FDACS inspectors and can be used as a checklist when preparing for a
compliance inspection. The Pesticide Review Council asked us to create a WPS "Duties and
Responsibilities Form" for citrus growers that would allow them to formally divide WPS
responsibilities among the many people involved in the production of citrus. As other
materials were made available by EPA, FDACS and others made every effort to distribute
materials and begin the education process. It is still a slow process, especially for training
materials. One reason is because of the sheer number of farm workers and the volume of
materials needed to train them.
Even though we are not pleased with many of the requirements of the WPS, I believe the
current system of enforcement is an excellent example of how government agencies should
operate when seeking compliance; agencies should not become addicted to a system built
around the immediate levying of excessive monetary penalties for noncompliance. Agencies
that issue excessive fines sometimes find themselves trying to negotiate amounts of
settlements with full knowledge that the penalized party will be inclined to settle because a
settlement is often less expensive than a trial. I understand that under the current system,
FDACS conducted 518 inspections in a two and a half month period last spring. Only 196
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Ms Jeanne Keying
February 19, 1996
page 2
had partial non-compliance areas. One hundred of these 196 were general posting errors,
which were easily corrected within a few days. Considering the difficulties mentioned
above, this is an outstanding effort that we are proud of: 62% compliance the very first
year.
Farmers are making valiant efforts -to comply with the WPS; but the complexity of the
standard has overwhelmed them in Florida and across the nation. Not only were we required
to learn the contents of a 141 page "How to Comply11 manual and a 85 page interpretive
guide, we had to mesh these requirements with a variety of crop and chemical management
practices for over 200 crops grown in this state. The expenses and disruption caused by
these changes are still causing major problems. Common sense tells me that if this much
paperwork is needed to explain what is required of growers, then it's too complicated. One
of my greatest concerns is that even though compliance efforts are currently going well, the
inability of every farmer to comply with every aspect of the WPS may provide advocates
with technicalities that could be used to launch civil suits against growers, and in doing so
become the enforcement arm of the Worker Protection Standard.
Sincerely,
Kevin Morgan
Asst. Director
Agricultural Policy
KM:cl
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FLORIDA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION
P. O. Box 147030, Gainesville, Florida 32614-7030 Telephone (904) 378-1321
March 13, 1996
Dr. Lynn Goldman, Asst. Administrator
Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances
U. S Environmental Protection Agency
401 M Street, SW
Washington, DC 20460
Dear Dr. Goldman:
Thank you for holding the public comment forum on the Worker Protection Standard, February 22 in
Winter Haven, Florida. It is vitally important that all parties effected by this rule have an opportunity
to express concerns and identify problem areas. Due to time requirements, we limited our comments on
the Worker Protection Standard and would like to submit the following into the record.
During the meeting, questions were raised about the accuracy of the number of pesticide-related illnesses
reported by physicians in Florida. Enclosed is a copy of Florida Statute/Chapter 487 (2) that states "It
is also the express intent of this section to require all physicians to report ail pesticide-related
illnesses or injuries to the nearest county health department." I believe we do the medical profession
a disservice by questioning their willingness to report pesticide related illnesses. They have taken an oath
to provide medical care to all and would be remiss if they neglected reporting symptoms of pesticide
exposure. Dr. Roger Inman, Director of Environmental Toxicology/Department of Health and
Rehabilitative Services (HRS), assured me that HRS has been providing physician training throughout
the state to increase awareness of pesticide-related illness and injury. Dr. Inman has confirmed that
reporting of pesticide exposures is taking place and he attributes the small number of reports to the
increased knowledge users of pesticides have these days. The fact that there are few reports, is; good
news! The low number of pesticide related illness reports indicates that farmers and their employees are
using pesticides safely.
A reference was made regarding the Goodson Farms incident in 1989. This particular incident shocked
and amazed the agricultural community because of the flagrant disregard for workers health and
compliance with the existing rules. The Florida agricultural industry initiated and passed legislation that
amended our existing pesticide law. This amendment provides for administrative fines for up to $10,000
per violation. Chapter 487.175 (l)(e) is enclosed for your information. For the farmworker advocates
to continue to use the Goodson Farms incident as a current example is inaccurate. Just as children should
not have to pay for the sins of the parents, Florida agriculture should not have to pay for one non-typical
action seven years ago. '
The issuance, maintenance and use of appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) are also
concerns. All responsibility for PPE currently resides with the farmer. Growers must issue the
appropriate safety equipment, train workers in its use, maintain the equipment and enforce its use by the
employee. Part of this responsibility should be shared by the workers themselves. When farmers follow
label requirements and issue appropriate PPE, employees should at least be required to use it properly,
as they were trained. If a grower issues an employee a respirator and trains him in its use, why shouldn't
that employee bear the responsibility of wearing it? Farmers should not be put in the position of being
the enforcement arm of this rule.
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Another concern for growers is the procedure for requesting modifications to the rule. When farmers
identify specific areas within the WPS that need adjustment they must work through the WPS working
group, the body responsible, for sending recommendations for revisions to the EPA. This process is
quite long and cumbersome.- Decisions by the working group on simple changes like the size of warning
signs took over six months.. By the time final decisions are made, the growing season has passed and
farmers have already lost time and money. .• , •
You identified another area that needs attention; consistency of REIs for similar .compounds. An example
of this inconsistency is Kocide and Copper. Kocide is a common fungicide used in the production of
numerous vegetable crops. Its main ingredient is copper hydroxide and it has a 48-hour REI. Basic
copper, with the same active ingredient, has a' 12-hour REI. These products should both have no more
than a 12-hour REI. Nutritional coppers (very similar compounds) have BQ REI. We need consistent
REIs for similar products to maintain the creditability of the rule and the Agency.
The time requkements for field decontamination sites are also a problem. Worker employers must
provide decontamination sites for 30 days after the REI, and if there is no REI for 30 days after the
application. Under these requirements you could have decontamination sites throughout a field where
the 'crops have already been harvested. It is also unnecessary to maintain decontamination sites for 30
days after the REI for many low toxicity pesticides. EPA should coordinate with other agencies to
achieve consistency between agencies who require field sanitation. Farmers are being confused by the
duplication!
Florida was one of many states that submitted a request for a reduction of the 48-hour REI to a 24-hour
REI for Chlorothalonil. We were denied. I understand that EPA is considering increasing the REI for
chlorothaloriil to 96 hours. If this happens, EPA will be promoting a de facto cancellation of
chlorothalonil. Such a decision would put growers hi a tough position. They would be forced to decide
between using the product outside the label in order to save their crops or go out of business. Either way
they stand to lose. I encourage you not to push for extended REIs without reliable, scientific research
to warrant the increase.
Thank you for the opportunity to express our concerns. Any consideration you could provide would be
. most appreciated.
Sincerely,
Kevin Morgan, Asst. Director
Agricultural Policy
KM:cl
Enclosures '
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437,156 Governmental agencies. - All governmental
agencies start be subject to 'the provisions of this chapter
and rules adopted, under this-part. Public applicators
using or supervising the use of restricted-use, pesticides
shall be subject to examination as 'provided in s.
487.044.' ..
Hifcy,-t. 7. Mi 74-447;«. U,«. 7»71fe«, », oh. 8V31* •* «. 14. IS, oh. (2. .
t«7<«.«, W, ac 92-119,
487.1 S3S Duties of licensee with raupect to
unlicensed applicators ' .ind mixer-loaders. and field'
workers. - ' • ' .' "
. (1) Each licensed applicator shall provide to each
unlicensed applicator or mixer-loader working under his'
direct supervision adequate instruction and training so
that the applicator or mixer-loader understands the safety
procedures Required for the;'pest!cldes that will be used.
The applicator ormixer-kjader shall be given this training
before handling restricted-use pesticides." This training
shall be set-ifcrth by the department by. rule and shall .
include, but not bes raited tovthe safety procedures to be
• followed as specifie#.ori the:tebel; the safety clothing and
equipment .to' be worn; 'the. common symptoms of
pesticide poisoning; the danger*, of eating,., drinking, or
smoking while handling pesticides; and where to obtain
emergency medical treatment. No licensee snail be
permitted to .provide direct supervision to more than 15
unlicensed applicators or mixer-loaders at any given time.
(2) • Prior to the entry of workers into a field, it shall
b« tN resooflsTbility of the liee&ed applicator to assure
that the worker's direct' supervisor provides an oral:
statement to the'workeVs, in language understood by the
vyortsers, of the warning contained on the pesticide label
with respect, to .any pesticides that have been used
4,8-h.oui:. period. ' •
; m. XT. St. c*.- 9&11S.
487.159 Damage or tojjury to property, animal, or
person;, mandatory report of damage or Injury; time for
liling; fallurt.to fil*. •
(1» The person .claiming'' damage or injury to
property, animal, or human beings from application of a
pesticide shall file with the; department a written'
statement claiming damages, on' a form prescribed by the'
department, -within 48 hours after the damage or injury
becomes apparent: The statement shall contain, but
shall not. be limited to, . the name of the person
*?£**** , f ^'""nance «f any criminal or civil action.
<2I It is the duty 'of any . licensee to report
.unreasonable adverse effects 'on the environment or
damage to property or injury' td a person as'ihe result of
the application of a restricted-use pesticide by the
'. licensee or by an' applicator or mixer-loader under the
licensee's direct supervision, if and when the licensee
has knowledge of such damage 'or injury, it is also the
express intent of this section to require all physicians to-
report all pesticide-related 'illnesses or injuries to the
nearest county health department, which will notify the'
department so that tha department may -establish a-
pesticide incident monitoring system within the Division
of Agricultural Environmental Services.
(2) When damage to human beings/animals, plants,'
or ether property is alleged to have been done, the:
claimant shall permit licensee and the licensee's
representatives to observe within reasonable hours the
alleged damage in .order that the damage may be.
examined. The failure of the claimant to permit.
observation and examination of the alleged damage shall,
automatically bar' the claim against the licensee.
T. . .. !«.«!. W.N7; «. «. 7*W: «. J. eh. *1-*Ue tm. t, V, », aft. ts-lffr-.
'
487.160 Records; report. - Licensed .private
applicators supervising 1 S or more unlicensed applicators
or< mixer-loaders and licensed public s'pplicatqns and
licensed commercial applicators shall maintain records as
the department may determine by rule with respect to
the application of restricted pesticides, including, but not
limited to. the type and quantity of pesticide, method of
application, crop treated, and .dates and location of
application. Other licensed private applicators shall
maintain records as the department may determine by
rule with respect to the date, type, and. quantity of.
restricted-use pesticides used. Licensees shall keep
records for a period of .3 year* from date -of the
application of the pesticide .to which -the records refer;
and shall furnish' to the department a copy of the f ecortf s
upon written wouest by the department. This
exemption is subject to. the Open Government .Sunset
• Review Act in accordance with s, 1 19.14; Every third
year, the department shall 'conduct a survey and compile
a report oh restricted-use pesticides in this state. TWs
report shall include, but. not 'be limited to, types and
quantities of pesticides, methods, of application, crops.
treated, and dates and locations, of applteation; recorts
of persons working under direct supervSsiorv'and reports.
of misuse, damage, or injury.
487.161 Examptionsv nonasrlcuftural p«st control
. and research. - . • •
(1) Any person duty licensed or certified under
chapter 482, or under the 'supervision: o.f chapter- '38S, is
exempted from the licensing provisions of this part.
(2J The use of the' antibiotic oxytetracyelinft
hydrochiorfde for the purpose of controlling, lethal.
yellowing is exempted from the licensing provisions of
this part.
(3) The personnel of governmental, university, or
industrial research agencies are 'exempted! fro.m the
provisions of this part when doing applied research within
13
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PESTICIDES
government, publish information and conduct short
courses of instruction in the safe use and
application of pesticides for the purpose of carrying
out the provisions of this chapter.
(21 The department may cooperate or enter
Into formal agreements with any other agency or
educational institution ' of this state or its
subdivisions or with any agency of any other state
or of the Federal Government for the purpose of
carrying out the provisions of this chapter and of
securing uniformity of regulations.
487.171 Classification of antifouling paint
containing organotin compounds as restricted-use
pesticides; prohibition of distribution and sale.-
' (1) The department shall classify antifouling
paints containing organotin compounds having an
acceptable release rate as restricted-use pesticides
subject to the requirements of this chapter.
Antifouling -paints containing organotin having
acceptable release rates and sold in spray cans of
16 ounces avoirdupois weight or less for outboard
motor or lower unit use are exempt from the
restricted-use pesticide classification requirement.
(2) The department shall initiate action under
chapter 120, to deny or cancel the registration of
antifouling paints containing organotin compounds
which do not have an acceptable release rate or do
not meet other" criteria established by the
department in accordance with this chapter.
(3) Distribution, sale, and use of antifouling
paints containing organotin compounds with
acceptable release rates shall be limited to dealers
and applicators licensed by the department in
accordance with this chapter, to distribute, sell, or
use restricted-use pesticides. Such paint may be
applied only by licensed applicators and may be
applied only to vessels which exceed 25 meters in
length or which have aluminum hulls.
(4) A person other than a paint manufacturer
may not sell or deliver to, or purchase or receive
from, another person at retail or wholesale any
substance containing tin compounds for the
purpose of adding such substance to, paint to
create an antifouling paint.
487.172 Educational program.--The
department shall develop a program to educate and
inform antifouling paint applicators, vessel owners,
and interstate and intrastate paint manufacturers
and distributors in the state as to the
characteristics and hazards associated with
organotin compounds in antifouling paints and of
state laws restricting their use.
487.175 Penalties; administrative fine;
ihjunction.-
(1} In addition to any other penalty provided
in this chapter, when the department finds any
person, applicant, or licensee has violated any
provision of this chapter or rule adopted under this
chapter, it may enter an order imposing any one or
more of the following penalties:
(a) Denial of an application for licensure.
.(bl Revocation or suspension of license.
(c) Issuance of a warning letter.
(d) Placement of the licensee on probation for
a specified period of time and subject to conditions
the department may specify by rule, including
requiring the licensee .to attend continuing
education courses, to demonstrate competency
through a written or practical examination, or to
work under, the direct supervision of another
licensee.
{e} Imposition of an administrative fine not to
exceed $10,000 for each violation. When
imposing any fine under this paragraph, the
department shall consider the degree and extent of
harm caused by the violation, the cost of rectifying
the d-mage, the amount of money the violator
benefited from by noncompliance, whether the
violation was committed willfully, and the
compliance record of the violator.
(2) Any person who violates any provision of
s. 487.031 or rules adopted pursuant thereto
commits a misdemeanor of the second degree and
upon conviction is punishable as provided in ss.
775.082 and 775.083. For a subsequent
• violation, such person commits a misdemeanor of
the first degree and upon conviction is punishable
as provided in ss. 775.082 and 775.083.
(3) In addition to the remedies provided in this
chapter and notwithstanding the existence of any
adequate remedy at law, the department may bring
an action to enjoin the violation or threatened
violation of any provision of this chapter, or rule
adopted under this chapter, in the circuit court of
the county in which the violation occurred or is
about to occur. Upon the • department's
presentation of competent and substantial
evidence to the court of the violation or threatened
' violation, the court shall immediately issue the
temporary or permanent injunction sought by the
department. The injunction shall be issued without
bon<2. A sing's act ir. violation of any prosUicn ji
this chapter shall be sufficient to authorize the
issuance of an injunction.
15
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JIGHLANDSJ HIGHLANDS COUNTY CITRUS GROWERS ASSOCIATION, INC.
CITRUS GROWERS / 6419 U-S- Highway 27 South • Sebring, FL 33870 • Phone: (941) 385-8091 • FAX: 385-5356
ASSOCIATION, INC.
April 2, 1996
Jeanne Keying
Field Operation Division
Environmental Protection Agency
401 M Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20460
Dear Ms, Keying:
In response to the EPA public workshop on Worker Protection
Safety standards, held in Winter Haven last month, our board and
members offer these observations and suggestions.
1. Paperwork—As industry representatives correctly
outlined at the workshop, paperwork requirements to meet WPS
regulations have increased from a single page to more than
400 pages. We suggest EPA and the Florida departments
responsible for enforcing WPS regulations find common
denominators on which to prepare a single form for growers that
can be shared by regulatory agencies and personnel.
2. Interpretation of Rules—Recently, a FDACS inspector
told growers that each pesticide handler is required to have a
personal emergency eyeflush water kit on their person. In the
EPA manual, Section 3, page 31, the Emergency Eyeflushing section
states in part, "—The emergency eyeflush water must be
immediately accessible. For example, it could be carried by the
handler or be on a vehicle the handler is using. The emergency
eyeflush water may be the water at the decontamination site if
the decontamination site is immediately accessible."
In this case, the inspector required far stricter methods
than EPA regulations and would require thousands of dollars be
spent by employers in this county alone, to meet that inspector's
interpretation of the regulation.
Inspectors should be discouraged from pursuing a personal
agenda to include setting standards in excess of those required
by law or regulation. The cost of administrative hearings and
litigation limit legal access to growers to correct regulatory
excess by inspectors. it is incumbent on regulatory agencies to
ensure that inspectors do not exceed authority to order costly
changes simply because the inspector believes stricter standards
of safety regulation are required than those in place.
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Page two
Jeanne Keying
April 2, 1996
3. Central Posting—Obviously this is a rule developed by
someone behind a desk who has not been in agricultural settings
very often, if ever. For most growers, it is not uncommon to
have citrus in many counties, sections and blocks. There is no
central reporting point for workers to gather each day for .daily
announcements and postings. The workers will report to the area
they are working in for the day, and the area will change often.
A more realistic approach would be to adopt the enclosed
form, already approved by Florida authorities, which outlines
responsibility for each area and allows the delegation of the
posting and warning to the supervisor in charge of each work
group. It allows a supervisor who is with a work crew regularly
be responsible for providing the information, accomplishes what
EPA wishes in disseminating safety information and establishes a
chain of responsibility for meeting the standards.
4. Training—EPA changed standards which required employers
to complete WPS training in five working days, instead of a
previously approved fifteen working days.
The five day requirement is not a reasonable period when all
factors of training are also considered. In addition to WPS, an
employee is expected to be able to learn specific skills about
the new job, the locations of work sites, company requirements
and other necessary functions of the job in the same period.
It is advisable, and certainly better for a new employee, to
be allowed a longer period to complete WPS training. We would
suggest a return to the fifteen day training period.
5. Reentry Requirements—Standards-have: been a constantly
moving target with a consistent lack of scientific study to back
up the changes.
The standard of "until dry" is used in virtually all
applications, not involving commercial agriculture. Homeowners
who spread fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and other compounds
use the "until dry" standard. Commercial applicators post signs
on lawns that indicate an "until dry" standard.
Some applications now require a four to forty-eight hour
wait before entering an area. There is no scientific evidence
for advancing this standard, only anecdotal testimony from union
representatives. Citrus operations are forced to more costly
operations as a result of the increased reentry standards without
a significantly increased safety factor for workers being shown.
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Page Three
Jeanne Keying
April 2, 1996
6. Respirators — One of the requirements which draws the ire
of ag operators is the one which requires closed tractor
operators in air-conditioned comfort to wear a respirator mask
while application procedures are underway.
The respirator not only offers no protection in a covered
tractor scenario, but actually may inhibit safety by limiting
visibility for tractor operators.
Many of the reentry requirements also stem from crop
specific problems in one state which do not manifest themselves
in other states.
Chemical applications vary from crop to crop. Lettuce
problems in California do not necessarily translate to problems
for citrus in Florida.
The one standard fits all policy for reentry is not
effective in promoting safety or financially feasible for ag
operators .
Unless there is compelling scientific evidence that
specifically targets a compound requiring a standard other than
"until dry," those wait requirements are inappropriate.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide input in this
process. Our members would be pleased to discuss any of these
points with you in further detail.
Sincerely,
W. Gregg Hartt
President
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Worker Protection Standard - Duties and Responsibilities
k Ownen
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Individual *:
In/brmotion at a Central Location:
Safety Poster
Medical Facility Information
Pesticide Application Information
Information Location as Required
Pesticide Safety Training:
Assures worker training
Assures handler training
Conducts training, if needed
Provides Pesticide Safety Sheet
Duties for workers:
Restrictions During Application:
Workers kept out of treated area
during application and REI
Early Entry Exceptions:
Early entry protection/training provided
PPE provided according to level
PPE cleaned and maintained
Notice About Applications:
Oral warnings
Posted warning signs
Duties for Wo
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rkers and Handlers
Additional Duties:
Provide decontamination sites for handlers'
Provide decontamination sites for workers
Information exchange
Emergency assistance provided for handlers
Emergency assistance provided for workers
Miscellaneous:
Duties for Handlers:
Application Restrictions/Monitoring:
Sight/voice contact at 2 hour intervals
Have access and understand labeling
Safety check of handling equipment
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE):
PPE provided according to labeling
PPE maintenance
Provided pesticide free area
Disposal of contaminated PPE
Avoiding heat stress
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Comments:
We have met and agreed to the above delegation of responsibilities under the Worker Protection Standard, 40 CFR Part 170.
1. Owner Signature/Date
2. Caretaker Signature/Date
3. Harvester Signature/Date
4. Other/Date
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Susan H. Smoak
Choumon of lh» Boot d
John F. Smoak, Jr.
President
Edward L. Smoak
V>co Pioudonl and Sectelocy
Smoak Groves, Inc.
1025 County Road 17 North
i Lake Placid. Florida 33852
(813) 465-2561
FAX (813) 465-7301
February 22, 1996
8/gss
<*" WOC DOCKET
Environmental Protection Agency
Attn: Jeanne Keying
Field Operation Division
401 M Street, SW
Washington, D.C. 20460
Re: EPA Sponsored Public Meeting
to discuss the
Federal Worker Protection Standard
Dear Ms. Keying:
The following outline consists of the areas in the Worker
Protection Standard that we here at Smoak Groves, Inc., as well as the
members of the Highlands County Citrus Growers Association feel need
attention. Some sections of the standard are too vague, some are too
strict, and some are just plain unrealistic as presently written. I
do want to make note here that not all the sections of the WPS are in
these categories. Some in fact have real value to them.
I don't believe any grower would dispute that employee safety is
near the top of the list, but when laws are written that only add
confusion and cost to our dailey operation causing growers to throw
up their hands in complete frustation, it is time to stop; back up
and take another look. That's why meetings such as this one could
have a great impact on correcting these problems. This can be accom-
plished if all sides .will make the effort to work in unity for the best
considerations for everyone. We all must work with a spirit of
co-operation.
Having said this, here is our outline:
Harvesting - trying to meet all the requirements in this section
is unrealistic
A. Central Posting Area
B. Training
C. Oral or Posted Warning
D. Who really is responsible for what in this part of the
Standard?
When a company is structured like ours (Smoak Groves, Inc.)
it is impossible to have just one or even a few central posting
-------
Page 2
Jeanne Keying, EPA, WPS
areas. We have groves in three (3) counties and all our
crews are contract crews. The do not come to our central
locations, in fact some of the crew members don't live in
our town. The turn over in laborers is very large and the
training of the new ones difficult, if not impossible.
Decontamination Sites - certain sections in this part of the
Standard are very vague and too strict.
A.
B.
Misconception of Eye Water - How much? Where located??
What really is needed? A five gallon pail with soap and
towels or something as complex as a portable shower
with adequate water as well as all the other requirements
REI's - Many of these are too long and some should probably have none
A. Too restricted (work needs to be done)
Costs • because growers are not sure what is required to keep record
of all the differentsections of the standard, no one is sure
what they should or should not buy. Some growers (Smoak Groves
is one of then) have spent thousands of dollars. We have
purchased a computer, a computer program, decontamination kits,
and a lot of training supplies. Now since there are still so
many vague areas in the standard, we wonder if it was really
necessary.
There are other areas in the WPS that could be written clearer, or at
least should be looked at, and I'm certain that by the time you have
gone to all the scheduled open meetings these other questions will
have been addressed.
My real concern, as I hope everyone's is, is that after all this
information has been compiled IT WILL BE STUDIED AND CONSIDERED!!
I would hope that it will not end up buried on someone's desk, with
nothing accomplished.
I applaud you for your effort and look forward to some positive results.
Sincerely,
James T. Hinkle Sr.
Safety Director
Smoak Groves, Inc.
-------
ran Irex foliage
Ponkan Road • P.O. Box 549 • Plymouth, Florida 32768-0549
Phone (407) 886-8944 • TOLL FREE 1-800-327-6952
Fax #407-886-4558
RECEIVED
MAR 8 1996
OPP PUBLIC DOCKET
One of the mam effects of the foliage industry by the new W.P.S. win be in shipping our product.
Most Florida foliage is sold out of state. It is shipped by common carriers. The truck fines have regularly
scheduled shipping days for major metropolitan areas of the country. (Example; Mort-New York area,
Tues.-Chicago area, Wed.-New England states, etc...) As a result of the schedule we ship everyday. This
means we have people in our greenhouses everyday pulling orders.
During slow sales times we maybe able to get customers who ship on light shipping days to give us their
orders eady which wffl give us one day a week to use pesticides in the greenhouses. However, during the
winter and spring seasons mis will create real problems.
We use three types of pesticide programs:
1.) Major sprays-wMch the whole nursery is sprayed at one time. We presently do this on Saturday, so that
we may use chemicals with a 48 hour re-entry if needed.
2.) Spot sprays-these are used when we have spot infestations or a trouble spot. Usually confined to small
areas but maybe in three different greenhouse ranges.
3.) Drenching-att newly potted plants have to have a soil drench after potting to control soil borne
pathogens. These plants wffl be scattered through-out the nursery.
We can do major spraying on Saturdays. This means that spot sprays and drenching must occur during
the week. Since we cant spray after temperatures reach 80 degrees without danger of getting foliar damage,
we are left with a very small spray window, here in Florida summertime temperatures are in the 80°s from
9:OOAM-9:OOPM.
With the presentre-entry standards we have been unable to determine how to manage our operation. We
have to ship by the carriers schedule to get to the market place, but can't go into the greenhouses for 12
hours if we have used Clorox to clean sidewalks or used chemicals in that house, which may cover 3-4
acres. Yet if we dont control the insects and disease the market wont accept our product
Ifs a catch 22 situation and any relief we might get would be appreciated.
Robert R.
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3. Mississippi
Public Meeting:
Stoneville, MS
April 10, 1996, 7:00 p.m.
• 47 participants (47 registered), including 11 speakers
Site Visits and Small Grottp Discussions:
Dr. George Furr, Clarksdale, MS
April 9,1996, 4:30 p.m.
• EPA staff met with Dr. Furr, retired physician; Frank Chiles, crop consultant.
Tutweiler Clinic, Tutweiler, MS
April 9,1996, 7:00 p.m.
• EPA staff met with Sister Ann Brooks, MD.
Delta Research and Extension Center, Stoneville, MS
* April 11,1996, 9:00 a.m.
• EPA staff met with Dan Branton, Delta Council; Dr. John Jenkins and William Timmers,
USDA-Agriculture Research Service; Robert McCarty and other staff, Mississippi
Department of Agriculture and Commerce; and Mike Blankenship, Mississippi Farm
Bureau.
Edwards Flying Service, Leland, MS
April 11, 1996, 11:00 a.m.
• Tour of the aerial application facility.
• EPA staff met with Mark and John Edwards, owners, and one worker.
Farmworker Meeting, McGehee, AR
April 11, 1996, 6:00 p.m.
• EPA staff met with AmeriCorps workers.
Mississippi 53
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Transcript of Public Meeting
Stoneville, Mississippi
April 10, 1996
Robert McCarty: I am Robert McCarty
and I am Director of the Bureau of Plant
Industry in the Mississippi Department of
Agriculture and Commerce, and in our bureau
we have the responsibility for pesticide
regulatory programs in the state. We are the
designated lead agency for pesticide regulatory
activities in Mississippi, designated to conduct
the compliance monitoring enforcement
programs by EPA. Consequently, we work
with the Agency on all pesticide regulatory
issues. This is a public forum that is being
conducted by the U. S. Environmental Pro-
tection Agency. We were asked to participate
in the forum with EPA since the states are
partners in the pesticide regulatory programs
across the country with the Agency. I was
asked to serve as moderator.
Mississippi is the host for this particular
forum which is a regional forum. People from
states in the mid-South were invited to attend
and participate and we certainly want all of
you to have an opportunity during the course
of the night to make a statement pertaining to
Worker Protection if you would like to do so.
Let me say welcome, to all of you, to the
facilities here. This is the Delta Research and
Extension Center which is an arm or branch
of Mississippi State University. Our depart-
ment, the Department of Agriculture and
Commerce, works hand-in-glove with the
university at Mississippi State to provide
education, training, and outreach programs
pertaining to pesticides. Our agency is invol-
ved in regulatory activities and compliance as
well as certain education activities. So wel-
come to this campus of Mississippi State.
Welcome to the State of Mississippi. We
appreciate all of you coming. I know that
field activities are taking time for many of the
farmers and workers in this part of the
country. It's dry enough that tractors are
probably running in the field in sight of this
campus. In spite of the time of year, the good
weather, I think we have good attendance, a
good cross-section of people involved in the
use of pesticides all the way from production
to recommendations for use, to applicators, to
workers being represented where pesticides
are used. So we appreciate very much your
being here.
Since this is an EPA-driven meeting, I
would like take this opportunity to introduce
the EPA officials with us. Standing in the
back of the room is Jane Horton. Jane is the
Worker Protection Program Coordinator in
EPA's Region 4 office out of Atlanta. Region
4 in EPA involves eight states in the
Southeast, Mississippi being one of those eight
states. So Jane, we appreciate your being here.
She's the one who's really worked to set up
the meeting. We have Jackie Harwood,
54 Mississippi
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Worker Protection Program staff person from
EPA headquarters in Washington. On my
right is Don Eckerman. Don is in the
Certification Occupational Safely Branch and
works with worker protection and will
probably be able to answer all of our
questions tonight. And we appreciate him
getting here. They made a pretty good tour of
the delta area getting here this afternoon from
the airport in Jackson. They actually wound
up stopping in Shaw for directions after
crossing Highway 82 somewhere along the
•way.
On my left is Susan Wayland. Susan is
currently the Deputy Assistant Administrator
in the Office of Pesticides and Toxics. That's
the office that oversees all of the pesticide
programs including the Office of Pesticide
Programs which falls under the Assistant
Administrator for Pesticides and Toxic
Substances. Susan has been a long-time
acquaintance of mine since when she worked
in the Office of Pesticide Programs and has
been very close to Worker Protection
regulation development and implementation
and involved in the policy-making activities at
a very high level in the Agency, and we are
delighted to have Susan with us. I would like
to call on her to make some opening
comments and then I will come back and
establish the ground rules for participation in
the forum.
Susan Wayland: Thank you so much,
Robert. Don and I did have a lovely
impromptu tour of some of the area around
Shaw, Mississippi. We somehow missed the
sign to the Extension Research Center and
ended up in Shaw and went into a gas station
and said, "Can you please tell us how to get to
Stoneville?" and they said, "No, we hadn't
heard of that." And I said, "Well, we are in
deep trouble because I don't know where we
are and neither do you, Don!"
But for me personally it is great to be back
here in Mississippi. It's great to be back,
particularly in the delta. I've been here several
times before, and I very much enjoy working
with the folks that I have met here. And it's
also really good to be in a place where it is not
snowing, I can assure you, having had another
snowstorm in Washington yesterday!
I just want to add to Robert's welcome
and good-evening to all of you and to express
EPA's real appreciation for all of you taking
time out of your busy schedules to come and
talk to us tonight. We are here this evening to
listen and to learn about your experiences so
far in implementing the Worker Protection
Standard. I think that most of you in the
room know that the Worker Protection
Standard is a regulation that provides basic
workplace protection by first, informing
employees about potential hazards of
pesticides that they may be exposed to;
secondly, by trying to eliminate exposure
wherever we can; and thirdly, when we have
exposure, to try to mitigate that exposure so
we have a safe work force. And it is truly a
very high priority of the Environmental
Protection Agency.
The regulation that we're now
implementing was a long time in coming. It is
a strengthening of our national efforts to
safeguard the over 3.5 million agricultural
workers in this country and it was ten years in
Mississippi 55
-------
the making. It's been a long road, sometimes
a windy road, sometimes a bumpy road, but I
think that we are in a period now where we
can really look forward to implementing the
standard and try to work out the last
remaining kinks. Because of the importance
of this regulation to EPA, EPA and its
partners have exerted a lot of effort over the
last year to reach out to those affected by the
rule. We have distributed a large amount of
educational training material, we have
supported training compliance assistance
sessions around the country, and we have
trained thousands of workers, handlers, and
growers.
I mentioned the word "partners" and I do
not take this term lightly—EPA is truly
appreciative of the tremendous amount of
assistance that we have received by the states,
from the states, from the Department of
Agriculture, from the growers including the
Cotton Council, including the Delta Council,
from the farmworker groups, and from the
pesticide industry. I think everyone has been
magnificent in stepping up to the plate and
trying to come to grips with the issues and
giving us very sound advice. We do want
these requirements to be protective of
workers but at the same time we want them to
be workable in the real world.
We have already made modifications since
1995: we have accelerated the transition from
15 days to five days for the grace period and
we have ensured that all workers will get at
least some basic safety training before they go
into the field. We have exempted qualified
crop advisors from most of these
requirements of the rules, we have allowed
early entry into pesticide-treated areas to
perform certain limited contact and irrigation
activities. We have established criteria for
some low toxicity pesticides to reduce the re-
entry interval from 12 hours to four hours and
that involves about 80 different pesticides.
And, even as we speak, we have had two
additional changes out for public comment
dealing with decontamination and the sign
requirements. So we are trying to learn as we
go, we are trying to improve as we go, and
hear you and meet the needs of everyone in
this room.
We are looking to evaluate how we are
doing this program in three different ways.
One way is to have a national dialogue (and
that's what we're doing here tonight). We are
going to be visiting about 10 states. We've
already been to Florida; we are going to be
going to Washington, Pennsylvania, Missouri,
Indiana, California, Texas, and Puerto Rico
after Mississippi and we want to hear a variety
of views. Obviously, agriculture is different in
different parts of the country. The issues will
be different for both the growers and for the
farmworkers and so we want to get around to
as many parts of the country and have a real
dialogue with the people most affected by this
regulation.
But in addition to these public meetings,
we are going to be looking for a variety of
other sources to give us feedback and
information on how we are doing. For
example, we are asking .the farmworker
organizations that are doing the training to
conduct some "pre" and "post" pesticide
safety training assessments so we know how
the training is working and what the additional
56 Mississippi
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training needs might be in the future.
Another example is the National Council of
Agricultural Employers are going to be
holding a series of workshops dealing with
many agricultural issues including worker
protection. We expect to get a lot of good
feedback from those sessions as well. And we
do expect to have a continuing and
continuous dialogue with the state lead
agencies—with people like Robert [McCarty]
and with the Department of Agriculture, the
people that are truly on the front lines and
dealing with the growers and dealing with the
workers in trying to make this program work.
So we can see •what areas are working well and
where we need to make some additional
improvements. And finally, over the long
term, we are going to be looking for ways that
we can actually quantify what the benefits of
all of this have been—what have our efforts
paid off in terms of actually protecting health.
We're hoping to do that by tracking better
some pesticide incident data and looking at
trends from health surveys.
What we're hoping is that all of these
evaluation efforts will give us the information
we need in order to make the adjustments that
you need. In follow-up to tihe public meetings
(such as the one we're having tonight), we are
going to develop and distribute a summary of
what is learned in this dialogue. So not only
will there be a transcript from this meeting,
there will be a transcript from all of the public
meetings and then we're going to try to do a
summary so you all can see, not only what you
said, but what other folks around the country
have said.
So tonight I'm hoping that we will be
learning from you several things. First, what
successes you've had in implementing these
requirements, what difficulties you've had in
implementing these requirements, what
suggestions you have for improving this
program and what you think about the
assistance you have received so far and what
' additional assistance you would like to see in
the future.
Before we start with the public session, I
do want to express EPA's appreciation, my
own personal appreciation, for the leadership
of the state officials here in Mississippi, and
Robert in particular, for all of the terrific
efforts in outreach communications and
compliance assistance. We need, as I said
earlier, a real partnership, of regulators,
growers, and farmworker advocates, to really
make this program a success. We want this
program, like a lot of the programs at EPA, to
work in a common sense way. We want to
establish some goals, but we want to have
some common sense ways to get to those
goals that I think we all mutually share. So
with that, I said at the beginning that we're
hear to listen and not to talk, and those are a
few remarks that I wanted to make, and I will
turn it back over to our able moderator.
Robert McCarty: Thank you very much,
Susan. That certainly opens up the meeting
for the public forum. There are just two or
three things that I would like to do before we
start listening to the audience. One is to
introduce some of the people from my staff:
Tommy MacDaniel, who is the coordinator of
all of the pesticide compliance programs.
Mississippi 57
-------
Keith Davis, who works solely in compliance
activities for pesticide compliance and
enforcement. Homer Wilson is wearing two
hats; Homer is working with the USDA
record keeping program and will be calling on
farmers this summer, monitoring certain
records. Dr. Michael Quart, who is leader of
Agricultural and Natural Resources Programs
in the Mississippi Cooperative Extension
Service, is here representing Mississippi State
University Administration, particularly the
Extension Director's Office. Dr. Jim Hamer,
leader of the Chemical Education Unit in
Extension, was here earlier and I believe he
just walked up to the door. Dr. Hamer has
spent a lot of time in putting the training
component of this effort together in our state
and set up some material against the wall on
the left (if you would like to look at that
during the break or after the meeting). Also,
he may make a statement later about some of
our training activities in the state.
I would call your attention to the material
on the table in the rear of the room. That was
provided by EPA and is available to the
public. Anyone that would like to pick up that
material, feel free to do so. If there's
something there that you do not get a copy of,
let one of us know and we'll make sure that
you get the material. We don't want to pick
up the material that was put out by the
Extension Service, but it is there for you to
see and you can certainly request it. All of
those notebooks, videotapes, record keeping
forms, etc. are available through the county
extension offices in the state or directly from
the campus at the university. So take
advantage of that material while you are here
if you haven't had an opportunity to see it.
This forum is being held for worker
protection. Worker protection under the
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and
Rodenticide Act started just a short time after
the Congress amended the law in the early
1970s, where the Agency published a short
regulation setting re-entry intervals for certain
chemicals. As things evolved in the late '70s-
early '80s, the Agency began developing a
regulation that went through the negotiated
rulemaking process and later was finalized by
the Agency and we've been in the process of
implementing this since 1992. The purpose is
to hear from the public about what's working,
what's not, what the concerns are that we and
EPA need to be paying attention to with
regard to getting people in compliance with
the current regulation. We don't want to go
back and start reinventing this entire process
and going through everything that we went
through in the mid-'80s and early '90s to
develop the regulation and compliance
manuals, but we do want to hear concerns
from the public that need to be recognized
and need attention, and that's the purpose of
this forum.
Proceedings of the meeting will be
available. I would like to remind you that all
of the meeting is being recorded. There will
be written proceedings. It is a public meeting.
We want everybody to have an opportunity to
speak, but in order to do so you must sign up
at the desk outside the door. If you plan to
make a statement, please sign up if you didn't
get on the list as you came in. Speakers will be
given five minutes to make their statement.
58 Mississippi
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We will be keeping time. We will stay on track
as far as limiting presentations to worker
protection. If you want to talk about other
FIFRA issues such registration, pesticide
labels, ground water, food safety, there are
several of us here that can visit with you from
the states of Mississippi, Arkansas, and
Louisiana—their regulatory agencies are
represented. The EPA staff will be glad to
hear your concerns and respond to it either
now or at some future date. This meeting
tonight will be limited to worker protection
regulation issues. What I'm going to do is
begin listening and going right down the line
in order as you signed up. Are there any
questions before we begin that? I would
entertain a question or two for clarification.
Speaker from Audience: Will we be
allowed to ask questions during the course of
the evening?
Robert McCarty: As long as it pertains to
wrker protection issues and it doesn't disrupt
the presentations, I think we could entertain a
question or two, but I should call on EPA
staff to respond to that question.
Susan Wayland: I think what we would
hope is to listen to you more than have a
question and answer session. We want to hear
what your experiences have been in
implementing the rules. We are going to have
a break. We'll be available to answer questions
during the break and we'll also be happy to
answer questions after the meeting. I'm sure
a few questions would be fine, but we don't
want this to be a question-and-answer kind of
session.
, Robert McCarty: OK, I think we can
handle that and maybe at the end, depending
on what time we conclude listening, we could
have some dialogue in the form of questions.
Is there a Mr. Young with the Arkansas
Human Development Corporation ready to
make his statement? I would like to ask those
people making a statement to please come to
the podium and use a microphone. If you are
uncomfortable with the way it is turned, you
can move it a little. We tried to set it so you
would be facing the audience as well as the
people up here. But be sure to speak into the
microphone because the comments are being
taped for our proceedings.
Jane Horton: And please state your name
at the beginning of your statement.
Clevon Young: My name is Clevon
Young. I am the Executive Director of
Arkansas Human Development Corporation.
I am pleased to be here this evening and I
want to thank the state officials and the
national officials for giving us the opportunity
to come and make some comments. I
primarily want to just report on a consortium
that Arkansas Human Development
Corporation is a part of: Arkansas Human
Development Corporation, formerly the
Arkansas Council of Farmworkers, has been
providing employment and training, housing
and development, and health-related services
to migrant seasonal farmworkers for more
than 25 years now. For about the past 15
Mississippi 59
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months, we have been involved in what I
guess you could say is a partnership with our
national association, the Association of
Farmworker Opportunity Programs,
otherwise known as AFOP. They have a
grant from the U.S. EPA as well as the
National Corporation for Community Service
and what they have done is they selected nine
state organizations (there are 53 programs like
the Arkansas Human Development
Corporation) that operate in 48 states and
Puerto Rico. (There is more than one
program in some states such as California
because of the size of those areas.) Through
these agreements, they have selected nine
states to provide training to farmworkers and
farmers on the new Worker Protection
Standards.
I'd like to say that as a part of that
program, Arkansas Human Development
Corporation, over the past 15 months, has
provided training and certification to more
than 2,000 farmworkers and growers or
farmers. None of that would be possible
without the assistance of primarily Mr. Charles
Armstrong at the Arkansas State Plant Board
who has come out and provided training and
certification for all of our staff as well as a
number of AmeriCorps participants. We
currently have about 12 people in Arkansas
who are certified to conduct this training.
Charles is available, he comes out and
provides technical assistance, he's provided
certification cards for us, he's on call
whenever there are questions, and I should say
that whenever we provide the training, both in
English and Spanish... Arkansas is one of
those states in transition and so we're getting
a large number of Hispanic and Latin
American farmworkers coming to the state to
work there and often times there's difficulty
with the language barriers, and having bilingual
staff and staff of Latin American heritage is
very helpful in terms of helping them integrate
into the community there. We do not do any
kind of investigations, anything that's brought
to our attention we take immediately to the
Arkansas State Plant Board. If there's a
problem to be resolved, it's resolved at that
level between them and whoever. We have
partnerships with farmworkers and with
farmers. We've developed these partnerships
over a number of years we, quite frankly, place
a high value on them.
I will say that in terms of problems, we've
one or two people who have come to the
program either as an employee or an
AmeriCorps participant and kind of came to
us with the idea that they were going to go out
and change the face of agriculture in Arkansas
and make people stop doing what they've
been doing for years and that kind of thing.
And we quickly brought them into the office,
had some talks with them, and in some cases
we've been able to do some remediation and
others we had to kind of part... I guess you
could say agreeing to disagree. And we don't
apologize for that. We are not making any
comments about the value of the Worker
Protection Standards. We're here to do what
'we can with what we have.
We've had, I think, a very good response
there in Arkansas. We are constantly finding
or developing new partners, working with new
associations. The Arkansas State Plant Board
has given us all the information and I guess
60 Mississippi
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you could say "materials" that we can store. It
seems like every time Charles shows up, he
has a new van load of materials so somebody
evidently is violating the (what is it?), the
paper reduction act somewhere. I have with
me Ruben Arana, he's the Health Outreach
Coordinator for the Arkansas Human
Development Corporation, and Reuben
coordinates all of our...we call this program
our Health Outreach Program because we do
not solely concentrate on Worker Protection
Standards, we have some individuals there
who also concentrate on HIV and AIDS,
alcoholism, other kinds of problems that are
health-related and are common to the
farmworker community.
Robert McCarty: You have one minute.
Clevon Young: Oh, do I? Well at this
point, unless there's a question, I'll assume
that I'm in Congress and I'll yield the rest of
my time.
Donna Winters: My name is Donna
Winters and I'm First Vice President of the
Louisiana Cotton Producers Association and
I want to thank you for the opportunity to
relate the front line experience of the
members of the Louisiana Cotton Producers
Association. We appreciate EPA's willingness
to listen to the concerns of those who are
affected by the standards and to modify those
standards where just cause can be shown.
As I said, my name is Donna Winters. My
husband and I are producers of cotton, corn,
soybeans and wheat in northeast Louisiana
near the town of Lake Providence. I grew up
on a farm, in fact I still live in the house on
the farm that I grew up in, and have been a
farmer for the past 25 years. I also serve as
First Vice President of the Louisiana Cotton
Producers.
I'd like to review several of the
requirements of the farm Worker Protection
Standard individually and relate my
observations and comments. I believe these
opinions are shared by the majority of cotton
producers in my area. First of all, relative to
the education and training portion of the
standard, I think this is probably one of the
most important parts. I think once you
educate the worker as to what he's dealing
with, it makes it much easier to get him to
comply with the personal protective
equipment portion.
In the personal protective equipment, I
think this is the portion of the standard which
holds the most potential for reducing
exposure to workers in the cotton industry,
particularly as it relates to those workers
involved in the mixing and loading process.
These tasks are generally of short duration and
yet they involve a relatively high potential for
exposure. Because these tasks normally last
no more than five to ten minutes per
operation, the cumbersome nature of the
personal protective equipment is manageable.
However, if you should have to refill a
number of tractors simultaneously or stay in
the equipment for very long, it's going to
expose that worker to some heat-related
problems. We continue to believe that for
certain other short-duration tasks, such as
equipment adjustment and unstopping
nozzles, an apron should be sufficient where
Mississippi 61
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coveralls are now required. These tasks do
not involve great risks and the need to don
coveralls in hot weather for a brief, low-risk
operation is a problem. Cotton producers
have made significant progress in conforming
to the requirements for personal protective
equipment. However, hot weather and the
hurried pace of field operations can be
difficult obstacles to overcome.
With regard to record keeping, we feel
that the record keeping requirement of the
farm Worker Protection Standard is one
which the average cotton producer is
struggling with. Surely everyone would agree
that keeping good records makes good sense.
But when a producer spends 12 to 13 hours a
day on a tractor or in a pick-up truck riding
his fields, any record keeping duties in
addition to the normal accounting, bill-paying,
field records and USDA pesticide record
keeping requirements can be burdensome.
We feel that the majority of producers have
no clerical help and must add this to their
already busy schedule. Good, inexpensive
software which can be used in a personal
computer to ease the load is greatly needed.
This would help some, but many producers
do not have computers. I saw the sheets in
the back that said "software" but that's really
the first that I had seen that you had software
available.
With regard to re-entry intervals and
posting requirements, since the typical cotton
operation no longer requires large numbers of
hand laborers, the re-entry intervals are
primarily a factor as they relate to irrigation
operations. We appreciate EPA's recognition
of this and their allowance of exceptions to
these activities. Again, the need for coveralls
on top of other work clothing in hot weather
can be a problem. We believe that the ability
to re-enter fields that have 48-hour reentry
intervals after a 24-hour waiting period with.
workers wearing gloves and long sleeves
would be helpful in short duration, low-
contact situations. The need to post fields is
greatly reduced by the fact that we rarely have
the planned need for hand laborers to re-enter
a field during the re-entry period. I continue
to question (personally continue to question.)
the need for any re-entry interval on some
chemicals, particularly herbicides which can be
purchased by the untrained general public at
many retail stores (and I'm thinking
specifically Roundup and some of those types
of herbicides).
In regard to decontamination and
emergency assistance, this area is really an area
that's the easiest for our producers to
'conform to. We work shoulder to shoulder
with our employees and they're very valuable
to us and their well-being is of the utmost
importance from both a practical and a
personal standpoint.
In summary, the cotton industry is making
an honest effort to comply with the farm
Worker Protection Standard but we need a
renewed effort regarding awareness and
compliance. We believe the state agencies
responsible for the enforcement of the
Standard and the farm organizations which
provide producer leadership should engage in
such a campaign. Another thing that might
help awareness is more prominent labeling of
the major features of a product's requirements
such as a large orange sticker on a box, so
62 Mississippi
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often you don't have to read the fine print,
with labeling such as "Re-entry 24 hours,
Gloves, Coveralls, Face Protection." Once
again, we appreciate the opportunity to
express our experiences and our concerns.
Thank you.
Robert McCarty: Thank you very much,
Donna. I'll take just a moment to make a
couple of other introductions. Bobby
Simoneaux, my counterpart in the state of
Louisiana; Bobby is Director of the Pesticide
Regulatory Programs. Mr. Charles Armstrong
with the Arkansas State Plant Board is
responsible for compliance in the state of
Arkansas and we appreciate them being here
to listen along with the EPA officials. We'll
move on to the Louisiana Farm Bureau. Mr.
Parker will make a statement for Farm Bureau
in Louisiana. Be sure to state your name for
the record at the beginning.
Tap Parker: My name is Tap Parker and
I'm currently the Chairman of the Louisiana
Farm Bureau Cotton Committee and I'd like
to make a few comments concerning Farm
Bureau's views as well as some of the things
that have happened to us in our personal
operation. From a cotton farmer's
perspective, the WPS has had a tremendous
effect on our farming operation because of
the large number of applications that we tend
to make. Regarding the training requirements,
we have made every effort to make sure our
employees are properly educated concerning
the safe use of pesticides and that we also
know that other area farmers have done the
same as well. In general, we don't have any
problems with the intent of the law because
we've already been making available some of
the current information mandated in the
current provisions to help our employees
become aware of these safety regulations. In
fact, our consultant has agreed to come by
annually and conduct safety seminars for our
employees and our employees have been very
receptive to this. So we feel like that's a real
good part of the program. Providing the
equipment has not imposed any sort of
economic burden on us—it's been easy to do.
I think our men have appreciated the
equipment being there for them. So all of
those are just good common sense things that
have been mandated, and we feel those are
real good things.
Our biggest concern, however, lies in the
time constraints of the restricted re-entry
intervals and the posting requirements for the
actual pesticide applications. For example, not
being able to enter the cotton field
immediately after pesticide application has
been applied can result in producers having to
violate some of our best cultural practices for
the crop. And, because of our large number
of applications, the requirements can become
very burdensome and confusing. Also the
protective equipment requirements can be
quite overwhelming when applications must
be made during the dead of summer with 98°
temperatures and 95 percent humidity.
Generally speaking, we agree with the
intent of WPS but would like a little more
flexibility in complying with some of the more
stringent aspects of the regulations. As you
heard on other occasions, our primary
concern is to make sure the benefits of any
Mississippi 63
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proposed regulation outweigh the cost before
implementation. After talking with other
growers, and with other commodities, the
consensus seems to be confusion surrounding
REIs and posting requirements. Most of our
farmers have made strides and attempts to
comply but these two areas of the regulation
still seem to be of the most concern to most
operations.
We appreciate EPA's decision last fall to
reconsider two areas of concern: a shorter
timeframe for making available the
decontamination sites when using low-risk
pesticides, and language and size requirements
for warning signs. The Farm Bureau supports
the Agency's efforts to examine shortened
required decontamination periods and would
recommend revisions in decontamination
requirements with longer REIs as well. We
support a zero-day decontamination require-
ment for all pesticides with 4-hour REIs,
mainly because of two reasons: first, it would
encourage the use of low-risk pesticides; and
secondly, EPA has stated that these pesticides
with a 4-hour REI do not appear to impose
any significant risk to workers. Therefore, the
requirement becomes unnecessary.
The Farm Bureau also offers the following
comments on other options EPA considered
during the comment period. We hoped EPA
would eliminate the requirement for a
decontamination site after crops are harvested
because there are few cases, if any, where
contact with treated surfaces occurs after
harvest. Eliminate the decontamination
requirement when the REIs expire because
the EPA's own data states that risks associated
with pesticide exposure decline substantially
when the REI ends. Third, to allow field
workers to bring decontamination kits into
treated areas as early entry as it is required for
handler workers for safety and simplification
reasons. We believe the above improvements
in requirements will meet the dual goals of
applying the regulation while providing
substantial safeguards for pesticide workers
and handlers and urge the Agency strong
consideration.
In summary, we understand that Worker
Protection is here to stay but we do encou-
rage the EPA's continued dialogue with the
agricultural industry to make any necessary
adjustments in the regulation, basically for
simplicity and also for economic
considerations. I appreciate this opportunity
to make comments. Thank you.
Robert McCarty: Thank you very much.
I would like to commend all of the speakers
for being right on target, and making some
very timely remarks, and certainly staying with
the allotted time. Next is Mr. Homer Wilson,
current President of the Mississippi
Agricultural Consultants Association. Mr.
Wilson represents a group of people in the
state that advise our cotton producers on pest
management practices and the use of
pesticides.
Homer Wilson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
EPA staff, it's a pleasure for me to be here to
represent the Consultants Association. I am
Homer Wilson, current President of the
Mississippi Agricultural Consultants and we
want to express our appreciation up front for
removing some of the Standards, as was said
64 Mississippi
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earlier. At least the consultants have become
exempted from some of the requirements and
we appreciate that and the whole Agricultural
Consultants Association in Mississippi want to
express their appreciation for that.
Consultants in Mississippi are a well-trained
group of individuals. They represent some
one million acres of cotton land besides the
rice and the other crops they're consulting on,
and of course, have good contacts with
farmers all over the state. They do abide by
the standards and we see a great improvement
in compliance from our farmers. As time
goes on, the farm community is doing a much
better job in complying with the Worker
Protection Standards and training their people
and we see even more progress in that as time
goes on.
We know that there's a great deal of
concern from all sources concerning what
takes place in the ag community now but we
can say in Mississippi that the regulatory
personnel and the state agencies are doing a
great job training our people and training the
personnel who are associated with agriculture
in being able to comply with the standards
that EPA has set up. We, of course, know
that these are things we're going to have to
live with and the lady from Louisiana has well
stated the concerns that I have. In fact, she
covered very well the points that I would like
to make but I would like to reemphasize a
couple of things concerning what we know to
be taking place in the field, since we have first-
hand contact with the farmer and the people
that are applying the materials.
The most concern that I get from the field
is the garments that have to be worn for
protection. This especially is true in the hot
humid conditions that we sometimes find
ourselves in. Like the lady said, if we are
loading two or three tractors, it's hard to
withstand some of the heat conditions and
some of my farmers have been concerned that
even though his worker complies at the very
moment that he is there, if he turns and walks
away to another tractor or gets out of sight,
that individual takes off some of this gear,
especially the respirators—it's very hard to
endure these for a long period of time. This
is a concern that my farmers have.
Another concern is the length of the
manual in training for some of the individuals.
We do have a barrier there in terms of
education and the conception or the
realization of the need to be trained from
some of the people that we deal with and
sometimes it makes it difficult to get these
people to understand just what needs to be
done. We believe that, as the lady from
Louisiana said, that perhaps an apron and
gloves (rubber gloves) would be sufficient to
clean nozzles and to repair boom work
around the machine when it is required,
without having to wear excessive garments for
that work. But all in all, we do see a better
relationship with everyone concerned. Our
people are beginning to learn what is needed
to be done and are complying with it to the
best of their ability as a whole. The main
point that we have is keeping close enough
contact with the individual taking off some of
this gear—and if he does that, the farmer is
concerned about what could happen at that
point to his liability when the worker has been
told to wear those garments. And that's about
Mississippi 65
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all I have to say. I appreciate the opportunity
to bring these points up and we certainly
appreciate you holding the meeting here in
Mississippi.
[The remainder of the transcript is unavailable
due to a failure in the tape recording of the
meeting. Additional speakers at the meeting
were contacted subsequent to the meeting and
asked to send in written comments to be
incorporated in this report. Three of these
speakers (Charles Armstrong, Bill Kennedy,
and William Timmers) sent in written
comments, appended to this chapter. The
following represents a summary of the
testimony of the remaining speakers]:
Mike Gallman: Expressed concerns that
PPE is too hot and too cumbersome;
discussed the difficulty of getting employees to
wear PPE and requested that the Agency
simplify the PPE requirements. He stated that
boots and gloves are all the PPE that is
needed for workers and handlers.
Billy Fountain: As owner of a small retail
nursery business, Fountain expressed the
concern that the WPS requirements will
unduly alarm customers. He is interested in
keeping employees safe, but questions
requirements that hinder normal business
operation, such as central posting, warning
signs and training requirements. Fountain
was especially concerned about the posting
requirements and public perception, and the
cancellation of Temik and other pesticides
which were essential to pest control in his
operation. He stated that government regu-
lation is reducing the profitability of small
businesses and the WPS is the latest of a
number of regulations that do more harm
than good. Fountain invited EPA staff to
tour his facility to better understand the small
nursery business.
Tom Crumby: Stressed the need for
education and cooperation.
Mark Kurtz: Complimented the training
portion of the regulation but expressed
confusion about the requirements for crop
advisors. Kurtz questioned if researchers are
crop advisors under the WPS. Researchers are
all well trained and unlikely to take risks.
Central posting requirements and warning
signs are a problem in research plots. Kurtz
characterized the posting and record keeping
portions of the WPS as too cumbersome, and
expressed concerns about heat stress when
wearing required PPE.
66 Mississippi
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Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Wes Allen
Mississippi Agriculture Aviation Association
Ruben Arana
Arkansas Human Development Corporation
Charles L. Armstrong
Arkansas State Plant Board
Rodney Baker
Arkansas Farm Bureau
Greg Baldwin
Stoneville Pedigred Seed Co.
Craig Bednarz
Mississippi State University
Vilma Bell
Central Mississippi Legal Services
Phillip Bible
Dawson Farms
Jimmy Bonner
Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service
Brian Breaux
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation
E.A. Cancienne
Louisiana Agricultural Aviation Association
Jack W.Carroll
Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service
Maynard Chandler
Sandoz Agro, Inc.
Scott Charbo
Tri-State Delta/UAP
James P. Glower
, Louisiana Agricultural Consultants Association
Tom Crumby
FMC Corporation
Mike Ellis
Jimmy Sanders Inc., MACC
Lyn Ellis
Central Mississippi Legal Services
David Ferguson
USD A-Agriculture Research Service
Billy Fountain
Fountain's Green Grow-cery
Mike Gallman
Louisiana Agriculture Aviation Association
Bob Golitz
Anguilla, MS
Jim Hamer
Mississippi Cooperative Extension Service
Becky Hoagland
USD A-Agriculture Research Service
Mississippi 67
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Joe Homes
Mississippi Delta. Council for Farmworkers
Opportunities, Inc.
John W. Impson
USDA
Paul G. Johnson
Stoneville Pedigred Seed Co.
Bill Kennedy
Delta Council
Laurel A. Koll
Micro Magic
Mark Kurtz
Mississippi State University
Bill Mulkey
Dawson Farms
Tap Parker
Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation
Ralph Pay
Arkansas Crop Protection Association
Charley Richard
American Sugar Cane League
Mills L. Rogers
Rogers Consultants Associates
Steve Rye
Louisiana Agriculture Aviation Association
John H. Schmidt
USDA-Agriculture Research Service-Mid
South Area
Bobby Simoneaux
Louisiana Dept. of Agriculture and Forestry
Pies Spradley
University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension
Service
Sharon Sullivan
TEPA
V. Ray Thornton
Cane-Air, Inc.
William L. Timmers
USDA-Agriculture Research Service-Mid
South Area
Britt Whitley
Helena Chemical Co.
Homer Wilson
Mississippi Agricultural Consultants
Association
Donna Winters
Louisiana Cotton Producers Association
Ray Young
HAICC
Clevon Young
Arkansas Human Development Corporation
68 Mississippi
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Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Dr. George Furr, Clarksdale, MS
• April 9, 1996, 4:30 p.m.
• EPA staff met with Dr. Furr, a retired physician who has written about the human immune
system, and Frank Chiles, a crop consultant.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Dr. Furr believes that pesticides are producing many of the health problems he has
observed in the Mississippi Delta.
— Effects of chlorinated hydrocarbons on the immune system.
— Concerns expressed by Frank Chiles about the use of Furadan.
Tutweiler Clinic, Tutweiler, MS
• April 9,1996, 7:00 p.m.
• EPA staff met with Sister Ann Brooks, MD, of the Tutweiler Clinic.
• The clinic provides preventive and health maintenance programs for the community. Three
quarters of its annual budget is derived from private donations and public funds.
• ' Among the topics discussed at the meeting were:
— Health problems of clinic patients, including several rare cancers and one confirmed
acute poisoning due to exposure to the pesticide Lorsban (chlorpyrifos).
Delta Research and Extension Center, Stoneville, MS
• April 11,1996, 9:00 a.m.
• EPA staff met with Dan Branton, Delta Council; Dr. John Jenkins and William Timmers,
USD A-Agriculture Research Service; Robert McCarty and other staff, Mississippi Department
of Agriculture and Commerce; and Mike Blankenship, Mississippi Farm Bureau.
• Slide presentation by Dr. Jenkins on cotton production, which emphasized the need for control
of insects throughout the growing season. Other slide presentations highlighted research at the
Delta facility on aerial and ground application technology, and the Delta Council's
environmental programs.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
Mississippi 69
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— Concern that WPS is too cumbersome and regulations are too long. Posting and
personal protective equipment (PPE) provisions are of particular concern.
Growers are concerned about potential lawsuits from employees and believe that
reducing PPE requirements would help employers, encourage wearing of PPE, and
reduce heat stress.
Suggestion-mat EPA set PPE requirements based on likely exposure to individual
pesticide, rather than by generic categories of toxicity.
Discussion of Mississippi Cotton Chemical Stewardship Program which began in 1995
with the goal of promoting the appropriate safer use of cotton pesticides.
Edwards Flying Service, Leland, MS
• April 11,1996,11:00 a.m.
• Tour of flying service, including experimental aerial application booms intended to reduce drift.
• EPA staff met with Mark and John Edwards, owners and one worker.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
New aviation guidance equipment (Landsat) designed to eliminate the need for field
flaggers (workers who stand in the field and direct applications by signaling to pilots)
and allow for more precise applications of pesticides.
Concerns about the practicality of PPE (other than gloves), given the potential for heat
stress.
Farmworker Meeting, McGehee, AR
• April 11,1996, 6:00 p.m.
• EPA staff met with AmeriCorps (national public service corps) workers who are providing basic
pesticide safety training in Arkansas. No farmworkers attended, possibly because it was the
height of planting season and they were out late working in the fields.
• Among the topics discussed at the meeting were:
— AmeriCorps volunteers believe the project is working well, reaching and training many
people. The trainers are making a major effort to work with county extension agents.
— Physicians are not trained in medical school to recognize poisonings; they often tell
workers that they just have a cold or allergies.
70 Mississippi
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Physicians lack training in diagnosing pesticide poisonings and therefore tell workers
that they just have a cold or allergies.
The Arkansas Dept. of Health is setting up a program to train doctors to recognize and
diagnose poisonings, and has set up a panel of Agriculture and Health officials to
develop a database of information on poisonings. When the Department of Health
offers seminars on how to identify poisonings, however, many physicians are
uninterested in attending, according to the volunteers.
Employers or growers' reactions are positive when training is free. Often, once they
find out that training by AmeriCorps workers is free, they want to take the training
themselves, in addition to training their employees. However, some employers do not
always tell employees about the need for or availability of training.
Concerns about pesticide drift from aerial applications, affecting many people in
adjacent areas.
Concerns that some workers who come into Arksansas saying that they were trained in
another state do not seem to know the basic WPS regulations.
Respirators are often considered too heavy and may therefore not be worn as required
by pesticide label PPE directions.
Suggestion that EPA reward farmers for good pesticide practices, rather than conduct
enforcement actions for non-compliance.
Suggestion that in future outreach efforts, farmworkers and employers should be
brought together in one room to discuss issues.
Mississippi 71
-------
Written Comments
Charles Armstrong
Arkansas State Plant Board
Bill Kennedy
Delta Council
Donna Winters
Louisiana Cotton Producers Association
William L. Timmers
USDA Agriculture Research Service
72 Mississippi
-------
COMMENTS MADE AT EPA PUBLIC MEETING
IN GREENSVILLE, MISSISSIPPI ON
APRIL 10,1996
I am Charles Armstrong, Assistant Director, Division of Pesticides, Worker Protection Ground
Water and Endangered Species Coordinator of Pesticides, Arkansas Slate Plant Board, Little Rock,
Arkansas. We need three things in order for the Worker Protection Standard to work. They are
Education, Communication, and Working Together. We must educate the farmers, workers,
handlers and general public about pesticides:
1. How to handle pesticides safely;
2. Why we need to use Pesticides;
3, Symptoms of pesticide poison; and
4. How to protect yourself when using pesticides.
If we as EPA, State Regulatory Officials, Cooperative Extension Services, Farmers, Commercial and
Private Applicators do our part in the educational process, this program will work. We must
communicate; The regulatory authorities must talk to the Registrants, the Farmers, the Applicators,
the Workers and Handlers to get input on a rule like this. A meeting like this opens up the channels
of communication between all groups involved or impacted by the rule. We cannot make the
necessary corrections needed without proper communication between everyone involved in this
Worker Protection Standard.
We must all work together for the same common cause, to protect individuals from poisoning and
mitigate pesticide exposures that the individuals could receive.
Arkansas Human Development Corporation trains most of migrant, and other farm workers under
National Farm worker Environmental Education program with Americorp trainers. Americorp
trainers work with extension agents to coordinate training efforts. Dealer Associations and
Agricultural Consultants also train handlers and workers in Arkansas. The trainers take the train-the-
trainer course and pass an exam to become certified to issue EPA Verification Cards.
For a program of this magnitude, we must: Educate, Communicate and Work Together.
-------
MS.
REMARKS FOR PUBLIC COMMENT
APRIL 10, 1996 OCT
WORKER PROTECTION STANDARDS
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ^ ****
BILL KENNEDY
REPRESENTING DELTA COUNCIL
Good Evening. My name is Bill Kennedy, of Inverness,
Mississippi, and I serve as President and General Manager of
Duncan Gin Company. This evening, I appear before you on behalf
of Delta Council, an organization representing agriculture and
business throughout the 18 Delta and part-Delta counties of
Northwest Mississippi. Although Delta Council initiates action on
a wide range of issues including industrial recruitment, water
resource developments, highway and transportation improvements,
and flood protection, the people of this region have long recognized
that agriculture continues to be the largest industry for the future of
this area. In view of the importance of agriculture to the region,
Delta Council is involved in all aspects of farming and allied
agricultural businesses.
-------
Relative to the subject of Worker Protection Standards, Delta
Council would like to make brief remarks. Working through Delta
Council and Farm Bureau, producers throughout this region have
i
been actively involved in pesticide stewardship efforts, pesticide risk
communication and education programs, and most recently, we have
worked cooperatively with the Mississippi Department of Agriculture
and Commerce to ensure that careful adherence is maintained to
Worker Protection Standards. We are especially grateful to
representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency for visiting
the Mississippi Delta last year for the purpose of evaluating "on-
farm" and "real-life" problems associated with specific provisions such
as protective clothing, personal protection equipment, and re-entry
intervals. Due to EPA's sensitivity to the problems which were
presented to the agency on behalf of farmers by organizations such
as Farm Bureau, the National Cotton Council of America, and Delta
Council, practical solutions were offered to some of the more
difficult challenges facing implementation of the Worker Protection
Standards.
-------
Delta Council continues to evaluate the current Worker
Protection Standards in order to make them more acceptable to farm
workers who have oftentimes found these standards too rigid and
without enough flexibility.
Delta Council has a genuine respect for the need to maintain
farm worker safety programs and we are strong advocates of
pesticide risk management initiatives aimed at preventing human
health risks and pesticide exposure. When it was determined in 1993
that the liquid formulation of carbofuran was being utilized in a
manner which exposed farm workers to safety risks, Delta Council
and Farm Bureau joined with the Mississippi Department of
Agriculture and Commerce to encourage the suspension of further
use of this product for the remainder of the crop year. It was only
after substantial changes had been made in the product handling and
distribution system for carbofuran that Delta Council and Farm
Bureau joined with the manufacturer and the Mississippi Department
of Agriculture and Commerce to institute safety and training
programs which led to its use in 1995 without an incident.
-------
Delta Council will continue to carefully monitor approaches
being taken to reduce risk and we will also maintain focus on
reconciling problems associated with farmer liability, personal
protective equipment, and protective clothing as it relates to the
implementation of rules related to Worker Protection Standards.
We express our appreciation to the agency for continuing to
work with us in a cooperative spirit to address Worker Protection
Standards and other agri-environmental issues.
Respectfully submitted,
Bill Kennedy
-------
TESTIMONY
TO
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
PUBLIC MEETING ON THE WORKER PROTECTION STANDARD
STONEVILLE, MISSISSIPPI
APRIL 10, 1996
PRESENTED BY:
DONNA WINTERS, 1ST VICE PRESIDENT
LOUISIANA COTTON PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION
Good evening, and thank you for this opportunity to relate the front line
experience of the members of the Louisiana Cotton Producers Association (LCPA).
We appreciate E.P.A/s willingness to listen to the concerns of those who are affected
by the standard, and to modify those standards where just cause can be shown.
My name is Donna Winters. My husband and I are producers of cotton, corn,
soybeans and wheat in Northeastern Louisiana near the town of Lake Providence. I
grew up on a farm and have been a farmer for the past twenty-five years. I also serve
as first vice-president of the LCPA.
I would like to review several of the requirements of the Farm Worker Protection
Standard individually and relate my observations and comments. I believe these
opinions are shared by the majority of the cotton producers in my area.
-------
1. Personal Protective Equipment
I believe this is the portion of the standard which holds the most potential for
reducing exposure to workers in the cotton industry; particularly as it relates to those
workers involved in the mixing and loading process. These tasks generally are of
t '
short duration and yet they involve a relatively high potential for exposure. Because
these tasks normally last no more than five or ten minutes per operation, the
cumbersome nature of the personal protective equipment is manageable. However,
having to refill several tractors simultaneously would require more time and could
expose that worker to various heat related problems. We continue to believe that for
certain other short duration tasks such as equipment adjustment and unstopping
nozzles, an apron should be sufficient where coveralls are required. These tasks do
not involve great risk and the need to don coveralls in hot weather for a brief, low risk
•., * ''.'•,.,
operation is a problem. . Cotton producers have made significant progress in
conforming to the requirements for personal protective equipment; however, hot
weather and the hurried pace of field operations can be difficult obstacles to
overcome. Sometimes emergencies arise in the field such as a broken line that could
be more quickly addressed by the donning of rubber gloves in lieu of full fatigues.
2. Recordkeeping
The recordkeeping requirement of the F.W.P.S. is one which I believe the
average cotton producer is struggling with. Surely everyone would agree that keeping
good records makes good sense; but when a producer spends 12 to 13 hours a day
on a tractor, any recordkeeping duties in addition to the normal accounting, bill paying,
field records, and U.S.D.A. pesticide recordkeeping requirements can be burdensome.
-------
The vast majority of producers have no clerical help and must add this to their already
busy schedule. Good, inexpensive software, which could be used in a personal
computer to ease the load, is greatly needed. This would help some, but many
producers do not own computers.
3. Re-entry Intervals and Posting Requirements
i
Since the typical cotton operation no longer requires large numbers of hand
laborers, the re-entry intervals are primarily a factor as they relate to irrigation
operations. We appreciate E.P.A.'s recognition of this and their allowance of
exceptions for these activities. Again, the need for coveralls on top of other work
clothing in hot weather can be a problem. We believe that the ability to re-enter fields
that have 48 hour re-entry intervals after a 24 hour waiting period with workers
wearing • gloves and long sleeves would be helpful in short duration, low contact
situations. Tne need to post fields is greatly reduced by the fact that we rarely have
the planned need for hand laborers to re-enter .a field during the re-entry period. I
continue to question the need for any re-entry intervals .for some chemicals,
particularly herbicides which can be purchased by the un-trained general public at
many retail stores. :
4. Decontamination and Emergency Assistance
The decontamination, and emergency assistance requirements of the F.W.P.S.
are among the easiest to conform with for most cotton producers. We generally work
shoulder to shoulder with these valued employees and their well being is of the utmost
importance from a practical and personal standpoint.
-------
In summary, the cotton industry is making an honest effort to comply with the
Farm Worker Protection Standard, but we need a renewed effort regarding awareness
and compliance. We believe the state agencies responsible for the enforcement of the
standard, and the farm organizations which provide producer leadership should engage
in such a campaign. Another thing that might help awareness is more prominent
labeling of the major features of a product's requirements such as a large orange
sticker on the box with labeling such as REI 24 Mrs. - Gloves-Coveralls-Face
Protection. Once again, we appreciate the opportunity to express our experience and
our concerns.
Thank You
-------
September 23, 1996
United States Agriculture
Department of Research
Agriculture Service
Administrative Management
Mid South Area
Administrative Office
Jamie Whitten Delta States |
Research Center
P.O. Box 225
Stoneville, MS
38776-0225
q-PP
Ms. Jeanne Keying
USEPA(7506C)
401M St. SW
Washington, DC 20640
Dear Ms. Keying:
RECEIVED
OCT I I 1996
OPP PUBLIC DOCKET
As a result of a letter received from Ms. Jane B. Horton, US EPA, Atlanta, GA, I am forwarding
information on some of the comments pertaining to the Pesticide Worker Protection Standard
(PWPS) that I made at a public meeting held here at Stoneville, Mississippi on April 10, 1996.
Ms. Horton has stated that the tape recorder used to record the conversations was inoperative,
and consequently, all record of the conversation was lost.
Basically my comments fell into three areas of concern:
• Posting of small research plots vs entire fields,
• Problems associated with heat stress and personal protective equipment, and
• The use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) vs exposure times in areas of application.
In the next three paragraphs I will attempt to reconstruct, in detail, the comments I made at the
meeting.
The posting of small research plots on our research facilities presents unique problems when
compared to the normal farm. I am enclosing a copy of a letter dated September 1, 1993,
(Enclosure 1) sent to the EPA Region IV, which I feel explains the research plot problem very
well. We never received a reply, and we have since adapted by posting portions of the land
(Replication, Treatment, Experiment, Plot or Field, see letter for definitions) as determined by the
scientist charged with performing the research. In some instances, areas larger than the area of
pesticide application have been posted. We have found no harm in this practice. We have also
purchased large quantities of signs. I would hope that a revision of the PWPS would allow
additional flexibility in posting of areas of pesticide application. We feel that there is a definite
need to warn others when toxic/harmful Category I and II pesticides are applied to an area.
Problems associated with heat stress as a result of the wear of personal protective equipment such
as Tyvek suits and respirators have been well documented here in the Mississippi Delta. The
number of instances of employees suffering heat related illness have far exceeded the number of
employees sustaining pesticide exposure related illnesses. In addition, the chances of an employee
becoming a fatality as a result of heat related illness are far greater. The temperatures routinely
reach 95 - 100 degrees Fahrenheit (F), with an accompanying Heat Index of 110 - 115 degrees F.
The temperatures in greenhouses can be even higher. USD A, ARS research personnel at our
Conducting the National Research Programs in Alabama, Kentudy, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee
-------
J. Keying
2
Mississippi State, Mississippi, location have developed an automated, computer controlled,
pesticide spray system (Enclosure 2) which may be installed in greenhouses. This system
eliminates the need for any personnel to be in, or around the greenhouse during pesticide
application, or during the entire re-entry period.
Many of the Department of Labor's, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
standards pertaining to air and chemical contaminants are predicated on a time-weighted average.
For a long term exposure the allowed limit is lower than that for a short term exposure.
Consideration should be given to regulating pesticide exposure in a similar manner. As an
example, an operator of a "High Boy" type spray tractor, with an enclosed air conditioned cab,
needs to wear little or no protective equipment as long as he/she remains in the enclosed cab.
Should the operator be required to dismount to unclog a stopped up spray nozzle, he/she may be
required to don a Tyvek suit and respirator in the confines of the cab, prior to getting down on
the ground to work on the spray nozzle. The actual exposure time, while unstopping a nozzle,
would only be a few minutes, not likely to cause any harm under most circumstances. The
donning of PPE in the confines of a "High Boy" cab would be more likely to result in injury to the
operator as he/she flails about trying to "suit up", than a couple of minutes exposure on the
ground would cause. The time-weighted approach, with exposure times and exposure level
calculations based on the ingredients and percentage of mixture would seem to be far more
practical. The use of PPE would also impact the time-weighted average for exposure purposes,
with the idea that when PPE is being used, the allowed exposure would be greater. The present
system of using the product label to convey information to the user could continue to be used
with a time-weighted system. It is also possible that this system could not be used with all
pesticides, a detailed study would probably be needed.
Farmers and their employees in the Delta tend to be very respectful of pesticides and their effects
on people and the environment. Economics dictate that fanners don't use any more pesticides
than absolutely necessary because they are expensive to purchase and apply. One of the big areas
of emphasis should be the continued education of farmers and employees as to the effects of
pesticides used. Approximately 70% of ARS's research at Stoneville, Mississippi is devoted to
the reduction or elimination of pesticides in the growing of Delta crops. A good example is the
research in B. T. Cotton.
Additional emphasis and research needs to be done on the subject of biological control of pests,
an area where we have only scratched the surface. Biocontrol pesticides instead of chemical
pesticides have the potential to greatly reduce the amount chemical pesticides used and released
to the environment. This is an area that needs continuing research.
I really appreciate the EPA's attitude in requesting input from the agriculture industry, and in
particular a research institution such as ours. The opportunity to make up the portion of the
public meeting that was lost, and to make these comments a matter of public record is greatly
appreciated. The effort going into the revision of the PWPS Cannot but help to create a better
PWPS, one that will benefit all those involved in the use of pesticides.
-------
J. Keying
Sincerely,
WILLIAM L. TIMMERS
Area. Safety, Health and Environmental Manager
2 Enclosures
cc:
J. B. Horton, EPA
T. J. Army, AD
A. Tucker, AAO
W. R. Meridith, CP&G
-------
No Muss,'No Fuss Spray Rig for Greenhouses
x • 'JL «/ • - CJ
round the ARS Crop
Science Research Labora-
tory at Mississippi State.
Mississippi, maintenance mechanic
Stan Malone is regarded as an
engineering wizard.
Last summer, Malone put his
exceptional talents to work when
Quinnia L. Yates, a biological lab
technician, proposed the idea of
automating an insecticide spray
system for greenhouse-grown plants.
After surveying Yates' greenhouse,
Malone envisioned an overhead
pesticide-misting rig that might best
fill that bill.
But none of the commercial
greenhouse suppliers they later
contacted sold any such rig matching
his conception. "We tried every-
where," Malone says, "but there was
nothing out there we could find."
His next move was to team up
with Dennis Rowe, who heads up the
lab's Forage Research Unit.
With the unit's help,
Malone then designed a
system of his own—
drawing on such off-
the-shelf items as a
toggle switch, timer
clock, pressurized
pesticide tank, chemical
hoses, flora nozzles, and
other components
chosen from various
commercial equipment
suppliers.
With the new system,
"there's no human
involvement except for
mixing of pesticide
according to the manufacturer's
label," Malone says. "You simply fill
your tank with whatever insecticide
you need to control the insects, set
the timer clock, and turn on the
switch and leave."
This activates electrical relays that
temporarily close the greenhouse's
FLEXIBLE HOSE
SOLENOID VALVE
" "SOPSIAIR
SUPPLY
exhaust fans, motori/.cd whitlows.
and vents. A special valve attach-
ment .then releases compressed air
into a 5-gallon tank, forcing pesti-
cide into overhead hoses and brass
irrigation nozzles. These mist the
chemical over the plants, providing
full coverage in 2-1/2 minutes for a
30-by 40-foot room.
The system then flushes its hoses
clean with blasts of air and, after the
pesticide settles, restarts the green-
house's environmental controls.
WINDOW
WINDOW MOTOR
PRESSURE TANK
WITH PESTICIDE
SPRAY TIMER CONTROLLER
Before the automatic system's
installation, it took Yates about 45
minutes to manually spray insecti-
cide to curb populations of white-
flies, mealy bugs, and other destruc-
tive insects. Left unchecked, their
feeding damage can jeopardize the
uniformity of plants grown for
research. But 1994 EPA worker
protection standards—while effec-
tive—made routine spraying ardu-
ous, costly, and unpleasant.
The standards dictate that green-
house workers wear a respirator, pro-
tective suit, gloves, goggles, and
boots when spraying. But in a hot,
humid greenhouse where tempera-
tures can reach 110"F, a suited work-
er can easily become faint or dizzy.
Because of this, "we sometimes
would neglect spraying until we got a
buildup of insects," Yates says. "But
with the new spray rig, it's not
necessary to risk a buildup." It also
eliminates the need for the costly
disposable suits.
The system can be set to spray at
night or on the weekends. Also,
"users can modify it to fit their
applications," says Malone. He has
installed the new rig in 15 of the
ARS lab's 30 greenhouse rooms.
The costs for materials
start at $700 for a 30- by 40-
foot room. Computer-con-
trolled foggers and other
commercial devices that
apply pesticide in greenhous-
es range in cost from $2,000
to $5,000. "The greatest gain
I see," says Rowe, "is know-
ing workers are not
exposed to spray."
Rowe, Malone,
and Yates intend to
submit detailed
plans for the new
system to a trade
journal.—By Jan
Suszkiw, ARS.
Stan Malone is
at the USDA-ARS Crop Science
Research Laboratory, P.O. Box
5367, Mississippi State, MS 39762;
phone (601) 323-2230, fax (601)
323-0915. Dennis Rowe and Quinnia
Yates are in the lab's Forage Re-
search Unit, at same address and
phone, fax (601) 324-8499. •*
22
Agricultural Research/July 1996
-------
September 1, 1993
Mr. Richard Pont
Pesticide Program Unit
EPA, Region IV
345 Courtland Street N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30365
Dear Mr. Pont:
During the implementation of the revised Pesticide Worker
Protection Standard within the U. S. Department of Agriculture,
Agricultural Research Service, Mid South Area, we find a potential
problem. Specifically, the requirements outlined in 40 CFR
170.120(c)(3), pertaining to the posting of signs in areas treated
with Toxicity Category I & II pesticides. We have 11 agricultural
research facilities in the Mid South Area engaged in research in a
variety of plant production areas, including plant genetics, plant
physiology, and plant growth. Each of our facilities may have some
fields of a size comparable to that found on a commercial farm, but
many of our fields are of 10 acres or less and are broken up into
many smaller units for experimentation purposes.
In order to better illustrate the problem, I would like to define
five (5) terms that will be used in this letter to delineate the
relationships between units of land used by our Area for research.
1. FIELD - An area of significant acreage used for
experimentation, usually assigned to a research unit. One of our
research facilities, or locations, may have as many as 20 or 30
fields used for experimentation.
2. PLOT - A portion of
scientist for experimentation.
or more plots.
a field assigned to a particular
A field may be divided into 10, 20
3. EXPERIMENT - A portion of a plot assigned for use in one
experiment by a scientist. One scientist may have 10 or more
experiments going on at the same time.
-------
Richard Pont 2
_ 4. _ REPLICATION - The scientist divides the experiment into
replications. The scientist duplicates individual experiments to
insure meaningful conclusions may be drawn in the research. One
experiment will have a minimum of 4 replications, and may have as
many as 10 replications, depending on the experiment.
5. TREATMENT - The scientist will divide the replication into
treatments, (up to 10, or even 20). which will be the smallest unit
of measure used in this letter. Pesticides (insecticides,
herbicides, fungicides, etc.) will be applied at rates and times
dictated by the nature of the experiment. I/A/W 40 CFR
170.120(c) (3) this would be the area requiring the posting of signs
denoting application of Toxicity Category I pesticides.
Not all Treatments will have pesticides of Toxicity Category I
applied. Depending upon the experiment, several different
pesticides (with varied Toxicity Categories) may be applied to the
Treatments, either simultaneously or at slightly varied times. The
same situation may also hold true for Replications, Experiments,
Plots, and Fields. Each Treatment, Replication, Experiment, etc.,
generally has an access walkway around it to separate and delineate
it from other areas of equal size. Pesticide application to these
very small areas is usually accomplished using hand spray equipment
due to the need for controlled application and results in minimal,
or no, drift to other areas.
Many applications of Toxicity Category II, III, or IV pesticides
may. °.nlv require oral warnings. The types of warnings and
notifications of pesticide application will vary on a day-to-day
basis for any given Treatment, Replication, Experiment, Plot, or
Field, depending on the type of research, and pesticide used. In
some cases, the Treatment, Replication, Experiment, Plot, or Field
will require application of a pesticide daily for several days, or
even weeks. The techniques of the use of pesticides during, and
for, research often differ from the use of the same pesticides by
commercial farmers for whom this standard was intended. The future
uses of many pesticides by farmers ultimately may well be dependent
upon the results of research conducted in these experimental areas.
The only personnel authorized to enter an Experiment (or smaller)
area are the researchers (scientists)', research technicians, and
research technician assistants who are directly involved in the
research going on in that Experiment area. The research personnel
normally are responsible for the application of pesticides only to
Experiment/Replication/Treatment areas within their Experiment
-------
Richard Pont 3
area. The research personnel are fully aware of the
characteristics of any pesticide used on any given Treatment within
their Experiment area. Pesticide applications are strictly
controlled as to amount, method and rate, and are normally applied
by the researchers, or research technicians, who would be trained
to the "handlers" standard. The only persons who would be
authorized to enter the Treatment area where pesticides had been
applied, during the pesticide restricted entry period, would be the
researcher, or research technician functioning as a "crop advisor."
This person would have been trained as a handler, be wearing the
protective equipment required for application, and be performing
the research in that Experiment area. Persons not involved in the
experiment, or the Experiment area, would be notified of the
pesticide application by the signs posted around the Experiment
area in the same manner as a normal farm field. Additional
information on pesticide applications would be available at a
central information board in the Field area. The large number of
Experiment areas would require several central information boards
in the Field areas to handle all the Notices of Application, which
would contain the information required by 40 CFR 170.122.
Personnel from outside of ARS are not normally used in a "worker"
capacity in the Experiment areas. Consequently, there is little
chance of exposure to personnel not knowledgeable in the use of
pesticides. The quantities of any given pesticide applied in the
Experiment area is minimal, especially when'compared to the amounts
used in normal fields. Decontamination and training requirements
of the Pesticide Worker' Protection Standard would be met.
The number and size of Fields, Plots, Experiments, Replications,
and Treatments will vary from one facility to another, depending on
the size (of the facility), and the research mission. The number
of Treatment areas can easily reach 1000 or more at one location..
At four (4) signs per Treatment area, the number of signs necessary
to post application areas as presently required, (the Treatment
areas) , can be mind boggling. While the cost and control of signs
may pose little problem to a commercial farmer with only several
fields not broken into smaller units, we estimate that several
thousand signs may be needed just to properly post one research
facility, I/A/W the existing directive, with only 100 experiments
under way. At a cost of $4.75 each, for a light plastic sign (with
a limited life span due to sun, rain, and wind) , the cost presents
a burden that this Agency may not be able to afford due to budget
constraints and cuts by the current administration. The cost of
signs for all of the research units on just one medium sized
facility for one fiscal year is conservatively estimated to exceed
$16,000.
-------
Richard Pont 4
We request that an interpretation be gi^ven allowing the USDA, ARS,
Mid South Area, to post required pesticide warning signs around the
area of an Experiment for Category I & II pesticides, as described,
in lieu of posting each Treatment area, without restricting access,
and without imposing restricted entry interval requirements on the
untreated portions of the Experiment area. Posting of signs around
the Experiment area instead of each Treatment area would result in
a considerable savings to the Agency in the cost of signs, provide
adequate protection to USDA-ARS employees and insure notification
to persons not involved in the experiment.
Sincerely,
WILLIAM L. TIMMERS
Safety, , Health, and Environmental Manager
Mid South Area
Enclosure
cc:
P. A. Putnam, AD
C. E. Skeens, AAO
ARS:AAO:WLTimmers:prb:X338:9/1/93
-------
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4. Texas
Public Meeting:
McAllen, TX
• April 25, 1996, 7:00 p.m.
• 50 participants (33 registered), including 12 speakers
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions:
Plantation Produce, Mission, TX
• April 25,1996, 8:30 a.m.
• Visit to a 7000-acre farm (onions, vegetables, grains, and sorghum) and large-scale packing
and shipping operation.
• EPA staff met with 15 staff of Plantation Produce; representatives of Texas Citrus Mutual,
Texas Vegetable Association, Texas Produce Association, Texas Department of Agriculture.
Rio Queen Citrus, Mission, TX
• April 25, 1996,10:00 sum.
• Visit to a citrus farm (grapefruit and oranges) and tour of the facilities and equipment.
• EPA staff met with Ken Martin, owner, Paul Heller, manager and three staff of Rio Queen;
Texas Citrus Mutual; Texas Vegetable Association; Texas Produce Association; Texas
Department of Agriculture.
Roland Dusters, Edinburg, TX
• April 25, 1996, 11:30 sum.
• Tour of facilities of aerial and ground applicators.
• EPA staff met with Blayne Roland, owner and pilot, and five staff members; Texas
Agricultural Aviation Association, Texas Citrus Mutual, Texas Vegetable Association, Texas
Produce Association, Texas Department of Agriculture.
Farmworker Meeting, Hidalgo Park, Pharr, TX ,
• April 25, 1996, 3:00 p.m.
• EPA staff met with 20-25 farmworkers; Juanita Cox, United Farm Workers; Raymond Gill,
South Texas Civil Rights Project; Jose Sanchez, Texas Department of Agriculture.
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Farmworker Meeting and Site Visit, San Juan, TX
• April 25,1996, 4:30 p.m.
• EPA staff met with 20-25 farmworkers; Juanita Cox, United Farm Workers; Jose Sanchez
and Randy Rivera, Texas Department of Agriculture.
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Transcript of Public Meeting
McAllen, Texas
April 25,1996
Larry Soward: Good evening, everyone.
On behalf of Texas Agriculture Commissioner
Rick Perry, I want to thank all of you for
coming out tonight to attend this meeting.
I'm Larry Soward, the Deputy Commissioner
of the Texas Department of Agriculture. I
would like to take this very special opportunity
to welcome to the State of Texas Dr. Lynn
Goldman, who is the Assistant Administrator
for Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic
Substances -with the Environmental
Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. We
are extremely pleased, Dr. Goldman, that you
have chosen Texas and the Rio Grande Valley
as a site for one of your nationwide public
meetings on the Worker Protection Standard.
I would also like to take this opportunity at
this moment to welcome a couple of
neighbors of the State of Texas who have also
joined us tonight. From the State of
Louisiana, Director of Pesticides, is Mr.
Bobby Simoneaux and from the State of New
Mexico, the Worker Protection Standard
Coordinator, Ms. Sheri Sanderson. We are
glad to have you here tonight.
Meetings like this one that we are holding
here tonight, help to keep government
responsive. Those of us who work at
regulatory agencies such as EPA or the Texas
Department of Agriculture need to make sure
that we get out and solicit input on how our
various programs are working. WPS has
brought many changes to everyday agricul-
tural operations. Tonight, those of you who
are attending this meeting have the
opportunity to tell EPA how the WPS pro-
gram works on a day-to-day basis. You can
discuss what has been successful and what
needs to be changed to make this program
better.
As many of you know, Commissioner
Perry has taken a strong interest in WPS
matters. He's Chairman of the National
Association of State Departments of
Agriculture, Committee on WPS. He
continues to work to make the regulations
simple to understand and easy to comply with,
while effectively protecting our farmworkers
and our environment. Commissioner Perry
has charged all of us on his staff to quickly
investigate any human exposure complaint
and to pursue enforcement against applicators
who violate these regulations. However, he
strongly believes that most farmers strive to
follow these regulations and education is the
best way to help them in this effort.
Education leads to a strong knowledge of
regulations which in turn helps to avoid
problems. Preparation and prevention are
always better than punishment and problem
solving. Tonight is all about education. You
who have to implement WPS in the field day-
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today, can educate us on how we can make it
easier and work more effectively and
efficiently for you. We all welcome your input
because we want to help you meet the
regulations while keeping our farmworkers
and our environment safe. Again, on behalf
of Commissioner Perry and the Texas Depart-
ment of Agriculture, we want to thank Dr.
Goldman and her staff at EPA for allowing us
Texans to voice our concerns and our
comments.
Now I would like to introduce Mr. Allyn
Davis, who is the Acting Deputy Regional
Administrator for the Environmental
Protection Agency in the Region 6 Office in
Dallas. Mr. Davis will offer further comments
and other introductions. Mr. Davis.
Allyn Davis: Thank you, Commissioner
Soward. I will be the monitor this evening.
And I would like to point out that this evening
we are providing translation services in both
English and Spanish, and if you would like a
headset, they are available at the front desk
where you check in. In addition, the entire
session is being tape recorded. Besides your
oral comments, if you would like to provide
any written comments, EPA would be pleased
to accept them.
This evening is one meeting in a series of
informal meetings to receive public input on
how the Worker Protection Standard is
working during the first year of
implementation. This evening we are
interested in your comments and anyone
wishing to speak may sign in at the front desk.
You will be able to speak in the order that you
sign in. So far, seven individuals have signed
up to make presentations. Because of the
length of time, we are going to ask you to
keep your comments to under five minutes.
At about four minutes, I will give you a sign
that you have approximately one minute to go
and at the five minute mark, I'll stand up to let
you know that you really need to wrap up
your comments.
Now, it is my pleasure to introduce Dr.
Lynn Goldman, the Assistant Administrator
for the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and
Toxic Substances. Dr. Goldman is the top
EPA official responsible for pesticide
programs at EPA. Dr. Goldman is a medical
doctor in nutrition and career-wise has had a
variety of assignments with the California
Department of Health. Most important, foe
those of us in Region 6, she is a native Texan!
Dr. Goldman.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Welcome and good
evening. I and my colleagues at EPA and with
the Texas Department of Agriculture are here
to listen to all of you about your experiences
with implementing the Worker Protection
Standard. I believe that it is very important
that we are all here tonight. In government
we frequently put into play new regulations
and then we don't evaluate how effective
those new measures are. I also think that too
often we in Washington are just faceless
people whose names you see, but you don't
have a chance to meet with or talk to. And
much of the purpose of this meeting is to
have the opportunity for face-to-face
communication, the kind of interaction that is
necessary so that we can really understand
each other.
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The Worker Protection Standard is a basic
set of workplace protection for those who
work with pesticides. Its goals are to inform
employees about the hazards of pesticides, to
eliminate the exposures to pesticides and to
mitigate the exposures—to treat the exposures
if they do unfortunately happen. It is one of
the highest priorities of EPA. The standard
represents a major strengthening of the
United States government's efforts to safe-
guard over three and a half million agriculture
workers and pesticide handlers. It took over
a decade to achieve the strengthening on the
federal level compared to what existed in the
past. It was not easy for the EPA, and indeed
for our country, to develop and implement
these standards.
The implementation efforts, in my
opinion, have been one of the most extensive
efforts that we have ever done. We have
produced and distributed a very large number
of training materials, some of which are
available right here on the table tonight.
There has also been a very extensive
educational effort—education for all of those
who are affected by the standard—the farmers,
the workers, the pesticide handlers—on how to
comply with the basic pesticide safety
standards. And also for ourselves, for the
federal regulators, the state partners, and
others about what is needed in order to
achieve compliance. Tonight is another step
in our collective education process—education
for us and me and you—and hopefully all of
you will benefit from hearing comments from
each other. During the process of imple-
mentation we have had to respond to a
number of specific concerns that have been
raised by farmworkers and raised by
agriculture groups. Not every situation that
occurs in agriculture was foreseen by the
people who wrote the rules. Also, many
specific questions have come up that were
actually covered by the standard, but needed
interpretation, needed guidance so that
everybody could understand how to follow
the rule. All of this is inevitable and I should
say that, although when you go through each
and every possible situation it seems complex,
the rule itself is a straightforward standard and
one that I think can be implemented by the
farmers.
In 1995, I think many of you were aware
that we amended the standard, and I want to
mention some of the things that we did. We
accelerated the transition from 15 days to five
days for the training grace period, and we also
ensured that the employers provide basic
safety information to all workers before they
ever enter a treated area. We exempted
qualified crop advisors from some of the
requirements. We allowed early entry into
pesticide treated areas to perform certain
limited contact and irrigation activities, and we
established criteria that allowed toxicity
categories III and IV pesticides (that's a
technical term for the pesticides that have less
human toxicity) to qualify for a reduced
restricted entry interval from 12 to four hours.
This covers about 80 or so products. Shortly,
we will be issuing some other revisions of the
rule, some final rule amendments addressing
issues raised with decontamination, warning
sign requirements, and a proposed rule that
addresses issues with glove requirements.
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As we work to carry out the Worker
Protection Program, we will continue to work
closely with all of those who are affected by
this regulation and identify and address issues
of concern. We don't believe that the work
we've done over the last couple of years is the
end, in terms of our understanding of the full
impacts of the regulations and what we need
to do to make it work for all of you. As with
any new program, I know that many of you
may have concerns about the costs to comply
with the requirement and about enforcement
of the standard or other issues. I want to say
thatwe have those concerns, too. We want to
make sure that the standard is working. The
point of the standard is to reduce the
exposures and reduce the illnesses for
farmworkers. We want to make sure that this
is happening. We want to make sure that the
standard is being enforced, and we are also
obviously very interested in making sure that
the standard can work for you. [Inaudible]...
Let me emphasize again, tonight is the
time for those of you who have concerns to
talk, and for those of us who work for the
EPA and the state to listen. We want to hear
your thoughts about the Worker Protection
Standard. We want to know what is working
and what is not working. I want to close by
saying that we have made a commitment to
make this program work in away that protects
the health of the public, protects the health of
the pesticide workers, and lessens the risks
while providing flexibility. We want to aim for
something we know we are able to carry out.
Our approach is to find concrete ways to
achieve our goals. I look forward to hearing
all of your comments. I want to thank all of
you for being here tonight. I realize we have
busy lives, and it is not easy to get away on a
week night to come to a meeting like this. I'm
now going to turn the meeting over to our
facilitator and again, thank you all for being
here tonight.
Allyn Davis: Thank you, Dr. Goldman.
The first individual that would like to give a
presentation is Pat Kornegay who is with the
Texas Agricultural Aviation Association.
Pat Kornegay: OK. Can you hear me all
right? My name is Pat Kornegay. I am
President of the Texas Agricultural Aviation
Association. We are a state-wide organization
with about 300 professional aerial applicators.
For over 20 years, I have worked as an
agricultural pilot. We are one of the older
commercial aerial application businesses that
provide crop protection chemicals, to an
average of 200,000 acres of crop land yearly.
I am also speaking on behalf of the National
Agricultural Aviation Association, which
represents the aerial application industry's
interests in Washington, D.C. I would like to
address some of the issues and concerns of
commercial aerial applicators involving the
Worker Protection Standard.
The first concern involves Section
170.224, which addresses the requirements for
notification by commercial applicators to
agricultural employers of the timing of
pesticide applications. It also involves the
specific products we use in EPA registration
for re-entry regulations and such. We recog-
nize the importance of this information which
establishes posting and re-entry periods for
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agricultural workers; however, the definitions
and requirements contained in WPS are
somewhat vague, and the ultimate
responsibility for establishing communication
between pesticide handlers and agricultural
employers is not specifically clear.
There are several methods of
communication deemed acceptable under the
statute, such as direct telephone contact,
answering machine messages, faxes, etc. The
end result would be difficulty on the part of
the enforcing agency to verify whether or not
contact is made and, therefore, where
responsibility rests in enforcement action.
Our suggestion is that the responsibility for
providing information involving a pesticide
application remain with the pesticide handler
and commercial applicator, but that
responsibility for initiating the communication
to obtain the knowledge be with the
agricultural employer. The agricultural
employer initiates the chain of events that
results in a pesticide application. A vast
majority of commercial pesticide applicators
operate out of a central location, where all
scheduling is initiated and where all records
are kept.
What I'm saying here is, in actual practice
as a commercial applicator, we operate out of
a central location and our growers are in the
field. The growers initiate the process by
calling us, in order for the application to
occur, which involves the site to be treated,
the products to be used—and the grower may
actually supply them for us. And so he already
has the information—MSDS sheets on the
products, re-entry information and worker
protection PPE requirements and such. At the
time that they turn in an order, we give them
a proposed time of application. The only
difference that I am suggesting here is perhaps
just defining that the ultimate responsibility in
obtaining that information rests with the
growers. They are initiating the action, and it
is their workers that are the focus of this
standard. So as the law reads, the agricultural
handler/pesticide applicator is responsible for
providing this information, and we don't
intend to change that. We have that
information, so we provide it.
, In a couple of instances, there have been
enforcement issues with WPS compliance.
The enforcement agency goes to the grower
on a complaint and tries to find out why re-
entry periods were not observed and posting
was not done. They reply, "Well, the
applicator didn't tell us they were doing it."
So then they go to the applicator and then
what you have is the agency bouncing back
and forth between the two trying to solve a
problem. There's no real clear-cut respon-
sibility and that's why we're concerned. We
understand that we have a responsibility to
provide this information, and we will do that,
but we think the responsibility for initiating
the contact in verifying the actual times of
applications should rest with those who
initiate the orders. This is a minor point, but
it could have serious implications down the
road, for us as applicators and also for the
growers. It clarifies the communication issue.
As the agricultural growers bear the
responsibility of posting and conveying re-
entry information to field workers, this would
be consistent with that process and not be an
additional burden. The pesticide handler/
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commercial applicator can still be responsible
for providing that information.
OK. The other area where we have
concerns is personal protective equipment
(PPE). It's our understanding through our
national association in Washington, in
discussions with EPA, that standards for
personal protective equipment for pilots have
been relaxed. It's obvious that for us to wear
a Tyvek suit inside an aircraft would be a
definite threat to aviation safety. Ninety
percent of the aircrafts used in the U.S. today
have sealed cockpits and operate under air
conditioned requirements. This is a clean
environment and if you require pilots to wear
bulky protective equipment, it inhibits the
pilot's ability to fly an aircraft...with respirators
and suits and face shields. Pilots
predominately wear helmets and gloves that
are not necessary. Another approach that
EPA has is that we should carry PPE, the
personal protective equipment package, in the
aircraft—involving the suit, helmet, or face
shield, gloves, rubber boots and all that sort of
thing—for entry and exit of the aircraft-well,
these are single seat aircrafts, and tomorrow
we are going to do a tour and show you some
of these aircrafts, OK. You'll look at this and
you'll see a pilot strapped into a seat and you'll
realize that putting on or taking off of
personal protective equipment is virtually
impossible to do. We understood from EPA
that also in March we were going to
(Inaudible]... to the Federal Register or delete
the requirement that we wear rubber gloves
and exit gear. The problem we have with that
is we have a clean environment, and the small
cockpit is sealed until we introduce these dirty
gloves into it, and that's the problem we have.
Basically, what I'm saying is that all of the
pilots in the United States should be trained as
certified restricted-use pesticide applicators as
well as independent contractors. What our
industry would like to see is that we, as self
exmployed, bear the responsibility for using
and not using our personal protective
equipment, that we should have this
equipment at our business and provide them
for our employees. All of us have been in this
business for a long time. There are no
documented cases of agricultural aircraft
crashes that have involved or been caused by
pesticide poisonings.
OK, well that's basically it. Those are the
two issues that we have, the notification
procedure and personal protective equipment.
Any questions?
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I said earlier, but if
you do have your comments in writing we'll
be happy to, as well as hearing them, receive
them in writing.
Pat Kornegay: Well, [Inaudible]... a copy
for each of you.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: That would be great.
Thank you.
Joyce Obst: Hi, Dr. Goldman, and may I
welcome you to Texas, and I appreciate the
opportunity to testify on behalf of the Texas
Citrus Mutual and the Texas Agri Women.
,My name is Joyce Obst. My husband and I
operate a diversified citrus and vegetable farm
in the Alamo area. Both Texas Citrus Mutual
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and Texas Agri Women have been active in
sponsoring and promoting WPS trainings
since the regulations were announced. WPS
impacts most agricultural products producers,
but it has the heaviest impact on producers of
labor intense crops like myself. We produce
fiber crops as well as citrus and grain crops.
Safety is important to everyone in
agriculture, including farmers as well as the
workers. In fact, the farmer is a farmworker.
We never ask our employees to do something
we usually wouldn't do ourselves or haven't
done.
WPS certainly raised the level of awareness
about the importance of safety in the
agricultural workplace. I compliment EPA
and the Texas Department of Agriculture in
putting together this. I think this is an
excellent training for the farmworkers. In
fact; I think it's long overdue. Farmers who I
know are making a serious effort to comply
with the WPS. The training of workers about
common sense safety practices is the most
important part of WPS. In general, I think
that the WPS rules are really complex. When
requirements are too complicated, the
compliance with the rules is almost always less
than when the rules are simple and
straightforward.
In the case of the WPS rules, there are 140
pages in the manual on how to comply with
these rules. I would like to encourage EPA to
reduce the length of the regulations and to
simplify them whenever possible. One grower
commented recently that he finds it frustrating
to see the general reference statement on a
label that says he is to comply with Part 170 of
the Code of Regulations, but not to see at
least a summary of that actual rule right on
the label.
In terms of informing growers about WPS
requirements, I would point out that I feel like
a large number of growers are not aware of
the changes that have recently been made
regarding limited contact tasks, irrigation
activities and the reduction in the re-entry
intervals for certain low toxicity pesticides. If
EPA would publish a summary of these
changes, Texas Citrus Mutual and Texas Agri
Women would be pleased to help distribute
them through their newsletters and
memberships and other publications.
I would also like to address the matter of
encouraging workers to assume more personal
ownership regarding their own responsibilities
for compliance with WPS. In other words,
individual workers should assume some
responsibility for their own safety. As I
understand the present rule, all the burden is
placed on the employer to train and enforce
worker compliance, to wear their personal
protective equipment and to do things that
many times an employer cannot control. On
our farm sometimes, it's a lack of
communication. If a farmer/worker is out in
the field, and I'm over at the shed, I don't
know what they need unless they come tell
me. And a lot of the times, we may have
relocated our protective equipment because
we're changing from one crop season to
another crop season, and we have it at the
market rather than the shed. It's a working
together situation. And it's totally unreason-
able to require employers to stay in sight of
workers at all times to ensure that they are
doing everything they should. Workers should
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also have some responsibility for keeping up
with continuing education in the same way
individual farmers are required to keep their
CEUs in order to maintain their pesticide
license.
As I understand the WPS rules, the farmer
or operator is held responsible for the
compliance by employees of custom
applicators and workers employed by a crew
leader. We certainly believe that the specific
employer, i.e., the custom applicator or the
crew leader, should address compliance issues
regarding their employees and not the
owner/operator, just because the worker
happens to be on his property.
Our final comment is about decontam-
ination facilities. I understand, under current
regulations, the facilities are required to be
enclosed at a given site for 30 days after the
re-entry interval has expired. We believe the
re-entry requirement on the label means that
the testing of that chemical indicates that no
harmful residue will be left at the end of the
re-entry period. Therefore, we urge EPA to
revise the rules to drop the requirement for
decontamination facilities at the given site
after the re-entry interval has expired. Thank
you for this opportunity to present this
testimony. We also want to thank you again,
Dr. Goldman, for taking time to personally
come to these public meetings especially in
the Rio Grande Valley. Thank you.
Emilie Sebesta: My name is Emilie
Sebesta. I'm an attorney with Texas Rural
Legal Aid. I'm with the Farm Worker Health
and Safety Project. We deal specifically with
farmworkers who travel throughout the
United States, most of whom make their
home in the Rio Grande Valley. I would like
to mention several things.
First thing is that as far as my experience
with the Worker Protection Standard goes,
one of the experiences I had with this was last
June. I attended a vegetable growers' meeting,
and during this meeting .they had a train-the-
trainer program, and it was a very good
program/training put on by the Texas
Department of Agriculture, but I was
distressed by some of the comments made by
farmers. Certainly not a major [Inaudible]...
by any means, but one of the farmers, for
instance, asked if he could withhold a
farmworkers' paycheck if the farmworker
couldn't prove that he had received training or
couldn't produce the Worker Protection
verification card. Another farmer suggested a
way around that was just to fire the
farmworker after five days because you have
the five-day grace period. Certainly, I'm not
suggesting that this was the rule among
farmers, but, nonetheless, this was said at an
!open meeting with Texas Department of
Agriculture officials present. Almost every-
body knows who I am, and I was there and
they still said it. This concerned me quite a
bit.
I'm also worried that employees will begin
to get the picture that if they haven't been
trained they might not get a job. Therefore,
there may be an incentive for farmworkers to
say, "Well, I have received training, I just don't
have my card," and then they would get a job.
So, I think there n§eds to be more
enforcement. Perhaps there needs to be a
way of setting a central data system. It needs
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to be set up by either EPA or with the state
itself, where people could verify who has been
trained and who hasn't been trained. The
employer could check if the farmworker says,
"I've been trained." The employer could
access this data system and see if the workers
have been trained or not.
With regard to the statement just made—
who should bear the responsibility—I
understand where that's coming from, but I
just don't think it makes any sense in this
circumstance. I mean you have people who
are making minimum wage, and who are
probably not working twelve months out of
the year, and their whole family are doing this.
I mean, this is not a group of people who
have the ability to go sign up and do
continuing education kind of courses. They
need this training. Many of them do not
speak English. Many of them do not read
English or Spanish. This simply cannot be a
burden on them. They're doing a job. They
deserve minimal protection.
As far as enforcement goes, I read in the
Texas Agri-News the other day that
enforcement is here, and I'm glad to hear that.
That's great, and I hope there's more of it.
We did an informal survey in our office on
farmworkers by asking them, "Have you been
trained?" etc. What we got from this was that
27% of farmworkers in Texas had been
trained. Twenty-two percent nationwide had
been trained. So this is right around a quarter
or a little less than a quarter or more
[Inaudible]... probably in Texas, it was a little
higher because you have the Right-To-Know
stuff that's already in place.
Another thing that we've seen and have
some concerns about involves retaliation. We
understand there are laws and regulations that
say you can't retaliate against farmworkers if
they try to do something under the Worker
Protection Standard. I had a client who came
to me and actually received training. That's
great, but then he was asked to enter a field
that was being sprayed, and he had just
received his trainings. He said, "NO, I am not
going to enter that field! I've just been
trained. I know that's not good." So he didn't
go in. He wasn't rehired the next year. Other
people were rehired. He had worked for this
grower for two years and simply wasn't
rehired the next year. Now, could we prove it
in a court of law? I don't know, but you know
it's there. The concern is there, and the
, comments I heard at the vegetable growers'
meeting, tell me that this is not an unrealistic
fear.
So, I hope that there will be more
enforcement inspections, preferably
unannounced. We would like to see things of
that nature. We would also like to see a
procedure for the workers to complain. I
don't believe that there's any procedure for a
farmworker to complain other than coming to
us and looking into filing a lawsuit. For
example, under Right-to-Know, they could go
through TDA and make a complaint, there's
a process for this. There doesn't seem to be
a process for WPS. We encourage you to
implement a process for farmworkers to make
complaints about retaliation and other such
actions under WPS.
We'd like to see there be a zero-day grace
period. A person can be injured by pesticides
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during the first five days just as easily as they
could be injured after the first five days.
Granted that there is that requirement that
certain information be given to the
farmworkers. And they're good, but we'd like
to see more. We would at least like to see that
you hand out those little pocket size guides
that EPA uses. I think they're terrific.
Require them to be given—that would be an
easy thing to do. Handing them out would
not be an "undo-ably" burdensome thing, and
I would suggest that if you don't reduce it
down to a zero-day grace period, or
something like what's done in Texas, have
crop sheets. They're great. I've got some; I
could give you some. They show which crops
have which type of pesticides, during which
times of the year, and they have these great
illustrations that make it very clear what kinds
of symptoms you might get. They also have
what to look out for and what you should do
in case of exposure. The crop sheets are good
because you have people who don't read,
whether it's in Spanish or English.
Having things like the little EPA book
with the illustrations like the crop sheets is
tremendously useful, as are these posters. I
was admiring them earlier. To the extent that
they could be added as a requirement, they
could require them be posted out on the
farms. This would be great. If not required,
then suggested strongly that they post them.
It would also be a good tiling to have them
required at the site of the farm labor camps.
You know, that is somewhere everybody is
going to see them when they are traveling
through as migrants who are generally living in
labor camps. It's a centralized location where
everybody is and where certainly they can
conduct trainings as well. But these posters
will be helpful. Especially because somebody
might not realize that they've been injured
until later and gone home, and it would be
good for them to have the access to where
they could call to get helpful care, etc.
We disagree with the statement made by
the representative of Texas Citrus Mutual. We
ask that you do not reduce the
decontamination site. The time period during
the restricted entry interval does not mean it
is safe after three days and certainly everybody
who's sitting here from the EPA knows that
it's an approximation. Rules regarding
pesticides and most chemicals will just predict
the best that they can. Generally speaking,
they don't have tests that have been done on
humans. We have biological studies. We have
studies done on animals. We still don't know
all the long-term effects of pesticides. We
know that mixing occurs between different
chemicals, but there's not a good source that
says, "Well, this is what happens when you
mix methyl parathion with Dursban: you're
going to get 10 times the reaction or 50 times
the reaction." These are just things that we
just don't know. So we ask that you don't
make this any less than it already is. It's an
easy requirement that can be followed, I think.
OK. One last thing I would encourage
you to add to the requirement right now.
Individuals are required to keep records for
only 30 days. We would encourage you to do
what Texas does and require the farmers to
keep the records for at least 30 years.
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Vikki Flores: Hello, my name is Vikki
Flores. I'm from the Farm Worker Health
and Safely Project at Texas Rural Legal Aid
where I am employed. It's dedicated to
protecting farmworkers and the environment
from hazards of pesticides. We promote
safer, more ecologically sound alternatives and
protective policies. I am here today on behalf
of farmworkers, to express their concerns
over certain regulations, under the Worker
Protection Standard.
Of particular concern is the training
requirement for farmworkers. Under die
federal Worker Protection Standard, farm-
workers are only required to receive training
once every five years. This is not enough.
Well-educated persons—for instance, lawyers—
cannot remember the content of classes for
trainings they attended a year ago. How can
we expect farmworkers, most of whom have
very little formal education, to remember a
safety training about pesticides for five years?
For several years, I was involved in training
farmworkers on the hazards of pesticides and
how to protect themselves. Each time, I
would conduct a training for a group of
workers I had trained the year before, there
were always comments from persons who
were glad to receive the information again,
because they or someone they knew had
suffered health effects from pesticide
poisoning. They had forgotten the symptoms
and related their problems to the flu or to
allergies.
I understand the growers had expressed
concern about being responsible for
compliance with the Worker Protection
Standards when they use farm labor
contractors. Growers should be responsible
for compliance for a number of reasons. The
first and the most obvious reason is that
farmworkers are the growers' employees,
working on the growers' land, handling the
growers' produce and are exposed to the
growers' pesticides. It is not enough for
contractors to be responsible for compliance.
If a farmworker is poisoned, under the law,
the grower is most likely going to be liable
ultimately. Therefore, it is to the growers'
advantage to make sure workers are properly
trained and are not exposed to pesticides.
In addition, my experience with farm
labor contractors or crew leaders is that they
are often no more educated than the
farmworkers themselves. Many cannot read
and therefore cannot go through a WPS
training manual, even in Spanish. I don't
think training would be done if crew leaders
were the ones required to do it. Most crew
leaders don't see pesticide poisoning as a
serious threat to their workers. This is evident
by the fact that most of them do not respond
to requests from workers for medical care
after an exposure and often merrily tell them
to go and see a curandero, a witch doctor. They
most often will not report injuries to the
growers and lie about what happened when
they do. The reality is that most crew leaders
would not find it necessary to train their
workers and would find ways to get around it.
They are more concerned in turning a quick
buck than they are with compliance of the law
or even following the exclusive directions they
receive from the grower for -whom they are
working.
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I have worked with perhaps 50 people
who have been injured because of pesticide
exposure. These cases include a man who had
an eye removed, another who had a leg
amputated, others left permanently disabled
because of severe respiratory damage. The
circumstances of their injuries and the extent
of the injuries varied, but there are common
factors in all of these cases. In each case, the
person injured did not receive adequate
training. It was not warranted by the danger
of chemicals they were working with. It is
essential that training be conducted with
qualified individuals with adequate knowledge
and information on at least a yearly basis.
Another area of concern is the re-entry
period. One case which I believe will illustrate
the need to reinforce longer re-entry periods
involves a family that suffered severe health
problems when they were exposed to Fury,
which had been sprayed a couple of hours
before they were asked to work in that
particular field. Not only were the family
members who worked in the field poisoned,
but their little toddler was also exposed when
one of the parents picked him up after coming
home from work. Three years later, the child
is still experiencing severe skin problems.
There is no doubt in my mind that shortening
the re-entry period will create more situations
like this one. We cannot say strongly enough
that training farmworkers is one of the most
important mechanisms for protecting workers
and that the re-entry period should not be
shortened if we want to protect farmworkers
from the adverse health problems. Thank
you.
Douglass Stephenson: It seems like I
started with the Texas Agricultural Extension
Service Worker Protection Education
Program about the time the rule went into
effect Working for one of the most complex
or largest extension services offered in the
United States, we have to do a lot of greeting
clientele. With various audiences, one of the
problems that presented itself and we had to
overcome, is that many county extension
agents schedule their work a year in advance,
including all their meetings. It's difficult to
reschedule additional meetings to educate
clientele. I believe, including all of the citizens
of Texas, we have somewhat close to 20
million clientele, and we have better than half
a million agricultural clientele that are included
in programs all of this time.
In addition to this, we have long range
extension plans called LREPs. These are five-
year plans, and fortunately, the outreach part
of the program, most of the agents have
policy and regulatory education as one of their
top items. This gave us a leg up, and we
began by training more than 300 county
extension agents and extension specialists on
how to educate our clientele in 1994. We
didn't anticipate any delay in the program,
although we had a delay on certain parts of
the program. The legislative action in
Washington gave us a breather. We didn't lack
any of our training efforts and our extension
agents in more than 240 counties in Texas
began training trainers, private commercial
applicators, and in addition, workers and
handlers. We had a legislative mandate in
more than 200 Texas counties to train under
the Texas Agricultural Right-to-Know Act
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passed in 1987 and continued these programs
which included Worker Protection Standard
trainings. We served in the last couple of
years more than 6,400 of our clientele, with
700 meetings, an average of 20 or 25. This
doesn't include figures I have yet to receive
from 1995. These education meetings were
primarily at county and local levels.
Now, let me talk a little about some of the
problems we have experienced. Early on, we
discovered there was a shortage of training
materials, worker training tapes, videos, slide
sets, etc. As these came on line, it got a lot
easier. We had more requests from county
agents for educational material than we could
deliver. By the end of the first year, we had
training materials in the hands of all of our
county agents. Audio visual libraries were
established so that materials could be checked
out. We had agreements with the producers
of those tapes—Michigan State Extension
Service, Idaho State, and the University of
Florida—to copy these materials and distribute
them to our clientele (not for sale).
Another problem was misunderstanding
about the trainings, which began in late 1994
and continued in 1995, as the deadline
approached for farm owners to get the
workers trained. One of the misconceptions
was that they send their workers to watch the
tape, and then come back to the farm/ranch
to get their card. Now, the producer is the
licensed applicator and could sign, and we had
to fix this in a big hurry and explain to all of
our agents that they should never do this, and
that [Inaudible]...training would be fraudulent
—that the trainer had to be present, had to
speak ... the language that the worker
understood, and had to be able to be there to
answer any questions the workers have during
the training. Once this was clear, it only took
about two weeks to get all our people set up.
It would have helped to have a letter go out
from our Director of Agricultural Education
programs, Dr. Kyle Smith, who works for our
extension director here in Harlingen. Once
this was out of the way, that was probably the
most serious problem we had early on.
A present problem we have incurred since
last year is the addition of around 15,000
additional clientele. They were included in the
program when the interpretive guidance group
decided that agricultural operations that grow
their own feed for their own consumption are
included. (Those agricultural commodities are
indeed in non-compliance.) At the start of
the program, we had this understanding that
this was the way it was going to be
interpreted—as plants for sale, like plants in
greenhouses and nurseries, farms, and etc.
Included in this were our clientele, which is
about 15,000 more ranchers, livestock
operations that go there to feed. So, we had
to hurry to get them upgraded in 1994
(correction, March 31,1995), and we managed
to accomplish this before the end of the year.
Presently, we are uncertain that this is still
an ongoing education process. This has
always been uncertain. We always have
questions about this every time we have
meetings. We have questioned this year-in
and year-out, and the question always comes
up the same. Our question revolves around
the differences between Texas Agricultural
Right-to-Know Act and the requirements of
the Worker Protection Standard: "If we don't
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do anything else, what do we do?" We still
have to address those problems. There are
certain people, included in the Texas
Agricultural Right-to-Know, that do have to
comply with WPS, and they have to turn
around and comply with all those stringent
regulations that occur under Right-to-Know.
There is also a present uncertainty, and we still
get questions about where to get cards. We
thought we had this solved, but we still get
questions. I get about one a week, that would
make about 52 questions a year. So, 52 out of
60,000 plus clientele I meet.
We have some present needs, and we wish
that EPA had helped us as educators with
these things. This is an information age and
computers are a resource available to our
clientele, not necessarily to the agricultural
workers, but most have [Inaudible]... Most of
them are computerized by now, and we wish
we had an information base to gather and give
copies of the Texas Department of
Agriculture's Right-to-Know laws and regu-
ations, Texas pesticide laws and regulations,
Texas herbicide laws and regulations. What
we wish we had is an electronic version either
in ASCII format, WordPerfect or Microsoft
Word that contains Worker Protection
Standard CFR156 and, most importantly, 170.
Now, that would include the restricted re-
entry intervals for the various pesticides, and
we would like to include these in our own
information bases. So all of our clientele
would have to comply with this regulation.
We also wish we had the WPS inspection
guide for the compliance inspections. This
would help our clientele have immediate
access to the various things they must comply
with. This would be a nice check list. They
could search it by any word. For REI, they
could search by commodity; they could search
by various things that they had five minutes to,
understand, etc.
In record keeping, we want a developed
electronic record keeping requirement that
meets WPS, as well as the Texas Agricultural
Right-to-Know Law. This would be made
available to our clients. This would allow
them to apply it to their record keeping
requirement, and they can keep their records.
So, now all we need is the clearance from the
various agencies that could help. Thank you.
Maria A. Salinas: My name is Maria A.
Salinas. On November 3, 1995, I was
employed through a farm labor contractor by
a large packing shed in Mission, Texas. As of
November 3, 1995, I have been working for
this employer for approximately three
months, yet I never received any training on
how to protect myself from pesticides. I
never received copies of any crop sheets. On
November 3,1995,1 was picking bell peppers
when I noticed them covered with white dust.
I was wearing gloves, a long sleeved shirt, long
pants, a hat and a scarf that covered my head
and neck. My employer did not provide this
protective clothing nor did he advise me to
wear it. I wore this to protect myself. Even
with this protective clothing, my face starting
burning. At the end of the day, we went
home. I showered, but my face got worse.
The next morning, November 4, 1995,1
reported to work and I worked until lunch but
I had to go home because my condition
worsened. The burning and itching was
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unbearable. The crew leader was not there
that day, so I told one of the workers I was
leaving. Neither the packing shed or the crew
leader would have sent me to a doctor so I
•went on my own to a doctor in Mexico. The
doctor told me I had been poisoned by
pesticides. Another woman who was under a
different crew leader was also poisoned and
that crew leader sent her to a doctor. During
the whole time I was working for this packing
shed and crew leader, no one ever told us
when a field was to be sprayed or when it had
been sprayed or what it had been sprayed
with. Also, while there was water available for
washing, it was always dirty and there was no
soap. These are my comments. Thank you.
Bobby Simoneaux: Good evening. My
name is Bobby Simoneaux, Director of
Pesticide Environmental Programs
representing Commissioner Bob Odem in the
Louisiana Department of Agriculture and
Forestry (LDAF). I would like to applaud the
EPA in its efforts to assess the first full year of
implementation of the Worker Protection
Standard regulations and in seeking input to
possible modifications in order for the
regulations to become workable in the real
world. Just as we believe that education is the
backbone of our FIFRA enforcement
program, we also believe that a strong Worker
Protection Standard Program will achieve the
goals intended. This can only be accom-
plished by strong education efforts. In
Louisiana, we have set up a strong cooperative
effort between the Department of Agriculture,
Cooperative Extension Service, grower
groups, and worker groups to provide the
needed training for the implementation of the
Worker Protection Standard. It is also our
belief that compliance assistance can be a very
useful tool in achieving full compliance of the
regulated community.
In light of this, LDAF Pesticide Division,
with the extremely helpful Region 6's Jerry
Oglesby, put on several training sessions to
educate our own 80-plus inspectors about the
WPS regulations. An interesting outcome of
these sessions, which involved, as I said, 80-
plus inspectors, was the amount of confusion
that this generated. I believe that this is a
good indicator as to the amount of confusion
that WPS has created for the regulated
community. I'm not trying to indicate that
WPS would never be understood. I'm saying
that it will take time, cooperation and
education to develop the understanding that
will eventually lead to compliance. I was
fortunate to be able to attend the public
hearing held in Mississippi, and I did hear
some of the concerns which I'm sure you
have already heard. Just to highlight some
that I did hear in Mississippi and have not
heard so far today, but I did hear someone
touch on heat stress being the number one
concern dealing with personal protective
equipment. I know you all will be here in the
next couple of days, doing some touring and
so forth. I'm sure that you'll hear a lot about
heat stress and the kind of conditions that will
apply in South Texas and are very similar in
South Louisiana in June, July, and August.
We're talking 100-plus temperatures and 100-
plus humidity. It's very difficult to comply
with some of the PPE that is required. So
that was one of the major concerns.
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Another major concern was with the
restricted entry intervals. There's still a lot of
confusion on restricted entry intervals,
especially dealing with the posting. I think
there's a lot clarification that needs to be done
in that area.
Another thing that was pointed out was
that there were special concerns in such areas
as nurseries, especially those nurseries in the
retail business. And also, there were special
concerns with research—not only with USDA
research people, but also the state universities
that have research plots, especially in areas
where research plots are actually one plant in
a pot and then applying different pesticides to
different pots.
In the area of training materials, I want to
compliment EPA on the quality of the
training materials that have been provided.
Although some of them were not provided in
a timely fashion, they were of very high
quality. I would like to say, in the State of
Louisiana, we are in desperate need right now
of the little green inspector field pocket
manuals. I would appreciate getting those just
as soon as we can, but overall, the quality of
the training material has been very good.
In closing, I would like to encourage the
continued cooperative effort between the
EPA (including the regions), SELs, the
Extension Service, and the regulated
community to stay committed to the
clarification of the rule using a common sense
approach. Thank you.
Allyn Davis: Thank you. Do we have
anyone else that has signed up to speak? Is
there anyone in the audience who hasn't
signed up that would like to speak? OK.
Ned Meister: I'm Ned Meister, the
Director of Commodity and Regulatory
Activities for the Texas Farm Bureau. Dr.
Goldman, Mr. Davis, Mr. Kozak, I appreciate
the opportunity, but I really didn't come here
this evening to give a statement; however, I
would like to address a few of the comments
made. First of all, I appreciate you all coming
out to the field to listen to producers and
workers and hear their concerns about the
current WPS program. We feel that the WPS
program is necessary. I think over the year
that it's been in effect, in the times I have
worked on it, it has heightened the awareness
of safety in the agricultural place, and I think
the result of that is excellent. The program is
a good program, and with a little fine tuning,
I think it will work.
Some of the difficulties are, as we
recognize, hard to work with and a lot of
times, details inadvertently get lost and
shuffled especially in times of intense activity
and whatnot. If we made some adjustments
or just pared down some—not necessarily
pared it down as much as we intend... For
example, with large numbers of workers from
the work force, it's difficult to determine those
who have been trained. And sometimes, as
the representative from the Texas Rural Legal
Aid indicated, not all workers are getting
trained. I can guarantee it's really not an
intended thing, but it does happen. We would
like to make sure it doesn't happen.
Some of the comments with respect to
the 30 days after the REI program should be
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revisited. I say that only in that, so far as I
understand it, there's a question as to whether
EPA needs 30 years or 30 days. So we need
to take a look at that I think the quarter mile
rule should be eliminated. In good con-
science, I can't see any reason as to why we
would have that in place. With the tech-
nology we have today, off target depositions
are being reduced or eliminated. Maybe if not
eliminated [Inaudible]... let's keep that in mind.
I think it's important, at least let's revisit. We
need to revisit it. If you apply a product to
the field, and you have a field next to it, even
if it's up wind from where that field was
(within a quarter mile), you have a certain
obligation on each application made. And the
last thing is employers. This has been
something we tried to get our friends and
labor sides to understand, unsuccessfully I
might add. While employers feel confident to
train workers and handlers, then so should the
workers and handlers be held accountable.
I'm pretty sure you know what I'm talking
about. OK. Thank you.
Jim Parkhill: My name is Jim Parkhill. I
represent International Pickle Companies,
South Texas Harvest and Sierra Farms, the
packing shed operations, the harvesting
service, and employees. I didn't come with
any prepared comments today, but after
hearing some remarks, I would like to make a
few observations. In our company, we will
employ during the picking season a minimum
of 600, perhaps as many as 1,000 farmworkers
per day, in our harvest operations. Given the
usual amount of turnover, which you normally
find, over the life of a season like this, we
might be needing perhaps as many as 2,000
individuals that we would have to ensure have
received EPA training. Our area of operation
may include as many as 40 or 45 different field
locations in a given day, spread over a two or
three county area. Despite this, it might
surprise some people here to know, we do not
find compliance with WPS particularly
burdensome. We think it's a good law, a
necessary law, and we have not found or
encountered any particular problems in
implementing training aspects of this law even
given the kind of scale that I just referred to.
With a couple of exceptions, and they are
fairly minor things.
One exception is gray areas. They still
exist; between our responsibilities as employer
and between the Texas Department of
Agriculture Right-to-Know Law and WPS.
There are many redundancies where we are
accomplishing simply, essentially, the same
role, when we have to perform a specific
compliance task in two different ways. A
classic example may be the handing out or
reading of crop sheets (however, after hearing
Ms. Sebesta's recommendation, we didn't do
this) [Inaudible]... but there are a number of
gray areas. The things we did do -were over
and above what we are doing to comply with
WPS, and we must also continue to do this to
stay in compliance with the Right-to-Know
Law. We understand there was some question
that the Texas Law would be sunsetted, but
it's still on the books, so we still have some
gray areas there.
The other problem we have is relatively
minor in the whole scope of things, but it still
represents a problem. I just referred to the
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kind of logistics that we are dealing with and
the huge number of people with amount of
turnover. I think we have a system that we're
doing under the circumstances, of filling jobs
and getting the workers trained. However,
when you're dealing with that many people,
that amount of turnover, that big an area,
during a relatively short season, we always run
the risk that there's going to be some
individual out there who falls through the
cracks. Somebody that came in mid-way
through the season after we went through the
training exercises, somebody that only came
out for a short period of time, somebody that
came out and said, "Yes, I have been trained,
but I don't have my card today," and
somebody forgets to follow up on it. It's a
very fractional, small percentage of our total
effort^ but it does happen. I'll be the first to
admit that it does happen. Our problem is,
how can we build a safety net to catch the
people who fall through the crack?
And when I refer to a safety net, let me
give you an example: We have the same
problem with the Right-to-Know Law
requiring the handing out and reading of crop
sheets. However, there is always that
possibility that somebody happened to get out
there that didn't get the crop sheet or didn't
get it read to them, whatever the case. This
involves very few individuals, but it can
happen. We solved that problem with a safety
net that we built for ourselves by using a
recorded tape with all of the crop sheets on it
and also including other information that
wasn't even required by law. We recorded a
tape. We have numerous hands in vehicles
that are in the fields everyday. We equipped
those vehicles with loud speakers that play
those tapes as they make it through those
fields, over and over again, day after day, to
the extent where farmworkers would risk not
coming in. A problem is that the farmworkers
heard the thing so many darn times, but at
least if we have that one person out there that
fell through the cracks, he/she got the
message.
Our problem with WPS is that we cannot
build a safety net to pick up those loose
individuals who fall through the gap. We
cannot build a safety net because of the WPS
training. The tape is audio/visual and requires
the opportunity for questions and answers.
So, I'm merely saying this is a problem we
have and have not found a way to deal with it.
We can't build a safety net to ensure 100%
safety, instead we must settle for 99.8. percent.
I don't know if there is some provision or
some way that something like providing the
audio training would be, if not accepted,
would be considered not in violation. Would
it be OK if this person doesn't have a card
even though he has heard that WPS training
tape in audio form 50 times during the course
of the season? So we will now give the
i farmworker the opportunity to get the visual,
or give the tape portion of it, without citing us
as being in violation. A big problem we have
now is, how do we manage to make sure we
catch that one percent that may fall through
the cracks?
I would also like to say I like Ms. Sebesta's
suggestion on having a central data system.
This might be one of the ways that we could
pick up those new individuals that fall through
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the gap, and we have some new way to check
up on them.
I also know there is some concern
expressed tonight over what's being referred
to as crew leaders doing the trainings. We
accomplished our training before with farm
labor contractors, those with huge numbers of
people we use. We do not employ every
individual worker directly, because we couldn't
even run that kind of payroll. So we use the
farm labor contractor. They are obligated
under our contract to provide this training,
but that doesn't mean we don't have to
monitor and police everything they do. Our
system is that we train the farm laborer
contractor as a trainer and issue them a green
card. We supply him with all of the materials
necessary to train his workers as workers. We
give them the blue card and register the
number of the blue cards that we have handed
out to him. Obviously, we will have other
people in this crew that received the training
elsewhere, but we find that system has worked
very well.
In fact, the labor contractor is very
diligent about educating his people. He has
broken an almost impossible task of training
1,000 or 1,500 people down into small
manageable groups of people for training. We
have a system to monitor the video training as
long as the labor contractor supplies us with a
list of EPA card numbers which were handed
out to the workers who were trained. That's
basically it.
Allyn Davis: Just a quick question. Is it
Mr. Markhill?
Jim Parkhill: Parkhill, yes.
Allyn Davis: Parkhill. Sounds as though
you've gone through a lot of trouble to set up
an infrastructure to use these pickup trucks
with the audio tapes and so forth. It's
probably not an easy solution for problems of
a person who falls through the cracks. Have
you thought of using the same mechanisms as
you were using for the group for workers in
the field?
Jim Parkhill: We do that. We have added
certain things to the TAN WPS tape that
would take a lot off of the audio visual
material. At the end of that tape, one of our
own people has added a recording that states,
"It is a requirement of the law that you receive
this training. It is a requirement of the law
that you have your training prior to your first
five days in the field. If you have not obtained
this training, contact us, not your farm labor
contractor." We give them the company
name and the company telephone number so
they can contact us immediately. So, yes,
that's one of the ways we've tried to provide a
safety net, but if the worker doesn't contact us
and says, "Hey, I haven't been trained under
this and have been working here," we have no
way of knowing who that specific individual is
if he or she doesn't speak up. Another thing
we do on that tape is, at the same time we're
playing that tape, we repeat the information
over the fields that we're working in that day.
The spray history is spray painted. That's how
we include that information in addition to the
signs.
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Allyn Davis: Thank you. Would anyone
else like to speak?
Rick Enriquez: Yes. My name is Rick
Enriquez. I am a foreman. I guess I'm the
bulk of what everyone is talking about. As
foreman, I've got to say the buck stops here.
One thing that hasn't been addressed by EPA,
as far as the pesticide issue, has been Mexico.
As a foreman, we also deal with the packing
shed and shipping. We also deal with the off
season markets. We have a lot of people who
come in contact with pesticides. As far as
pesticide poisonings go, we don't know how
to handle them because we have no MSDS.
We have no idea where our producers spray
or what they contain. Hopefully, in the
future, we can address this so you can tell us
what we need to do so we can express to our
farmworkers what needs to be done. We, at
our package shed, provide all the MSDS
information that our farmworkers are exposed
to. We also train our shed employees.
One of the comments that most of the
farmers have or have had is that we've gone to
meetings and the subject was brought up
about the employers and [Inaudible]... Most of
the time, we've had experience working out in
the fields at one time or the other. It's very
rare that I hire a worker that doesn't have any
experience because I won't have any time to
spend in my work environment to teach
someone new. It's our feeling that some of
the burden of the training should be put on
the workers. Yes, sometimes some of the
workers working for us don't know how to
read English. Some of them don't have any
kind of education, but for some reason or
another, they always have the education and
know-how to be able to come up with the
driver's license, social security number, place
to live, and where to go to buy food. We feel
that if they have this education in order to live
in the United States, then they should be put
into the environment where they need to go
for training. Most of the comments have
been, "I've hired people that I haven't seen for
two or three months and I won't see." I have
a lot of workers that come in and tell me that
they've lost their cards. Do I re-train them?
When I re-train them, do I just issue them a
new card? There's nothing in the regulations
that stipulates what to do when a worker
comes in and says, "I was trained in Idaho, but
I don't have a card. I lost it sometime last
year." So, in order to be safe, we have the
inspectors come through, and we conduct a
re-training.
Speaker from Audience: Another issue
mentioned here was all the new regulations
that are in effect. The only ones who usually
find out about the regulation changes are
TDA, the inspectors, or Texas A&M. We
farmers don't hear about changes until we
read something in the newspapers or hear
something in a meeting that we were invited
to. One of the biggest supporters we have is
the Texas Produce Association, and it is
through Jerry's letters that we find out about
some of the changes. Sometimes it comes too
late because we should have been complying
with these changes two or three months ago.
We didn't know. So then we're trying to train
all of the workers to comply with the changes
and during the process, somebody gets hurt or
94 Texas
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somebody gets sick. So, I'm hoping that
somewhere in the future, EPA figures some
way to get the farmers to comply with new
rules because you're understaffed and so is
TDA. We have one inspector here that
covers almost six or seven counties. One
county alone has 1,000 farms. Other than
that, that's all we have to say. Thank you.
Simon Tamez: My name is Simon Tamez.
I'm the safety coordinator for Stock Produce
in Starr County. First of all, I wanted to
compliment EPA on the program and the
concern for the safety of the workers, which
I strongly believe. We have no problem with
WPS. On the training standpoint, we have no
problem in the training. This is due to the
fact that I think Stock Produce is fortunate in
that they can afford a safety coordinator.
Well, there's a lot of small farmers out there
that cannot afford a safety coordinator where
they might encounter some of these
problems. I don't have any complaints at all.
The only thing I'm concerned about is
paperwork. Paperwork, the repetition of
recording and keeping these records for a
certain period of time. For example, we have
a form that we must post in a centrally located
area by regulation standards. Which is good.
OK, this is good, but I think in the real world,
like I mentioned a little while ago, I think this
is a no-no.
The reason why I'm saying this is because,
again, in the real world, the people that are
coming to work, like right now, for example,
are harvesting onions. They have only one
thing in mind when they come in the
morning. I would too. They go straight out
to the field because they can see those onions
out there. There's plenty out there, and
they're making good money. That's what they
have on their minds. They are not going to
stop and go a hundred feet to the left or to
the right to go and look at the form to see
what type of pesticide was applied there. This
is the rule I'm talking about. When they come
out of the field, they have only one thing on
their minds and that's going home because
they're so tired, you see. Now what are we
going to do with the form that states that a
pesticide has been applied, the rate that was
applied, the EPA registration number and the
re-entry interval? All of this information is
available on the board and not only this
information is available, but also other laws
that are required by the federal and state
government such as the Right-to-Know law.
All of this information is located right on the
board. Those boards are located to the right
of the restrooms, which everybody visits at
least once a day, if nothing else, to wash their
hands because there's water, soap and
everything available there. Now, this is
something that I'm not fighting. Like I told
one inspector the other day, it's just that we're
duplicating these things. Sometimes I feel that
we are fighting paperwork, and I feel that the
paper is winning. So that's the only thing I
have to say.
Also, another thing that I'm concerned
about is that we have to record when we tell
the individual, the applicator and/or handler,
the type of chemical from the restricted-use
standpoint, the type of pesticide he's going to
apply soon. Well, he's been through the
training already. Now, why just that pesticide?
Texas 95
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What is the difference between a restricted use
pesticide and a non-restricted use pesticide?
They're both just as dangerous. So, let's make
up some rules. That's it. Thank you.
Allyn Davis: Would anyone else like to
speak? This really is a unique opportunity
because Dr. Goldman really makes the
decisions about the pesticides programs, and
she's here to hear how the first year of
implementation of the Worker Protection
Standard has gone.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: What I thought I
would do is respond to some of the
comments that were made and then ... [Taping
suspended while tape was changed] Perhaps
after I give my response to some of the things
I have heard here tonight, maybe we would
have the time, if people want, to have some
further discussion. In no particular order, I
think there were a number of things in the
comments I would like to address. In the first
place, I just want to once again thank all of
you for coming here tonight and particularly
those of you who came forward with
comments. I also want to offer to the rest of
you, who did not feel comfortable making
comments here at the meeting, that you're
certainly welcome to give us your comments
in writing. We will look at those as well, and
so please feel free to continue to provide us
with input because I think it's so important.
One of the consistent messages that I
heard here tonight had to do with the issue of
who is responsible for implementation of the
Worker Protection Standard, and the
responsibility is really shared by everybody
involved in the process. Everybody in this
room has some responsibility for making sure
that the workers are protected. Certainly,
those who hire the workers and control the
conditions of employment, the owners of the
farms, the contractors, all of them have
responsibility. I like what I heard about how
some are beginning to make contractual
arrangements between the farmers and the
labor contractors. I think it's very important.
After all, the labor contractor does work for
the farmers, and my sense is that if there is a
clear expectation that the standard will be
applied, that the labor contractors will do it.
I think it is the responsibility of those who
hire the labor contractors to make sure that
that's absolutely clear. Certainly if it isn't clear,
then people cannot receive training, they will
not receive the needed instructions.
The other thing that came out as an issue
is: What about the responsibility of the
employees? Certainly the employees also have
some responsibility. The EPA has never
believed that it's the job of the farmer to
watch every employee every minute of the
day. Nobody can do that. You can't expect
that in the real world, and in fact, what we do
expect is that the information and the tools
have been provided, and that the opportunity
has been provided so the workers are
protected. Certainly, it is not possible to
watch every worker, every minute of every day
and make sure that they put on their gloves,
etc. I know our colleagues with the state and
other state agencies we work with are applying
common sense in enforcement of the rule.
What they are looking for is that a good faith
effort has been made, and that, in fact, people
96 Texas
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have received the training and have received
the tools they need.
Some of the comments I heard sounded
to me like things aren't going well everywhere.
It certainly would be disturbing to hear that
many workers are not receiving training. We
are conducting surveys. EPA has hired a
contractor to help assess how well the training
is going. It is very important to us. We
believe that the rule should result in a hundred
percent. I would be very disturbed if we came
out with something like 20 to 25 percent,
which is the statistic that I heard rumored. It
is certainly illegal to refuse to hire an individual
because they don't have cards. It is easy to
dock pay if they don't have the card. The
responsibility of the farmer is to provide the
training, and if there is not proof of the
training, the right thing to do is to go ahead
and do the training. I do believe there are
instances where the workers believe they
won't be hired unless they say they have had
training, whether they had training or not.
Sometimes they say they don't have a card
because they have not really attended a
training. I would take it for granted those are
people that haven't been trained. They
probably haven't been trained. I think that
the safest assumption is they are not trained.
I think the state agency will keep at it. We've
been very interested in how the EPA standard
fits into Texas' Right-to-Know Law.
I've seen some of the material that
Extension has put together, and it's really
good material. I think they've done a
wonderful job of planning. They put, for
example, the posting requirements together in
a way that looks to me like I can do it pretty
easily and wouldn't take a lot of time to do,
and I don't think that the two are necessarily
at odds with each other. I will say that we've
had a willingness to comply. I personally felt
strongly that where a state is already doing
something that clearly accomplishes the same
purpose as the Worker Protection Standard,
we should be willing to consider their efforts
and not require that another thing be done
that basically does the same thing. I can point
to a couple of instances; for example,
California, where they have a sign that is
already in place which the farmworkers
actually liked better because of the skull and
cross-bones on it. They liked it better, the
farmers in California liked it better and the
state agency wants to keep it. We did not
force them to change all of their signs to our
signs. We didn't think a difference was made
by a sign, and I think if there are equivalent
situations in Texas, I would encourage the
Texas Department of Agriculture to come
forward with those situations. I'm certainly
willing to consider them.
As far as I know, the process for
complaints—that issue came up in some of the
testimony—it's the same as the process you use
for the Texas Right-to-Know Law. It's exactly
the same process, it's just a separate process.
In all, the implementation goes through the
state agency. So you should feel that whatever
you used in the past to file a complaint about
the Right-to-Know Law implementation, you
Can use that for the Worker Protection
Standard.
The other thing I want to mention is just
the issue of getting information out there. I
thought people made some really good points,
Texas 97
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and I really would like to hear from all of you,
especially the farmers. What do you need? If
we need to get information to you directly,
what's the quickest way for us to do that? I
think we're more than willing to summarize
the changes from the regulations and try to
get them into your journals, your newspapers,
but we need to have a sense of what are the
best vehicles for doing that. We're always
trying to do outreach. We have tried to take
these changes and take the rule itself and boil
it all down in the simplest possible language
that we can. If fact, we have a lot of that on
the table. A lot of what's there is basically
some of the education hand-outs pnaudible]...
I think one of the things that makes it
complicated is, and I heard this today, we
want a simpler version, but at the same time,
we want interpretations of every circumstance
that people might encounter. Not as a
[Inaudible]... rule, so at the same time that
we're trying to put out information, this gives
you the simplified version. At the same time,
we have this interpretive process going on
with what we are trying to say. We try to
cover every case that might happen and how
one should handle it. What should be the
right thing to do under the standard? This is
how we end up with very lengthy documents,
something like the 140-page documents
someone mentioned earlier.
What I would advise the farmers is that
the interpretive guidance is not there to be
read page-by-page and understood and
memorized. The interpretive guidance is there
for you if you need questions answered from
day to day. It is there for you if you have a
particular question or particular problem. For
example, say you didn't know what to do
about putting out smudge-pots. You can find
what you need in the interpretive guidance,
but it isn't magic if you read all 140 pages.
The information you need to read, in other
words, has been summarized in a very brief
form. We do have that table, but at the same
time we want to make the more complex
information available for you in case you need
it. I like the idea of an electronic version and
coincidentally, we are actually updating our
World Wide Web issued from my office and
EPA. I'm going to go back to Washington
and say we've got to have a WPS page. I think
it's a great idea and this is another area where
I heard some specific suggestions about what
should be there, but if there are other
suggestions as well, be sure to put them up
there. We have started putting all of our
regulations on the Web, but organizing them
in one place is a little tedious, especially for
WPS.
I also wanted to point out that the
materials up here, the posters, the other short
pocket booklets we have here, are designed to
meet the requirements of the standard for
posting. For the first-day workers coming on
to the job, providing this information is
strongly recommended. We also accept the
use of materials that are roughly the
equivalent It should have the same words on
it or have the same information on it, but
obviously we would like for these materials to
be made available to the people who aren't
complying. We'll do what we can to ensure
we get this information out quickly.
Last but not least, there was a very
interesting question asked about Mexican
Texas
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produce. Someone asked what the guidelines
would be for that, and that would be
something I want to go back and think about.
We have a major project for Mexico right now
on pesticides because of NAFTA. In fact,
one of the EPA staff is here today, Penny
Fenner-Crisp, who works with the Office of
Pesticides Programs. She has been involved in
this program. The program has brought them
into our rules, and we already had cooperation
from Canada when NAFTA came on line.
Now we have a three-country cooperation on
the registration of pesticides. We are basically
working with Mexico on the WPS standard.
They don't have the same kind of system we
have in place, and they have a long way to go.
The issue of imports is important to us, not
only from the standpoint of farmworkers but
also from the standpoint of the consumers.
In our country, we are very concerned about
pesticides used on imports. I think we should
go back and look at the issue publicly, then
come back and talk to you about it.
So in closing, I again want to thank all of
you for being here tonight. I'll open up the
floor if there is any need for further discussion
or questions. The suggestion was that the
pocket guides could be distributed to local
health departments and to churches. I
suppose other community organizations are
also a good suggestion. That's great because I
do think there needs to be lot of participation
by the community at large. I talked about the
farmers, the farmworkers, but others too.
Questions or comments? If not, what I'd like
to do is adjourn. The EPA folks may identify
themselves by raising their hands so we know
who you are and also the folks from the Texas
Department of Agriculture. I think what we
can do is stay around here for a little while so
you can ask us about other information to
pass along to others. We have recorded this
session tonight, and we are going to take these
comments very seriously. Thank you.
[Meeting adjourned]
Texas 99
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Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Andy Cruz
USDA-Agriculture Research Service
DaleDarr
Texas Farm Bureau
Floyd H. Davis
Edinburg, TX
Rick Enriquez
Bagley Produce Co. Inc.
Vikki Floras
Texas Rural Legal Aid
Hector Flores
Texas Dept. of Agriculture
Pat Fogarty
Strategic Interfaces
JimHearn
KURV Radio
J. Holterman
Rhone Poulenc Ag. Co./Agri-women
Fred G. Karle
Texas Citrus Mutual/Texasweet
Pat Kornegay
Texas Agricultural Aviation Association
Wayne Labar
Cotton & Grain Producers Association of
LRGU
Jerry Lemunyon
USDA-NRCS
Linney Lyles
International Pickle Co.
Pablo Mayers, Jr.
DuPont
David McCommas
USDA-Agriculture Research Service
Ned Meister
Texas Farm Bureau
Joyce Obst
Texas Citrus Mutual
Jim N. Parkhill
South Texas Harvesters, Inc. International
Pickle Co., Sierra Farms, Inc.
Jerry Pierson
Pioneer Hi-Bred
Sergio Rinar
Hetcat Sc.
Juana P. Rodriguez
Farmworker
100 Texas
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Maria Idalia Salinas
Farmworker
Diana Salzman
Texas Dept. of Health
Patricia Schnitzel
Texas Dept. of Health
Emilie Sebesta
Texas Rural Legal Aid
Ana M. Silva
Mission, TX
Ebed Silva
Warehouse Farms
Bobby L. Simoneaux
Louisiana Dept. of Agriculture and Forestry
Eduardo R. Stein
USD A-Agriculture Research Service
Douglass E. Stevenson
Texas Agricultural Extension Service
Simon Tamez
Starr Produce Co.
Teresa Willis
Texas Dept. of Health
Texas 101
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Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Plantation Produce, Mission, TX
• April 25,1996, 8:30 sum.
• Tour of 7000-acre farm (onions, vegetables, grain, sorghum) and large-scale packing and
shipping operation.
• EPA staff met with staff of Plantation Produce, Texas Citrus Mutual, Texas Vegetable
Association, Texas Produce Association, Texas Department of Agriculture.
• Among the topics discussed at the meeting were:
— Need for more careful planning due to REIs.
— Problems with requirement to provide washing/decontamination supplies for 30
days.
— Turnover of workforce requires frequent training sessions.
— Reports of WPS signs being stolen.
— Some attendees had the misperception that all provisions of the rule are triggered
when a person comes within a quarter mile of a treated area.
Rio Queen Citrus, McAllen, TX
• April 25,1996,10:00 sun.
• Visit to a citrus (grapefruit, oranges) farm.
• EPA staff met with staff of RioQueen Citrus staff, Texas Citrus Mutual, Texas Vegetable
Association, Texas Produce Association, Texas Department of Agriculture.
• Among the topics discussed at the meeting were:
— Use of PPE can lead to heat stress in warm climates.
— Concerns over employer liability if employee refuses to wear PPE.
— Some participants had the misperception that all provisions of the rule are triggered
when a person comes within a quarter mile of a treated area.
— Many workers want full labels in Spanish.
102 Texas
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Roland Dusters, Edinburg, TX
• April 25, 1996,11:30 a.m.
• Tour of facilities of aerial and gound applicators.
• EPA staff met with Blayne Roland, pilot; staff of Texas Agricultural Aviation Association,
Texas Citrus Mutual, Texas Vegetable Association, Texas Produce Association, Texas
Department of Agriculture.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Problems wearing PPE when getting in and out of airplane and when in cockpit.
— Requirement that commercial applicator notify the farm owner of a pesticide
application within a reasonable time period. Commercial applicators are concerned
that if there is no record of an oral notification, they could be held liable if anything
happened.
Farmworker Meeting, Hidalgo Park, Pharr, TX
• April 25, 1996, 3:00 p.m.
• EPA staff met with farmworkers; Juanita Cox, United Farm Workers; Raymond Gill, South
Texas Civil Rights Project; Jose Sanchez, Texas Department of Agriculture.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Participants' concerns about health risks associated with pesticides with short REIs
and opposition to any shortening of the REIs. They also stated that the 5-day grace
period for training is too long, especially for seasonal and occasional farmworkers,
and that the 5-year retraining interval should be shortened.
— Concerns about drift from fields, and workers being sprayed; lack of notification of
workers about spraying; and worker housing located in the middle of fields.
— EPA discussed ongoing progress with the Pesticides Spray Drift Task Forces.
— Reported instances of farmworkers working right next to tractors spraying pesticides.
Illegality of working under such conditions.
— Availability of training, protective equipment, crop sheets (fact sheets with
information on pesticides used on particular crops).
Texas 103
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— Participants' suggestion that workers wear protective clothing at all times in the
fields, not just during REIs.
Farmworker Meeting and Site Visit, San Juan, TX
• April 25,1996, 4:30 p.m.
• EPA staff met with farmworkers; Juanita Cox, United Farm Workers; Jose Sanchez and
Randy Rivera, Texas Department of Agriculture.
• Among the topics discussed at the meeting were:
— Reports of airplanes spraying fields where people are working.
— Availability of training, protective equipment, crop sheets, warning signs.
— Apparent inconsistencies in understanding of what constitutes WPS pesticide safety
training. Some workers said that they had not been trained but had received training
verification cards.
— Importance of reporting alleged violations of WPS regulations as soon as possible so
that investigators can take samples of clothing, soil, crops, etc.
— Problems In securing medical treatment.
104 Texas
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Transcripts of Meetings with Farmworkers
April 25,1996
Hidalgo Park, Pharr, Texas
Tuanita Cox: Good afternoon!
Good afternoon!
Juanita Cox: We are going to begin our
meeting now. We have several people from
the EPA in Washington. They had public
hearings last night and several people testified,
but we wanted them to come to the colonias
pabor camps] and talk to you personally about
pesticide problems and especially about the
new regulation called the Worker Protection
Standard for the agricultural worker. So
whether it is field work or questions about
colonias getting sprayed when the planes
come by, because we're surrounded by fields.
Mrs. Lynn Goldman and Mr. Jerry Oglesby,
who is from Dallas, and this gentleman from
the Agriculture Dept. in San Juan. Also these
other folks who came with her. Your
questions will be part of an official record, just
as if you had attended the meeting last night.
All this will be recorded so it will all be part of
the official record, not just the complaints but
also the comments of the people of the
colonias. OK? Well then, she is going to give
you a brief explanation of what this Worker
Protection Standard regulation is about. [To
Dr. Goldman]: I just told them a little bit
about who you are and the hearings last night
and that this is part of the official record, that
it will be recorded just as if they had attended
the meeting and what we would like to do is
give a brief summary of the Worker Pro-
tection Standard.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Yes. First I want to
thank all of you for coming here today. I
know that you have taken time from your
duties to come here, but we do need the help
that you can give us by tellling us about your
experiences. The Worker Protection Stan-
dard is really very simple; it has three very
simple principles. One is the principle that
you need to know what the risks are, you need
to know how to protect yourself. A second
principle is the principle that there needs to be
available the means to help you if you do get
exposed, to have treatment. And the third is
the principle of what we call the re-entry
interval—not going into the field right after the
application of the pesticide. Our principal
concern today is that, if you're working, are
you getting the training that you should get
before working with the pesticide? Are the
signs going up to tell you -which pesticides are
being used in the field? And are the signs
going up to tell you about not going into the
fields while the pesticides are still recently
applied? Mainly we want to listen, so what I
want to do is open the meeting to any
comments or questions that you have because
we're really here to listen.
Raymond Gill: I guess I would open up
with three points. My name is Raymond Gill,
Texas 105
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I'm the attorney and Project Director of the
South Texas Civil Rights Project. We work
very closely with the farmworker community
and the United Farm Workers. We litigate
cases in state and federal courts on behalf of
farmworkers' wage matters, pesticide matters,
all matters having to do with the conditions
under which farmworkers both live and work.
Just as a general matter I would say that the
South Texas Project, and certainly the people
that we represent have told us, that they
oppose any shortening of the re-entry interval
periods, so that if it's a 72-hour period, that
that 72-hour period remain 72 hours and not
become a 48 or 24-hour period.
The second is that I believe there is a
question as to whether or not growers are
going to be required to provide the necessary
training within five days or after five days that
a person is hired for a particular agricultural
employment because—and especially in the
Rio Grande Valley, the seasonal and the
occasional nature of the farm work, some of
which may last a day, two, three, four or five-
farmworkers move on to different jobs with
different employers, that a five-day period
before a worker is trained in pesticide matters
is just simply too long. The third is that the
retraining period should be shorter than the
five-year period so that we can be sure that
workers are being retrained, that workers
know what their rights are under this law and
that compliance with the Worker Protection
Standard be closely monitored.
Worker; I believe we here in the colonias
are more exposed to the chemicals due to the
planes that go by, and they don't care if the
wind is strong or if there is no wind. We have
been affected some five or six times right here
in our house. Once the plane flew over and I
think it opened the valve and we were vety
sick. And the field is very close, then they
don't tell us that they are going to spray; they
don't take us into account for anything. So I
think this needs to change because they are
killing us little by little. One of the little ones,
when cotton season starts, always sweats and
gets a bad rash on the face with lots of
pimples. The doctor says it's a skin disease,
: but he does not say it's the chemicals that are
already on his skin. We -want you to do
something about that too. The school is vety
close by, Kelly school, so a lot of children are
being affected by the chemicals.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Yes. I think these
are two very important problems. One is
what we call drift from the spray, from the
airplane, which the EPA is working very hard
on right now. We are gathering data on drift
and I would say for some of the pesticides, we
are beginning to get a handle on them for the
first time. This is not a problem that we have
solved. And the second issue, which is
related, of the skin rashes, I would say that it
is also a very important problem and one that
we're seeing as the old chemicals go through
reregistration, they are brought up to date, we
are starting to see that a lot of them have
these effects on the skin. They are irritating,
they can cause rashes, and that is changing the
way that we are regulating them. I know that
this has been a major problem, not only from
the drift, but also for the farmworkers that
106 T*xas
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many of these chemicals have caused skin
problems.
Raymond Gill: On that point I would like
to say that I'm litigating a case in district court
on behalf of Maria and Maribel—Maribel is the
young woman holding the baby. The
pesticide is called Guthion 2L, highly toxic
and the symptoms are shortness of breath or
rashes, vomiting, headaches, very generalized
symptoms, very difficult to pinpoint to a
pesticide.
Dr. Lynn Goldman:
Guthion?
Did you say
Raymond Gill: Guthion 2L. The active
ingredient is azinphos-methyl; very highly
toxic.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: One we know well.
Raymond Gill: Yes. Sprayed a lot here in
this field that Maria said. We are surrounded,
by the way, by agricultural fields.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Is the drift occuring
from applications on the ground or just when
they fly over?
Raymond Gill: This particular incident—or
actually, it would be these incidents—were
from an airplane. And I would just say this:
Maria called the Texas Department of
Agriculture that same morning. Texas Dept.
of Agriculture did the right thing, sent an
investigator, got swab samples and found out,
sure enough, that this azinphos-methyl from
this particular pesticide was sprayed by that
plane on that day.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Did you find any
from a ground application at all?
Juanita Cox: No tractors. All applications
are done by airplane.
Worker: I think they are fooling the
people with these signs. They put them up
for four or five days and they don't take them
down. And where they ought to put them—
where people should not enter—they don't put
them.
Juanita Cox: Where do they put the signs?
Worker: At the fields. They leave them
there for many days.
Juanita Cox: Oh, OK.
Worker: There is another problem.
When the people put the water in the field,
they put farm chemicals and pesticides but the
foremen they don't give protection for those
people. They are working in the fields and
not even covered. They are very dangerous
pesticides, because I used to pass by and I see
the cans and they say .they are dangerous, and
those people, I think they need to be
protected too, because they are working in the
fields all day, all night, sometimes all day, all
night and -working with these kinds of
pesticides or chemicals and it's very hard.
Juanita Cox: They were irrigating?
Texas 107
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Worker: All the time it happens here on
these roads and they have the tanks and the
containers of the pesticides they put in the
water itself.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: The problem with
what we call chemigation or irrigation with
chemicals that you saw, when was that?
Worker: About a week ago. I think the
tanks are still there on the side of the road.
Juanita Cox: On Highway 107, which is
north of Edinburg, some farmworkers
saw...there was a road in between some
farmworkers who were tying beets and a
tractor that was spraying, and the only
distance between them was this road that
divided the two of them and the tractor was
spraying and the people were tying beets right
next to it. And then she went to ask him
where was his mask since he was applying this
chemical, and he said the boss didn't want to
give him any and if he didn't want to work to
just leave.
Worker: We stopped the people who
were working there and we sent them to some
other place to work, because if you were there
you could get a headache right away because
that chemical they were throwing there was
very strong. And we told the men who were
working with them to move the people from
there because it was very dangerous, and they
had been there all morning long and they
didn't take them out until we told them.
Worker: ...and that happened in several
.'different places. They were working with
rashes on their hands but they kept working
there.
Juanita Cox: How many of you have
received training on worker protection? You
work a lot of onion, right? And you too,
Dolores? And you, Antonia, you haven't
received...
Worker: I always worked watermelon and
peppers, but then one time I got sick. They
put something on there and we got into the
pepper field and we got wet, and we had to
harvest the peppers, but they never told us
there was poison, they never explained
anything. Since we have the need to work in
the fields, because that's how we make a
living, and ever since I've been working here,
since I got my papers, I know many crew
leaders from the Valley, but none of them
explained anything to me about any dangers in
the fields.
Juanita Cox: Have you been trained...all
the rules about pesticides?
Worker: No, never.
Worker: No, they don't give us training.
They just poison and then, "Hey, just get in
there." And if you get a rash...well, there's no
warning or anything.
Juanita Cox: This last onion season, did
they give you some sheets?
108 Texas
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Worker: Yes, they showed us a movie.
Juanita Cox: Did they show you a video at
the shed or in the field?
Worker: At the packing shed.
Raymond Gill: In English or Spanish?
Worker: In Spanish.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Yes, it was probably
made here, actually. Was there an opportunity
to ask questions after the video?
Worker: When they handed out the
sheets last year they didn't show it, but this
time they showed the video.
Juanita Cox: But now that they showed
you the video, did they give you the
opportunity, was there someone there that
you could ask questions to?
Worker: No, I don't think so.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: It is OK to use the
video, it's OK to use, you know, posters and
hand-outs, but one of the requirements for
the training is that there is an opportunity to
ask questions in your language. If you only
speak Spanish, you should be given the
opportunity to ask the questions in Spanish if
you have any questions after the training.
Worker: Last year when they were
handing out sheets, there was someone there
asking if we had any questions.
Raymond Gill: You might ask if any of
the workers have ever received any of the
protective equipment.
Workers (2 or 3): I only work onions and
we just use gloves. They don't give you
anything. Up north, yes, but not here in the
Valley.
Worker. In the warehouses they are more
exposed, because they put chemicals and they
don't give you the masks.
Worker: My husband works at the
warehouse and several times he came home
gasping for breath because they had used
chemicals there.
Juanita Cox: And what products do they
have there?
Worker: Well they run onions,
pumpkins....carrots.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: With pesticides the
problem is that kind of a problem can also
result from other things too, like the dust that
can exist inside of a packing shed. If you have
lung disease like asthma or chronic lung
disease, the dust can be a very hazardous
thing.
Worker:
machines.
He's always washing the
Juanita Cox: And what does he wash
them with?
Texas 109
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Worker: With ammonia.
Juanita Cox: Ammonia is very strong too,
and it can affect you when you're cleaning.
Anything else? Any other comments or
questions. They don't come here every day
from so far. How many of you have received
the crop sheets when you go to work? The
ones with the picture of the vegetable on it?
Workers; Yes, I received a celery crop
sheet. Sometimes they hand it out but
without the boss' name on it.
Juanita Cox: She was harvesting onions
and they were spraying with a tractor right
next to the field where she was working and
she called the crew leader. But the crew leader
said that that was a different owner so there
was nothing they could do. So they had to
continue to spray because they didn't belong
to the same farmer for whom she was
harvesting onions, so they just had to continue
to spray.
Dr. Lynn Goldman; Two points: One,
the Worker Protection Standard does not
differentiate between the owners of the crops.
In other words, just because it belongs to a
different owner, it doesn't mean it was legal
for you to have been there. So you did the
right thing asking to leave. That's something
I think maybe we might want to talk to you
about when we break, because that was not a
correct interpretation of the standard.
Worker. He said it was OK because it was
by tractor, it didn't drift.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: That is also
mistaken. One more thing before we leave.
I think there is a question about the protective
equipment. Because the question about the
protective equipment came up, I think it
might be important to explain when you need
it and when you don't need it.
Jose Sanchez: The question was asked
about when you should be given protective
equipment after a pesticide has been applied
to a field. You should be given protective
equipment when you are going to work
directly with the chemicals, when you are
making an application or during that period of
time when you must wait, which is restricted.
As Juanita mentioned, each pesticide has a
certain period of time you must wait before
returning without protective equipment. So
during those 24 hours or 12 hours or 48
hours, if you're going to enter the field during
that time, then you must be provided the
protective equipment. But if you are going to
work in that field after those 12 or 24 hours,
depending on the chemical, then the
protective equipment won't be provided
because there is no more danger of being
poisoned.
But it is important that, when you work in
the fields, especially if there have been
applications, to use long-sleeved shirts, pants,
closed shoes (not huaraches), gloves if you
can, to be safer. Not only will you be
protecting yourselves from the chemicals, but
also from the sun. Because if you go out there
wearing a T-shirt and shorts, then not just the
sun, but depending on the person, if you are
allergic to something, it will affect you too. So
110 Texas
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it is important for you to be aware that not
every day, or each time that you are going to
work in the fields, will you be given protective
equipment. But if you have any doubts, ask.
You also have the right to be informed about
the applications, so ask the boss, because they
should have a list of all the pesticides that have
been applied. And if anyone ever has a
complaint, they have the right to submit a
complaint to the Agriculture Department.
Just call us and we'll do everything we can. As
the gentleman said...the situation with the
lady...Maria G6mez...they called us, we went,
took our samples, made our report and it was
found that there was indeed a chemical drift.
So that if things are to change, you must take
charge also, and if you have a complaint,
report it.
Raymond Gill: I would say one thing in a
general way: The employment dynamic in
agriculture down here, because it's seasonal,
because it's occasional and because it's so
difficult to get, farmworkers have to stomach
a lot of injustice, a lot of discrimination and a
lot of abuse in this area—in the area of wages,
certainly, and working conditions—there are a
number of these injustices because of the
dynamic that is being created by the scarcity
of work and the supply of farmworkers. So
the backdrop to this conversation and to the
conversation you'll have is that dynamic which
permeates the lives of farmworkers and is
probably a message you'll hear wherever you
go, over and over, if not spoken directly, at
least certainly in the background. And it's that
dynamic which needs to be addressed in all its
aspects.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: OK, I am aware that
we have two more meetings. Thank you so
much. I know your time is important to you.
Thank you.
Meeting in San Juan, Texas
Juanita Cox: [Beginning of tape missing]
...if there are questions or comments and
then when the others arrive we can do the
introductions of all the people here, who they
are, where they come from and what kind of
information...what they are here for. We can
do the introductions when more people
arrive, but for now, just to begin, I want to
greet you and thank you for letting us meet in
your house and ask you questions about field
work—whether they have given you the crop
sheets or if you've watched the video or you
have been trained by the companies and the
crew leaders here or up north (because they
are from the federal programs, so it applies
here and when you go elsewhere to work
also). You were telling us about the onions.
Could you explain this to us? What is your
name?
Worker: Gloria [Inaudible; several people
talking at once. One man asks her to show
them a rash on her arm]...
Juanita Cox and Dr. Lynn Goldman: Do
you know the pesticide that was applied?
)rker: No, they didn't tell us.
Texas 111
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Juanita Cox; Did they give you a sheet
with the name written on it?
Worker: No, nothing.
Juanita Cox: Neither the crew leader nor
the employer?
Worker; No, no one. No sheet or
anything. We just went there and he just said
to go in there and start to work.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: You know, they're
supposed to also post the name of the
pesticides in a central location...
Juanita Cox: Did you see at a central
location at the farm a sheet that talks about
the poisons?
Worker; [Inaudible]
Juanita Cox [To Dr. Goldman]: Somtimes
they put them on the bathrooms, but this
time they didn't have it. (To worker]: Where
was the field?
Worker: The field was by Montecristo
Road north of Edinburg and also at a field by
the river.
Juanita Cox: Have you always worked in
the fields?
Worker: Yes.
Worker: I think since '81. I've always
gone out to work, but nothing like this had
happened like now.
Juanita Cox: Have you been trained about
the pesticides?
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Did you see a
doctor?
Worker: No... [Inaudible; multiple voices]
Juanita Cox: Come in. Good afternoon.
Have a seat. How have you been? Good...
[Arranging seating for the new arrivals^
conversation, laughter] Is there someone else
who has worked in the fields like this lady?
Anyone else?
Workers: [Inaudible]
Juanita Cox: You? Where?
Worker: My oldest son, Sergio, is allergic
to cucumbers, but only to cucumbers.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Did you say your
daughter goes with you?
Worker: Who, me?
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Uh-um. How old is
she?
Juanita Cox: How many years have you
been working in the fields?
Worker: I'm sixteen.
112 Texas
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Dr. Lynn Goldman: You're sixteen. Did
you also suffer skin rashes?
Worker: No, I didn't.
Juanita Cox: OK. Anyone else? Those of
you who work in the fields, when you work
here or up north, do you get those sheets?
Worker: Up north yes, but not here.
Juanita Cox: What crops? In which state?
Worker: [Inaudible; noise of chairs being
moved around]
Juanita Cox [To Dr- Lynn Goldman]:
....and the cucumber and they did get their
crop sheets. [To workers]: Do they give you
some other kind of training?
Worker: Just those papers for us to read.
Here at the onion harvest they showed us the
video.
Randy Rivera: After the training, did they
give you the card?
Worker: A blue one? Yes.
Randy Rivera: Here or up north?
Juanita Cox: Here in Edinburg they gave
him a blue card, and in Plainview.
Juanita Cox: While they work they play a
video in the field so that they can hear about
the pesticides.
Worker: Not here in the Valley.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: There was someone
at our meeting last night, he said that he does
that. In fact, it might have been that same
person—cucumbers, kind of a pickling
warehouse... [Inaudible; multiple voices]
Juanita Cox: Here in Espiga do they give
you gloves?
Worker: Not here. In Plainview.
Worker: Here if you ask for something to
protect yourself, what they tell you is, "If you
want to work, go ahead. If not, there's a lot
of other people who will." That's their word
here in the Valley.
Randy Rivera: And -who tells you that?
Worker: The labor contractors.
Juanita Cox: Since 1993, the program
requirements kicked in. The agency she
represents in Washington, D.C. started this
regulation that protects the agricultural
•worker, which says they must give you your
training, your crop sheets, the videos so you
can watch, the gloves or face masks and things
like that, since '93. So what she wants to
know and the investigation they are
conducting is to see that the program is being
properly implemented, or if not and changes
are needed. That's what they are interested in
hearing from you who work in the fields. If it
is working out better than before "93 or if it is
the same, or if the contractors or farmers
Texas 113
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need to pay more attention that colonias are
not sprayed with planes when the wind is
blowing strong. Have you had any experiences
of this kind?
Worker: The planes are still spraying
people.
Juanita Cox: They are still spraying
people? Recently?
Worker; Last week. During onion harvest
in Edinburg, a plane was spraying where we
were working. There is a field of grapefruit or
oranges on this side and they spray it and
there you are working.
Juanita Cox; Did you smell anything?
Workers: Yes. [Inaudible; multiple
voices]
Juanita Cox [To Dr. Lynn Goldman]:
She says you don't have to go to the fields.
The fields are right here and you can smell it
in the house when they spray out there, the
field that's right next to the canal.
Worker; Is there anything they can do to
stop the planes from spraying? They never
stop when we're working there.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: That is not supposed
to happen.
Juanita Cox: Was it in the melon or
grapefruit fields?
Worker: In the melon and grapefruit
fields they've done it.
Juanita Cox:
explanation.
Let her give you an
Dr. Lynn Goldman: And then I'll turn to
the Department of Agriculture people to add
in. But I think it's important to understand
that even before we had the Worker
Protection Standard, it has not been legal to
spray people from an airplane. That is not
legal. It's not legal to spray workers from an
airplane and if that is happening it is a misuse
and it should be reported.
Jose Sanchez: What I want to tell you is
when something happens like the situation
you're explaining during an application, with
an airplane, and you're working in a field that
is close to where the application is taking
place, and you think or know that you have
been exposed because the applicator is
breaking the law, then you have the right to
file a complaint with Department of
Agriculture. These are violations not only of
the worker protection program but of other
federal laws regarding the use of the pesticides
in a way that is contrary to the label. You can
iCall our office. Let me give you the
number-it's 787-8866.
The most important thing to do is, if
something happens and you get exposed, what
you should do is get in touch with us as soon
as possible because we have a certain number
of steps we need to take when initiating an
investigation and something that is very
important is taking samples. We have to take
114 Texas
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samples of your clothing, for example, take
your shirt as a sample so we can analyze it and
find out if the pesticide really made contact
with you. We also take soil samples, the crop
where the application took place, etc. So we
take those samples and document everything
to make a report. So if the samples tests
positive that they have the pesticide and
everything supports the claim, then the
department takes action and fines them,
suspends the license, etc. But the most
important thing is to please call us at the
office. Because in the past we have been
called a year after, two months after or two
weeks after and so it gets more complicated
and it is more difficult to document
everything, take samples, etc. Because
sometimes we need to know as soon as
possible in order to take the information
about what happened. Because sometimes
you wait six months or six weeks and you
forget who the labor contractor was, exactly
where you were harvesting.
So if s important to call us at the office as
soon as possible. And I want to make it very
clear that we will not always find the guilty
party. Sometimes you can smell the pesticide
stink, but sometimes we can't do anything
about it. If you believe you are in danger of
being exposed, the most important thing is to
get away from that field. You also need to
take precautions and watch out for yourselves.
Because if you get sick, your whole family will
suffer. So sometimes it is very difficult,
because the workers, when I give the courses,
the training, they say, "I have to work and if I
complain maybe they'll fire me," right? So,
yes, you are in a difficult position. So you
have to make that decision to call us or allow
things to remain the same.
Workers: [Inaudible]
Juanita Cox: She didn't report it. You
have to report it as soon as possible. When it
happens, report it.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: It is also important
if you become ill or get a skin rash, you should
see a doctor. It is very important. And then
the doctor will make some records. And it is
just as helpful as having the analysis of the
chemical to have the doctor's records of what
he saw. You can also get treatment and it is
possible to get some treatment...I'm going to
actually take a look at that one when the
meeting is over; I'm a doctor myself.
Jose Sanchez: What you should do also is,
if you have been exposed to a pesticide, as Dr.
Goldman said, you need to go to the doctor
and you need to tell the doctor that you have
been exposed or you believe you have been
exposed to a pesticide. Then the doctor will
take the necessary steps to do all the analyses
to document if you were exposed to a
pesticide. That will help you a lot and will
help us a lot in our complaint report
documentation.
Juanita Cox: I think they recognize they
should go to the doctor but....
Jose Sanchez: The money... [Inaudible;
multiple voices]
Texas 115
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Juanita Cox: They won't take you in the
emergency room unless you have a hundred
dollars with you.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I'd like to get back to
the standard, the Worker Protection Standard
and...one of the things we're interested in
hearing is whether the fundamental
requirements of the standard are being carried
out. Requirements such as the training that
must be given, the requirement for the re-
entry interval after the pesticide is applied—
there's a time when you're not supposed to go
in the field—and the requirement for providing
decontamination facilities. For example, I
would be curious about the woman who had
the skin rash, when she realized that she had
the pesticide on the skin, was there a place
where she could wash it off...the availability of
water, soap and towels to decontam-
inate—and can you go to the doctor, can you
get help if you do have an exposure?
Worker: In a field where I was working
once, the water they gave you was from the
canal and that water is not going to get the
stuff off because it's going to put more on
you.
Randy Rivera: Is that the same field where
this lady was -working, where she got hurt?
Juanita Cox: Where you were working,
was there water for rinsing...did you go and
rinse yourself there?
Worker: No, I didn't rinse myself. I just
went home.
Randy Rivera: Was it water from the canal
or some other kind?
Worker: I don't know which kind it was.
When you get there the water is already there,
so you don't know where it came from.
Juanita Cox: Did you tell the contractor
about it?
Worker: No, no, because he's never there.
He's around checking other fields.
Juanita Cox: Do you think contractors
bring water to rinse with in case of a pesticide
accident?
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I should say it's
important for people to understand that if
there is an accident and the pesticide is on the
skin, to wash it off right away. It's very
important; the sooner you wash it, the better.
Jose Sanchez: And if you have a pesticide
on your skin, even washing off with the canal
water is better than not washing at all. It's
better than waiting four hours before you get
home. If it's canal water, wash yourself if you
know you've been exposed, you feel it
itching...it's better to wash it off. If you wait,
it could affect you more...if you don't wash it
off.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Well, and the other
thing that is important is that it is your right to
wash it off...and you don't have to go to youi:
boss or your crew leader to ask for permission
because it is your right under the Worker
116 Texas
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Protection Standard to wash it off. [Taping
suspended while tape was changed]
Juanita Cox: Have you seen the signs?
Worker: In Plainview they put them up.
But not here.
Jose Sanchez: To clarify something... not
all pesticides require the field to be posted.
What is required is that you be informed
about the application. Now many times, as
this gentleman said, the danger time is up and
that's why the sign is not there. But that is
why you need to get the training, so that all
this can be explained to you. You have the
right to know, as Juanita and Dr. Goldman
said, so if you're not getting the information,
it is important for you to ask for it, and if it is
denied to you then you call us. Call us if an
employer is not giving you the information or
the training, or what we call a decon-
tamination center, which is soap water and
towels. If they don't have that "where the
bathrooms are, then that's what we need to
know.
Worker: I want to tell you something.
When we've been working in the fields and
I've seen people spraying, I have not seen a
single sign, not a single sign. And yet we've
seen around the cane fields the signs telling
you they are going to burn the cane, but for
the other stuff, no. And we've been all over
the Valley, Montecristo, Highway 107...Fve
never seen a sign anywhere.
Worker: Which packing sheds are
supposed to give us the training?
Jose Sanchez. Juanita Cox: All the
packing sheds, all the fields where they use
agricultural pesticides. Wherever there is
agricultural product, you have the right to get
trained and watch the video.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: If they don't use the
pesticides, then they don't have to.
Worker: But what I'm saying to you is
I've never been trained anywhere.
Jose Sanchez: But you said you already had
the training... [Noise, interruptions]
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Now...it is important
that the training...they don't have to use the
video to give the training. They can give it by
speaking. They can give it by using the poster,
they can give it with the video. What's
important for the training is that they give you
the information, one, and two, that they give
you the opportunity to ask questions in your
language afterwards. But it's up to the farmer
if they use the video or how they...or if it's just
talk.
Worker: So when I go in for the
cucumber or onion harvest, they need to give
me the sheet?
Juanita Cox, Jose Sanchez: Yes, correct.
[Noise; multiple voices]
Texas 117
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Worker: They don't give them to you if
you don't ask for them.
Juanita Cox; So in all your years of
working here in the Valley you haven't seen a
sign that says you cannot enter a field?
Worker. Well, no, I haven't. Over there
they do, over there where we go.
Juanita Cox: The sign says "danger" and
has a face and a hand and says "do not enter."
[Multiple voices, laughter] Please, let's pay
attention. This is serious. So, you have not
seen this sign? No? It's a sign-she's the one
who is asking—she comes from the EPA to
see these people here and she's talking about
field work and if you've seen a sign with a
hand that says "do not enter" because there is
a poisoning ha2ard. She's asking if you've
seen it in the fields.
Worker: In some fields.
Juanita Cox: Here, not up north.
Worker: Here and up north.
Juanita Cox: Which fields have you seen
these at?
Worker: [Inaudible] ...when they have just
sprayed the pesticides is when they put them
up. When you can go in, they take them.
down.
Worker; Over there where we go, they
use it a lot; in Bay City.
Juanita Cox: Have you received, here or
up north, the training regarding your rights
about pesticides, the crop sheet, the video?
Have you seen these?
Worker: Yes, last year this lady took us
some papers and read them to us. About our
'rights and how to protect ourselves.
(More people arrive]
Juanita Cox: Good afternoon. Sit over
here..there's a chair here. You folks who just
got here..she's asking about the pesticides in
the fields and if you've seen this sign that tells
you not to enter.
Worker: Yes, yes.
Juanita Cox: In what crops.
Worker: Beets, but not here. [Noise,
multiple voices]
Juanita Cox: Please let's listen. One at a
time. Welcome to those who just got here.
She's Dr. Lynn Goldman and this is the group
that came with her from Washington. They
are observing to see if some new regulations
are being carried out for the protection of the
agricultural worker...everything having to do
with pesticides—the training, washing facilities
at the field, water soap and towels to wash
your skin.
Worker: We were at the onion fields, and
they bring soap and water and towels. [Noise,
multiple voices]
118 Texas
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Juanita Cox: Anything else related to stuff
from up north is all right because this is
federal so if you want to say something about
Michigan and Minnesota and those other
states, it's OK.
Worker: Over there there's no water.
Each one brings his own. And the
bathroom....you find a place to hide.
Sometimes there are no canals or anything.
Juanita Cox: Even though she's federal, if
you could please talk mainly about here, about
the Valley and the bosses you work for in the
Valley....about the training...do they warn you
when there's poison? Do they give you water
to wash with, that kind of thing?
Worker: There's an old man who comes
to warn us and take us out of the cabbage
fields when they are going to spray pesticides.
Juanita Cox: That's the way it should be.
They should take you out of the fields when
they spray and then wait several hours before
going back in, when the pesticide is gone.
Anything else?
Worker: This is good, to give us a
reminder. We have a phone number to call if
we see something so they can come and check
things out.
Juanita Cox: They are from Washington,
but he is from Texas, from the Department of
Agriculture, and they are the ones you need to
report any incidents to, if a plane is spraying
or a tractor is spraying too close to you or if
they send you in to work right after putting
poison in the field or if they didn't give you
training. That's the information they need to
know. Because this law requires that you have
all these things for your protection. When
they don't do what they're supposed to is
when you should report them.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: We appreciate that
you have come here to talk to us and share
with us your experience. That is so important
to us in understanding whether the standard is
working and what we need to do further to do
a better job to protect you.
Juanita Cox: I did not mention it at the
start, but they had a hearing in McAllen last
night where everything was recorded and is
part of the official record. If you'll notice, he
is recording too because, even though this is
not an official meeting, the comments that
you give us will be part of this official record
they are taking to have proof they talked to
farmworkers who work in the fields and you
are telling them what the conditions are in
reality.
Jose Sanchez And another thing you can
do is write a letter....suggestions, comments,
problems you have found in the field
regarding pesticides, and you can send it to—I
don't know if Juanita has made copies of the
sheets where you can write your comments,
suggestions, etc.-i-and send them to Dr.
Goldman's office so that they can have your
written comments, since you were not able to
attend the meeting yesterday. This will help
Texas 119
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you a lot, since your voice and comments are
being heard.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I also want to give
my appreciation to the United Farm Workers
for helping to organize this and for all their
hard work in bringing people together and
helping us communicate. And to the Texas
Department of Agriculture also for helping us
here today, thank you very much.
Juanita Cox: It's very important for you
to remember the telephone number he gave
you...787-8866. Keep it in mind so that if
something happens, don't wait, call them right
away. You don't have to give them your
name.
Worker: What area do you cover?
Jose Sanchez: The whole Valley.
Worker; Falfurrias too?
Jose Sanchez: Yes, all the way up to
Corpus Christi. Even if it's in San Antonio,
I'll call the San Antonio office for you. One
more comment. Juanita's office has told me
that the first Friday of every month they have
a training. If you cannot make it to that
training, it's important that you call me
because I can train you too. We don't have to
wait until somebody comes asking you if
you've been trained after working there for six
months. If you are going to work in the
fields, you need the training. So if you can't
go to Juanita's trainings, call me. I can come
to your houses here and meet with you or you
can go by our office where we have air
conditioning and all the equipment, projector,
videos, books. And I can answer any
questions you might have and if I can't give
you an answer, we can call the TDA office in
Austin or the EPA. It's very important. The
Department of Agriculture is here to help you
too and listen to you. You've told us that
some of you have not received the training
and we're going to try to get that done so that
you can know your rights and what needs to
be done in the field.
Randy Rivera: If for some reason you
cannot reach Mr. Sanchez here in San Juan,
you can reach me at the Austin office.
120 Texas
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Written Comments
Wayne Labar
Cotton and Grain Producers of the Lower Rio Grande Valley
Maria Idalia Salinas
Pat Kornegay
Texas Agricultural Aviation Association
Joyce Obst
Texas Citrus Mutual, Texas Agri Women
Emilie A. Sebesta
Vikki M. Flores
Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc.
Texas 121
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COTTON AND GRAIN PRODUCERS
TELEPHONE 3 1O 42B-6O77 • 134 E. VAN BUREN, SUITE 3D4 • HARLINBEN, TEXAS 7B5SO
From the desk of Wayne Labar, Executive Director.
Our Association is one of the 9 Cotton Producer Associations in Texas
that makes up the Texas Cotton Producers Association. The cotton
industry in Texas is the largest row-crop industry in Texas agriculture.
Texas plants approximately 6 million acres of cotton annually which
represents 1/3 of aii the cotton planted in the United States. This brief
statement regarding the Worker Protection Standards is representative
of the entire Texas cotton industry.
The Worker Protection Standard developed by EPA has come a long way
in upgrading the regulations to protect agricultural workers and
pesticide handlers who are occupationally exposed to pesticides.
Exposure reduction measures include making sure workers are aware of
treated areas, restricting re-entry into those areas, providing personal
protective equipment, providing training to handlers and workers, and
-------
making sure pesticide labels and other information is readily available.
However, all the responsibility and accountability under WPS rests on the
employer. There comes a point in time that the employee has to take
responsibility for his own actions. Under the standard as written at
present, there is little, or no, accountability placed on the worker to
implement what he has learned from training. There is also no
responsibility placed on the worker to properly use the personal
protective equipment required to be supplied for him.
Agricultural employers generally do not have any problems with specific
directions stated on pesticide labels. However, the generic provisions of
many labels that simply state the producerwill comply with 40 CFR part
170 is confusing and contradictory. This small part of the code Federal
Regulations is a huge book some 21/2 inches thick. A generic, one
sentence provision on a label places on a producer's shoulders the
responsibility of complying with thousands and thousands of pages of
regulation. Even EPA's "How to Comply Manual" is contradictory and
confusing. The label provisions should be specific to the task in hand
for that particular pesticide and not so all encompassing.
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Worker Protection Standard Public Meeting
MeAllen, Texas
April 24, 1996
STATE OF TEXAS
COUNTY OF HIDALGO
§
§
§
§
§
§
AFFIDAVIT OF MARIA
IDALIA SALINAS
BEFORE ME, the undersigned Notary Public, personally appeared
MARIA IDALIA SALINAS, who, being by me here and now duly sworn,
upon her oath deposes and says:
1. My name is MARIA IDALIA SALINAS, and I reside at 2021
Chicago (Rear), McAllen, Texas, which is located in Hidalgo County,
Texas. I am over the age of eighteen years, and I am fully
competent to testify to the facts contained in this affidavit.
Unless otherwise stated, the facts stated below are based upon my
own personal knowledge.
2. On November 3, 1995, I was employed, through a farm labor
contractor, by a large packing shed in Mission, Texas.
3. As of November 3, 1995, I had been working for this
employer for approximately three months yet I had never received
any training about how to protect myself from pesticides. I was
never given copies of any crop sheets.
4. On November 3, 1995, I was picking bell peppers, which I
noticed were covered with white dust. I was wearing gloves, a long
sleeve shirt, long pants, a hat and a scarf that covered my head
and neck. My employer did not provide this protective clothing,
nor did he advise me to wear it. I wore this to protect myself.
Even with this protective clothing, my face started burning. At
the end of the day we went home, I showered but my face got worse.
5. The next morning, November 4, 1995, I reported to work and
I worked until lunch but I had to go home because my condition got
worse. The burning and itching was unbearable. The crewleader was
not there that day so I only told one of the other workers.
6. Neither the packing shed or the crewleader would send me
to a doctor so I went on my own to a doctor in Mexico. This doctor
told me I had been poisoned by pesticides.
7. Another woman who was under a different crewleader was
also poisoned and that crewleader sent her to a doctor.
8. During the whole time I was working for this packing shed
and crewleader, nobody ever told us when a field was sprayed or
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what it had been sprayed with.
9. Also, while there was water available for washing, it was
dirty and there was no soap.
Further affiant sayeth not.
MARIA IDALIA SALINAS
SWORN TO and subscribed before me on April 24, 1996.
My commission expires:
CERTIFICATE OF T
^RGARITAM-FLORES
Malay Public
STATE OFTBMS
My Coiran. Exp. Nov. 5,1898
Texas
I, the undersigned, affirm that the foregoing AFFIDAVIT was
accurately translated into Spanish and was read aloud in Spanish by
me to MARIA IDALIA SALINAS, before she signed it.
Margarita M. FlorSss
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'•/ /\ /\ /\ /
* ****** i
Texas Agricultural Aviation Association
Box 684246 Austin, Texas 78768-4351 (512)478-3241 Fax (512)476-7297
Officers
Pit Komtgiy, President
Sin Btnito
Bob Oitrett, Vice Pre»Idem
Oiylcn Sumpi, Sacratiry
Ptntuodb
Rmdy H«i», Trauurar
Robitown
Chcli StMdi, Executive Director
Auetin
District I
M«tt Rich, Vice Praaident
Bltyn* Rowiind
HwgH
KncxTtunmeN
DitUlot It
Bitty AUtnhoKcr, Vlca Prctldtnt
Lowe* HIcki
Alvfn
MwkMifcheD
Btiumont
District III
Jim Cottinohtm, Vlca Projldcm
Muodiy :
Snook
Dtnny Howluvt
Hooks
District IV
Rindy Mwptwoe, Vieo ProKent
Roun
ROOM Horin
Rilnvttw
MittWilVtf
, Otlegila
NAAA
Diihlrt
Rick H«dcMl!«, Alornita
Vemori
Allied Industry
Diva Hirndon, Director
WntltVi
Aminfa Bull, Altcinita
Advisory Board
Rck Hirdcxlla
Vetnon
Rob Putt
He una
Ed States
Robitown
April 24, 1996
Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, D.C.
To Whom it may concern:
The following comments dealing with aerial application industry concerns with
the Worker Protection Standard are offered for your consideration. Our interest is
in helping to develop the Worker Protection Standard into an effective, realistic, and
enforceable statute that accomplishes the goal of protecting agricultural workers
from restricted use pesticides.
The Texas Agricultural Aviation Association can be contacted at our Austin
office for additional information concering these issues. We appreciate the
opportunity to express our views and concerns to the agency.
'at Kornegaj
President
-------
My name is Pat Kornegay and I am the president of the Texas Agricultural
Aviation Association;, a statewide association of about 300 professional aerial applicators
and allied industry supporters. For over twenty years I have worked as an agricultural
pilot and as the owner of commercial aerial application business that applies crop
protection chemicals to an average of two hundred thousand acres of cropland annually.
I am also speaking on behalf of the National Agricultural Aviation Association, which
represents the aerial application industry's interests in Washington, D.C.. I would like to
address some issues of concern to commercial aerial applicators involving Worker
Protection Standards.
The first concerns section 170.224, which addresses requirements for notification
by commercial applicators to agricultural employers of timing of pesticide applications.
We recognize the importance of this information to establish posting and reentry periods
for agricultural workers, however the definitions and requirements contained in WPS for
achieving this are somewhat vague and the ultimate responsibility for establishing
communication between pesticide handlers and agricultural employers is unclear. There
are several methods of communication deemed acceptable under the statute such as direct
telephone contact, answering machine messages, faxes, etc. The end result will be
difficulty on the part of the enforcing agency to verify whether of not contact was made
and therefore where responsibility rests in an enforcement action. Our suggestion is that
the responsibility for providing information involving a pesticide application remain with
the pesticide handler, but that responsibility for initiating the communication to obtain that
knowledge be with the agricultural employer. Since the agricultural employer initiates the
chain of events that result in a pesticide application and a vast majority of commercial
pesticide applicators operate .out of a central location at which all scheduling is initiated
and all records are kept, it would be more appropriate that the agricultural employer bear
the responsibility of obtaining this information. The fact that most agricultural employers,
by the nature of their business spend most of their time in the field adds to the problem of
the commercial applicator establishing verifiable communication. As the agricultural
employer bears the responsibility of posting and conveying re-entry information to field.
workers, this should be consistent with that process and not be an additional burden. The
pesticide handler/commercial applicator would be responsible for providing accurate
timing information to the agricultural employer upon his request.
The other area of concern for commercial applicators, aerial applicators in
particular, is the use of personal protective equipment. It is my understanding that
through contacts between EPA and representatives of the National Agricultural Aviation
Association in Washington, EPA has indicated a certain amount of flexibility concerning
the use of PPE by agricultural pilots. The rule still stands that pilots must carry a
complete PPE package (overalls, boots, gloves, hat, respirator, faceshield, water bottle) in
the aircraft, and use gloves when entering and exiting the aircraft. The size and shape of
an .agricultural aircraft cockpit preclude a pilot being able to put this equipment on prior to
exiting the aircraft and the use of gloves when entering and exiting the aircraft would
simply introduce possibly contaminated pesticide handling gloves into the clean and sealed
environment that constitutes an aircraft cockpit. The use of impermeable protective
-------
coveralls in the high heat environment normally present during the growing seasons
drastically increase the risk of heat stroke, as is evidenced by the sudden appearance in
PPE supplier catalogs of cool packs and ice containing vests to help alleviate this problem.
Obviously the use of such equipment by pilots is impractical and a very real threat to
aviation safely. Since all ag-pilots basically independent contractors who are licensed
commercial pesticide applicators, and are qualified to train ground personnel in the use of
PPE, use of said equipment should be at their discretion. Furthermore, pesticide handlers
who have received training in the use of PPE, have documentation of same, and have all
necessary equipment provided to them by their employer, should be able to forego the use
of certain items such as impermeable coveralls if said use would actually be a detriment to
their safety.
I would be happy to address any additional issues or anwer questions that the
comittee might have.
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Worker Protection Standard Public Meeting
By U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
McAllen International Civic Center
Tourist Building
Wednesday, April 24,1996
Thank you for the opportunity to present testimony on behalf of Texas Citrus Mutual and the
Texas Agri Women.
I am Joyce Obst. My husband and I operate a diversified citrus and vegetable farm in the
Alamo area. Both, Texas Citrus Mutual and the Texas Agri Women have been active in
sponsoring and promoting WPS training since the regulations were announced. WPS
impacts most agricultural producers, but it has the heaviest impact on producers of labor
intensive crops, like myself. ' ... .
Safety is important to everyone in agriculture, including farmers as well as workers. WPS has
certainly raised the level of awareness about the importance of safety in the agricultural work
place.
Farmers, whom I know, are making a serious effort to comply with WPS. The training of
workers about common sense safety practices is the most important part of WPS. In general,
I think the WPS rules are overly complex. When requirements are too complicated, the
compliance with the rules is almost always less than when the rules are-simple and straight
forward. In the case of the WPS rules, there are 140 pages in the manual on how to comply.
I would like to encourage EPA to reduce the length of the regulations and simplify them where-
possible. One grower commented recently that he finds it frustrating to see the general
reference statement on a label that says he is to comply with part 170 of the Code of Federal
Regulations, but not to see at least a summary of the actual rules right on the label.
In terms of informing growers about WPS requirements I would point out that I feel like a
large number of growers are not aware of the changes that were made recently regarding
limited contact tasks, irrigation activities and the reduction in reentry intervals for certain low
toxicity pesticides. If EPA would publish a summary of these changes, Texas Citrus Mutual
and Texas Agri Women would be glad to distribute them to our members through newsletters
and other means.
I would like to also address the matter of encouraging workers to assume more personal
ownership regarding their own responsibilities for compliance with WPS. In other words,
individual workers should assume some responsibility for their own safety. As I understand
the present rule, all the burden is placed on the employer to train and enforce worker
compliance to wear the personal protective equipment and to do things that many times an
employer cannot control. It is totally unreasonable to require an employer to stay in sight of
-------
workers at all times to ensure that they are doing everything they should. Workers should
also have some responsibility for keeping up with his continuing education in the same way
individual farmers are required to keep up with their CEU's in order to maintain their pesticide
license.
As I understand the WPS rules, a farm owner/operator is held responsible for the compliance
by employees of custom applicators and workers employed by a crew leader. We certainly
believe that the specific employer, ie., the custom applicator or the crew leader, should
address compliance issues regarding their employees and not the owner/operator, just
because the workers happen to be on his property.
1
Our final comment is about decontamination facilities. I understand that under current,
regulations the facilities are required to be in place at a given site for 30 days after the
Reentry Interval has expired. We believe the reentry requirement on the label means that
the testing of that'chemical indicates that no harmful residue will be left at the end of the
reentry period. Therefore, we urge EPA to revise the rules to drop the requirement for
decontamination facilities at a given site after the reentry interval has expired.
Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony. We also want to thank you, Dr.
Goldman, for taking the time to personally conduct these public meetings in various parts of
the country, including this area.
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LAW OFFICES OF
TEXAS RURAL LEGAL AID, INC.
2S9 SOUTH TEXAS
WESLACO. TEXAS 78596
LEGAL STAFF:
210-968-9574
210-383-0641
ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF:
2IO-968-6574
21O-383-O641
April 23, 1996
Jeanne Keying
Office of Pesticide Programs (7506C)
U.S. E.P.A.
401 M Street, SW
Washington, D.C. 20460
Re: Comments on Worker Protection standard Regulations
Dear Ms. Keying:
\
Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc. (TRLA) is a non-profit
organization which represents indigent farmworkers in Texas. TRLA's
Farm Worker Health Si Safety Project is dedicated to protecting
farmworkers and the environment from the hazards of pesticides.
There are approximately 500,000 farmworkers, including family
members, who live most of the year in Texas. Over half of all
Texas counties have at least 500 farmworker residents. However,
the majority of Texas farm workers (50%) make their permanent
residence in the Lower Rio Grande Valley area of Texas and migrate
throughout the United States performing farm labor during much of
the year. They are, thus, greatly impacted by the Federal Worker
Protection Standard (WPS) regulations.
We appreciate the opportunity to provide input regarding these
critically important regulations and, on behalf of several of our
migrant farmworker clients, we offer the following comments.
1.
June 22, 1995 Mid-Year Vegetable Meeting
Attorney Emilie Sebesta attended the Mid-Year Vegetable
Growers Meeting in McAllen, Texas in June, 1995. At this meeting,
the Texas Department of Agriculture gave a Train the Trainer
session. , While much of the training was very good, Ms. Sebesta was
quite distressed by some of the comments made and the reaction, or
lack thereof, by TDA officials. For instance:
(1) one farmer asked if he could withhold a farmworker's
paycheck until the farmworker proved he had a WPS
training verification card;'
(2) another farmer suggested that if a worker had worked
for a farmer for more than 5 days and not proved he or
-------
she had been trained, the farmer should fire him or her -
--- the TDA official's response was "Whatever.11
Although the TDA officials did state that it is the employer's
responsibility to assure a farmworker has been trained and that an
employer cannot refuse to hire a farmworker for not having a worker
verification card, the impression Ms. Sebesta received from several
farmers was that they were either, not going to hire people who
could not prove they had been trained or fire them after 5 days.
Farmers should not be allowed to rely on a workers' word that
he or she has been trained if they do not have a card. If workers
begin to perceive that growers are only hiring people who have
already been trained, they may begin to say they have been trained
even if they have not in order to get hired.
As for the farmers' concern about not being able to know if a
worker has been trained if he or she does not have a card, he or
she should be able to check with the EPA as trainers are required
to keep track of workers trained and submit that data to the EPA.
If such information is not readily available now, it should be made
so.
2.
Enforcement
We need more enforcement.
Unfortunately, it appears there are still a significant number
of growers who are not providing pesticide training to their
workers .
An informal survey done of farmworker applicants in our
office during the past twelve month period revealed that in Texas
only 27% had received training. For non-Texas applicants the
number was 22%.
3. Retaliation
Although we do not know how wide-spread retaliation is, we
have had one client who was, fortunately, trained, but was then,
unfortunately, asked to enter a field being sprayed. He refused
based on his recent training. The next year he was not rehired
although he had worked for this grower for the past two seasons and
other workers were rehired. Through the grapevine, he heard the
reason he had not been rehired was his insistence on not entering
a field that was being sprayed.
This, combined with the rhetoric heard from farmers at the
June 95 Vegetable Growers Meeting causes us concern. More random
inspections and investigations by the EPA might help prevent this
kind of behavior.
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4. There Should Be a 0-Day Grace Period Before Training is
Required
Under the current WPS regulations, an employer is not required
to provide training to a farmworker until that worker has worked
for him or her for five days. Although employers must give very
basic information to workers from day one, this is not enough.
Serious pesticide injuries occur just as easily in the first
five days of a worker's employment as thereafter. By way of
analogy, we do not allow people in cars to not wear their seatbelts
for the first 5 miles or 5 minutes they are driving.
In addition, many farmworkers perform what is called "day
labor." A day laborer may rarely, if ever, work more than five
days for one employer. Yet, surely they need protection just as
much as a worker who works for one employer for several weeks or
months.
At a minimum, the EPA should adopt Texas' practice of having
employers hand out crop sheets, or some similar flier, to any
employee who will enter a treated field prior to training. Crop
sheets list the types of pesticides generally used on the specific
type of crop (e.g., carrots), the reentry interval, and the
symptoms of poisoning. Crop sheets use easy to understand
illustrations to explain the symptoms and degree of danger, which
even a person who cannot read can understand. (Examples of crop
sheets are attached.)
5. Restricted Entry Intervals and Decontamination Site Time
Should Not be Shortened, Even for So-called Low Risk
Pesticides
The WPS regulations are good regulations. They were created
to protect a group of workers who have traditionally received
little protection from significant dangers in the workplace. The
requirements are not overly stringent and should not be further
weakened, especially at this early juncture.
The 12 hour minimum reentry interval (now reduced to 4 hours
in many instances) must not be shortened. Long-term effects of
many pesticides are still unknown. Similarly, how pesticides
interact with each other and other chemicals is largely unknown.
Although scientists know that many chemicals interact
synergistically to create a risk larger than simply adding the two
risk factors together, there is little data to explain exactly how
this happens or to what degree it happens.
For instance, two scientists from the University of Texas and
Georgetown Medical Schools have conducted studies which indicate
the illnesses suffered by Gulf War soldiers was likely caused by a
synergistic combination of low toxic pesticides, including mosquito
repellant.
-------
Like the Gulf War soldiers, farmworkers may be exposed to a
number of different pesticides — from residue on fields where they
are working to drift from fields bordering the fields where they
are working or their homes.
There is simply too much that is unknown and too much at risk
to carve out any more exceptions to this very important set of
protections.
6. Records
WPS regulations only requires employer to post what pesticides
have been applied and where for 30 days. There is no requirement
for recordkeeping beyond the 30 days.
Our experience with the Texas Right to Know Act, which
requires recordkeeping for 30 years, is that often a farmworker
will not be in a position to request the information until after 30
days. For instance, in several cases clients have had bad rashes
or dermatitis caused by pesticides, but did not end up in our
office for more than 30 days. Even when the worker has been to a
doctor, often times the doctor will not have-requested the chemical
information (especially if a Mexican doctor) . The name of the
chemical may still be useful to a doctor or to us for helping the
person obtain workers' compensation benefits long after 30 days.
With respect to problems that may result from long-term
chronic exposure, a worker, doctor, or state health department
official may need to go back many years to see what the worker has
been exposed to.
7. Training Once Every 5 Years Is Not Enough
Under the WPS regulations, farmworkers are only required to
receive training once every five years.
This is not enough.
Even well-educated persons, for instance lawyers, cannot
remember the content of classes or trainings they attended a year
ago. How can we expect farmworkers, most of whom who have very
little formal education, to remember a substantive training about
pesticides for five years?
A five year retraining interval is especially inadequate given
the sporadic nature of farm work. A farm worker may work for 2
months at farm labor and then not again for another year or longer.
Lack of continual reinforcement and practice make the likelihood of
retaining this important information even more doubtful.
For several years our Health Advocate, Vikki Flores, trained
farmworkers on the hazards of pesticides and how to protect
-------
themselves. Each time she conducted a training for a group of
workers that she had previously trained, she received comments from
persons who were glad to receive the information again because they
or someone they knew had suffered health affects from pesticide
poisoning but * had forgotten the symptoms and had related their
health problems to the "flu" or an "allergy".
At a minimum, farmworkers should be given some kind of
training once a year.
8.
Growers Must Remain Responsible for WPS Compliance
It is our understanding that growers have expressed concern
about being responsible for compliance with the WPS regulations
when they use farm labor contractors.
Growers should be responsible for compliance for a number of
reasons. Farmworkers are the grower's employees, working on the
grower's land, handling the grower's produce, and are exposed to
the grower's pesticides. Furthermore, under the law the grower is
most likely going to be ultimately liable if a farmworker is
poisoned. Therefore, it is to the grower's advantage to make sure
workers are properly trained and are not being exposed to
pesticides.
In addition, our experience with farm labor contractors has
convinced us they cannot be relied upon to provide WPS training or
otherwise ensure compliance with WPS regulations. Farm labor
contractors are often no more educated than the farmworkers
themselves. Many cannot read and could not, therefore, go through
a WPS training manual even in Spanish. Farm labor contractors do
not make much money and cannot, therefore, be expected to have the
means to provide adequate training or personal protective
equipment. They move in an out of the business and often do not
comply with the existing Federal requirements that govern their
livelihood.
Thank you again for this opportunity to comment on the Worker
Protection Standard regulations.
Sincerely,
Emilie A. Sebesta
Director, Farmworker
Health & Safety Project
Vikki M. Flor-es
Health Advocate, Farmworker
Health & Safety Project
-------
-------
j 1 1 i iff n it i[ ill i, it i- "i,,
t i I *|i|i'ri>'i*Wi I **niuii
-------
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5. Washington
Public Meeting:
Pasco, WA
• June 19, 1996, 7:00 p.m.
• 86 participants (38 registered), including 13 speakers
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions:
Washington State Health Department, Richland, WA
• June 20, 1996, 8:00 sum.
• EPA staff met with Vicki M. Skeers, who gave a presentation on the Washington State
Pesticide Incident Reporting and Tracking Review Panel (PIRT)
La Ctinica Migrant Health Center, Pasco, WA
• June 20, 1996, 9:30 a.m.
• EPA staff toured the clinic with Guillermo V. Castaneda, Director.
Meeting with Growers, Prosser, WA
• June 20,1996,11:30 sum.
• EPA staff met with representatives of Washington Growers League, Washington Hop
Commission, Hop Growers of Washington, and other growers.
Stepping P., Inc., Prosser, WA
• June 20,1996, 1:00 p.m.
• Tour of small, family-owned currant production facility.
• EPA staff met with Dennis Pleasant, Stepping P., Inc.; Phil Hull, Washington Growers
League, and others.
Olsen Brothers, Prosser, WA
• June 20, 1996, 1:30 p.m.
• Tour of family-owned apples, asparagus, cherries, currants, wine and juice grapes, and hops
production facility.
Washington 123
-------
• EPA staff met with Larry Olsen and Keith Oliver, Olsen Brothers; Anne George,
Washington Hop Commission; Patrick Boss, Hop Growers of Washington; Phil Hull,
Washington Growers League; and others.
Farmworker Meeting, Pasco, WA
• June 20,1996, 6:30 p.m.
• EPA staff met with farmworkers; United Farm Workers representative; Daniel Ford and
Rebecca Smith, Columbia Legal Services; Washington Department of Agriculture; Oregon
Cooperative Extension Service; Oregon Legal Services staff.
124 Washington
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Minutes of the Public Meeting
Pasco, Washington
June 19,1996
[A transcript of the Washington State public
meeting is unavailable due to a failure in the
tape recording of the meeting. The following
represents minutes, rather than actual
testimony.]
Mike Gempler: Mr. Gempler noted that
there are many people involved in pesticide
health and safety, including the Occupational
Safety Administration (OSHA), the U.S.
Department of Labor, the U.S. Environ-
mental Protection Agency, Washington State
Department of Agriculture, Washington State
Department of Labor and Industries, and the
grower and labor communities. He was
disappointed that OSHA and the Washington
State Department of Labor and Industries
were not at the meeting because they are key
players in the state. Mr. Gempler stated that
the key agencies need to work together to
overcome political and organizational agendas
to develop a coordinated regulated strategy
where everyone is at the table. He was
particularly concerned that efforts be made to
coordinate with the OSHA Hazard Communi-
cations regulations.
Mr. Gempler noted that the grower
community wants to develop safer work-
places, but they need greater flexibility,
communication, and coordinated regulated
strategies. As part of the need for better
communication, he would like to see the
compliance manual revised to include the
seven recent changes to the Worker
Protection Standard.
Mr. Gempler had additional comments at
the end of the meeting: He noted that
spraying operations are highly technical, and
that OSHA had decided not to write parallel
regulations because they do not have the
technical expertise. Investigators from the
Washington State Department of Labor and
Industries who investigate Worker Protection
Standard complaints do not have the
background to enforce pesticide violations and
should not be setting parallel regulations.
Phil Hull: Mr. Hull said that he had
spoken to growers and did not find too many
major concerns about the Worker Protection
Standards; growers seem to have made
investments in equipment to comply.
Growers wanted the requirement to post at
the central location eliminated. On farms with
multiple blocks it was very difficult and staff-
intensive to comply with this requirement.
On a farm with 70 spray blocks, for example,
a grower would have to hire someone full-
time to comply. Other concerns: The state
has different record keeping requirements
from the WPS; workers do not read the
posted information; leaving the information
up for 30 days "is a nightmare" and has
nothing to do with safety.
Washington 125
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Mr. Hull emphasized that the "How to
Comply" manual needs to be updated;
growers do not read Federal Register notices. He
stated that the EPA updates are not getting to
the growers. He also urged that duplication
with the state Hazard Communication
regulation be eliminated.
Hermann G. Thoennissen: Mr. Thoen-
nissen operates a 40-acre apple and pear
orchard and a consulting firm which included
1400 acres. He was concerned about the
requirement of central posting for 30 days
after application. He said that we need to
trust the American farmer and that these
numerous regulations reduce the ability of
farmers to produce safe and cheap agricultural
products. Mr. Thoennissen criticized the 30-
day posting requirement as having nothing to
do with safety, protection, information, or
even common sense. In some instances, the
pro-duct has been eaten and digested and the
posting is still up. He was also concerned
about the duplication of numerous
requirements.
Walter Suttle: Mr. Suttle's nursery trained
460 workers in 1995. The worker training
takes about 30 minutes, utilizing a video and a
discussion about safety operations on the
nursery. The nursery trained about 133
handlers which took about two hours. One
hundred and twenty of these workers had to
have the more comprehensive handler training
only because they dipped cuttings in rooting
hormones. He said the system for training
verification cards is not working and that he is
worried about duplication of training efforts.
With 800 different crops on 550 acres,
Mr. Suttle was anxious to be allowed to use
smaller signs. REIs, he noted, are difficult
with so many people working on so many
different crops. Oral notification is also too
difficult. Some beds may post 500 signs in
'one day.
Mr. Suttle made additional comments at
the end of the public meeting: He noted that
it is very time consuming to put together
information on pesticides used in the last 30
days, and that no one looks at the
information. In addition, REIs present a
problem when he needs to get into an area to
pull plants for specific orders. He feels that
some generic REIs may not be justified. Mr.
Suttle was particularly concerned about the
effects of the REIs on minor use crops. The
chemical -industry does not feel it is worth
getting an exception for REIs on minor use
crops. For some minor use crops, there may
only be one effective pesticide registered for
use and no chemical with a short enough REI.
He has had to discontinue growing lilacs and
mock oranges because the only effective
pesticide registered for those crops had REIs
that were too long.
Mandie Scheckert: Ms. Scheckert worked
as a farmworker for 30 years. She said that
60% of farmers do not care about workers.
Three years ago Ms. Scheckert was sprayed
and suffered a year of burns and rashes. She
stated that Hispanics will not readily go to
doctors because the farmers threaten them.
She stated that what was needed was strong
enforcement; laws are no good if they are not
enforced. Ms. Scheckert said no one else will
126 Washington
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speak out because farmworkers are afraid of
losing their jobs.
Mary Phillips: Ms. Phillips said that she
was sprayed in 1993 and has had trouble with
speech and other health effects. Ms. Phillips
reported that farmers tell their workers that if
they say anything, they will lose their jobs. Ms.
Phillips urged strong enforcement; without it,
the WPS will not be effective.
Daniel Ford: Mr. Ford, with Columbia
Legal Services, reported that his organization's
farmworker clients have had numerous
problems with pesticides, including problems
with inhalation, dermal exposure, rashes, eye
irritation and many other health effects. Some
of these effects last for days, months or
longer.
Columbia's clients have reported that they
were told to work in fields while pesticides
were drifting onto them or while the REI was
still in effect. Workers reported that signs stay
up all the time, even during harvesting. When
this happens, workers don't take the signs
seriously.
Many of Columbia's clients have not
received the WPS pesticide safety training.
Columbia's clients who are Spanish speaking
handlers have reported that they have not
received the information on the pesticide
label.
Many of Columbia's clients have not been
told about decontamination facilities or
provisions for emergency medical care. A
number of Columbia's clients have been fired
for complaining to their supervisors about
problems with PPE, complaining to state
agencies, or seeing doctors.
Mr. Ford said that regular inspections are
needed with bilingual investigators.
Appropriate penalties are needed for
violations. Warning letters are not enough for
serious violations. Closed systems should be
required for Toxicity Level 1 pesticides, as is
required in California. Cholinesterase
monitoring should be required for workers
who regularly handle highly toxic pesticides.
California has required this since 1974. One
study showed 24% of handlers had
cholinesterase levels that were seriously
depressed.
Dr. Laura Byerly: Dr. Byerly worked for
the last two years in a health clinic servicing
farmworkers. She said that not one single
patient that came to her with symptoms they
attributed to pesticide exposure knew what
pesticides he or she had been working with.
Dr. Byerly noted that we need to overcome
the barriers that prevent them from knowing.
Until farmworkers feel safe asking questions
about what they are working with, the Worker
Protection Standard offers no protection.
Dr. Alice Larson: Dr. Larson has been
involved in pesticide health and safety issues
since 1985. She has recently conducted a
needs assessment of WPS pesticide safety
training in Washington State. She said that
growers have been making handlers into
permanent employees and seem to be more
concerned that handlers receive training than
farmworkers.
Washington 127
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Dr. Larson said that her investigation did
not find either handlers or workers using the
Washington State WPS training cards. She
noted that many growers expressed concern
about the overlap with the Hazard
Communications standard.
Dr. Larson is concentrating on worker
training in the Yakima Valley and is targeting
2,000 workers there, but she believed that
workers in other parts of Washington still
need training. She urged that the national
workgroup on pesticide safety training and
training verification be reconvened. The
workgroup was very helpful in developing
materials and the verification systems, but it
needs to meet again to share information
about training concerns, materials needs, etc.
Dr. Larson said that a formal evaluation of
the national WPS pesticide safety training
program needs to be conducted to maximize
successful training programs and verification
systems and deliver better training and
materials in areas needing further assistance.
Eight now each state approaches training
differently.
Larry Bauman: Mr. Bauman said that the
burden of the Worker Protection Standards
falls heavily on operators of farms with
diversified crops. His farm represents the
concerns of row crop growers. He has 60
different fields and cannot keep up with the
additional costs of compliance. At his farm,
management does all the spraying and uses
directed spraying with no drift problems. He
urged EPA to factor in different types of
farms. He does not want to have the same
rules as single crop growers. For example,
although he sprays only ounces of pesticides,
he is required to suit up the same as people.
who are saturated with chemicals.
Mr. Bauman was also concerned with the
amount of paperwork required; his office staff
spends half their time dealing with these
paperwork requirements, which he feels are
not accomplishing anything. He has had to
comply with state record keeping for 17 years
and would like to see records on how much
this regulation costs. He said that workers do
not look at the central notification
information.
Ricardo Lucero: Mr. Lucero is the
Western Migrant Stream Coordinator for the
Northwest Regional Primary Care Association
in Seattle. He coordinates services to
farmworkers and is a member of the Migrant
Advisory Committee to the Department of
Health and Human Services.
Mr. Lucero said that some farmers are not
protecting their workers. He urged growers to
work with the migrant and community health
centers which can help farmers help
farmworkers read central notification
information and tell them what it means. He
urged farmers to get hold of local farmworker
service resources to work together.
Lucina Siguenza: Ms. Siguenza works with
Community Health Centers. She complained
that no one was speaking in Spanish at the
meeting. She had helped EPA's Regional
Office try to attract farmworkers to the
meeting through announcements on Spanish
radio stations and in Spanish newspapers, but
obviously their efforts were not enough. She
128 Washington
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felt that a different approach was needed to
reach workers and help them protect them-
selves. She was willing to provide assistance.
Duncan Wurm: Mr. Duncan represents
farm and forest operations. He noted that
training materials are not reaching forest
workers. He urged development of videos
and manuals for the forest industry.
Washington 129
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Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Margot Barnett
Strategic Options Consulting
Tom Barry
DuPont Agricultural Products
Larry Bauman
L&L Farms
Mike Gempler
Washington Growers League
Chuck Guptill
The McGregor Co.
Brooks Hammel
ISK Biosciences
Cornelia Brim
The Capital Press
Laura Byerly, M.D.
Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center
MikeByud
Yakima, WA
Burt Chestnut
Washington State Farm Bureau
Gerald Cox
Washington Dept. of Labor and Industries
Fred Degiorgio
DuPont Agricultural Products
Daniel Ford
Columbia Legal Services
Wally Frank
L&L Farms
Leo Geeta
Columbia Basin Health
Mike Harris
UAP Northwest
Mike Haskett
Washington State Dept. of Agriculture
Robert S. Hays
Idaho Dept. of Agriculture
Rosa Hernandez
Northwest Justice Project
Phil Hull
Washington Growers League
Alice Larson
Work Group on Pesticide Health & Safety
Erik Loney
KEPRTV
Ricardo Lucero
Northwest Regional Primary Care
Association
130 Washington
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John Massey
Western Farm Service, Inc.
Adam Navarro
Farmworker
Jose Perez
Farmworker
Mary Phillips
Farmworker
Carrie Schafer
Tri-City Herald
Mandie Schickert
Farmworker
Alan Schreiber
Richland, WA
Lucina Siguenza
Community Health Centers
Walter Slabaugh
ISK Biosciences
Rebecca Smith
Columbia Legal Services
Walter Suttle
Monrovia Nursery Co.
Hermann G. Thoennissen
AgriNorth West
Sam Thornton
Washington State Potato Commission
Estela Urrutia
La Familia Sana/Valley Family Health Care
Duncan Wurm
Washington Friends of Farms and Forests
Washington 131
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Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Washington State Health Department, Richland, WA
• June 20,1996, 8:00 a.m.
• EPA staff met with Vicki Skeers, who gave a presentation on the Pesticide Incident
Reporting and Tracking (PIRT) Review Panel, a 13-member panel composed of
representatives from state agencies, universities, and the private sector. The system was
created in 1989 as a result of an alleged incident involving farmworkers exposed to paraquat
drift. PIRT serves as a central clearinghouse and reviews incident reports.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Physicians have been required to report pesticide incidents since 1989.
— The most commonly reported pesticide incidents involved eye injuries. Reported
incident rates are highest in orchards. The Washington Dept. of Health publishes an
annual report summary of the PIRT Review Panel, and has developed a short radio
feature for farmworkers about pesticide eye injuries.
La Clfnica Migrant Health Center, Pasco, WA
• June 20,1996, 9:30 sum.
• EPA staff toured La Clinica Migrant Health Center with Guillermo V. Castaneda, Director.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Lack of adequate housing contributes to health related problems. Some farmworkers
sleep in treated fields.
— Eye-related pesticide problems are seen most frequently.
Many growers bring workers to the clinic. Some growers contribute financially to
the clinic.
Meeting with Growers, Prosser, WA
• June 20,1996,11:30 a.m.
• EPA staff met with Phil Hull, Mike Gempler, Dennis Pleasant of the Washington Growers
League; Anne George and Susan Killer of the Washington Hop Commission; Patrick Boss
of the Hop Growers of Washington; and Dick and Larry Olsen of Olsen Brothers.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
132 Washington ~~~
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— Growers believe that Washington State Department of Labor and Industries
regulations and WPS overlap, and that jurisdiction should be clarified in order to
promote better coordination of regulations, enforcement, and reporting.
— Concerns that central posting of information on pesticide applications is
burdensome to growers and should be eliminated since workers do not use it.
— Minor use crops need help in registering chemicals with shorter REIs. For some
crops and some pests there may be only one pesticide registered for use.
— Hops industry statistics show low rates of occupational injuries related to pesticides
compared with other injuries. Pesticide use is over-regulated, growers believe; other,
higher-risk activities are not regulated.
Stepping P., Inc., Prosser, WA
• June 20,1996,1:00 p.m.
• EPA staff toured a small, family-owned currant production facility.
• EPA staff met with Dennis Pleasant, owner; Phil Hull, Washington Growers League and
others.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Minor use crops, such as currants, suffer from lack of choice of pesticides. Difficult
to switch to a less toxic pesticide with a shorter REI if only one pesticide is registered
for use on currants to treat a certain pest or disease.
— Currant producers believe they have little problem with drift, due to low-riding
application equipment specifically selected for use on currants. Handler PPE
requirements should be specific to exposure risk.
Olsen Brothers, Prosser, WA
• June 20,1996,1:30 p.m.
• EPA staff toured a large, family-owned farm. Crops include hops, apples, asparagus,
cherries, currants, wine grapes and juice grapes.
• EPA staff met with Larry Olsen and Keith Oliver, Olsen Brothers Farm; Anne George,
Washington Hop Commission; Patrick Boss, Hop Growers of Washington; Phil Hull,
Washington Growers League and others.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
Washington 133
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Recommendation that EPA eliminate central notification posting of pesticides.
Workers don't use it, application maps are difficult to follow on large complex
operations, and postings are very staff intensive to keep current.
Growers believe that farm managers can be relied upon to keep workers out of
recently treated areas. Some fields are seven miles from central notification point.
Washington State record keeping, state incident reporting laws and federal
requirements for material safety data sheets (MSDSs) provide workers with adequate
information.
Participants stated that growers are very careful to not expose workers. Most farmers
care about their workers. It is part of being a team and running a successful
operation. Treating workers well is good business, but the occasional bad operation
gets all the publicity.
Field posting, safety training and PPE are seen as important protection measures,
while central posting is burdensome and not necessary.
Farmworker Meeting, Pasco, WA (See transcript, p. 136)
• June 20,1996, 6:30 p.m.
• EPA staff met with four farmworkers; Dan Ford and Rebecca Smith, Columbia Legal
Services, and others.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
Concerns that farmworkers in Washingtpn State are not consistently receiving the
WPS training. Some workers said they had received handler training and PPE, others
did not.
Concerns that posting is not kept up-to-date, and as a result, workers are not being
warned about recently treated fields. Reports that posted signs are staying up the
whole season.
Reports that farmworkers have been sprayed or exposed to pesticide drift, and told
by growers or crew leaders to continue working or be fired.
Concerns that washing/decontamination facilities are not being provided
consistently, as required by WPS.
134 Washington
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Reports that workers experiencing symptoms of pesticide poisonings were unable to
get information on the name of the pesticide used, either at the central notification
point or from their supervisor.
Farmworkers fear being fired if they ask for protection or report violations or
poisonings. Workers who attended this meeting reported that some co-workers did
not attend because they were afraid of being fired.
Recommendations for more enforcement of the WPS, unannounced inspections,
bilingual investigations not in the presence of the grower, more information about
where to report violations, and follow-up on complaints.
Emphasis on training physicians, nurses, and other health professionals in
recognizing and treating pesticide poisoning.
Washington 135
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Transcript of Farmworker Meeting
Pasco, WA
Daniel Ford: There are some farmworkers
here who came and became aware of the
meeting through the United Farm Workers
union, who are here and so we can give you
the experiences of the legal services plan and
these gentlemen can give their own
experiences. Rebecca Smith, who is here and
is a colleague of mine with Columbia Legal
Services, offered to interpret and Conchi
[Rodriguez] will help us if we get in a jam.
[Introduction of people inaudible]
Daniel Ford: Thank you. We do have a
few people who've been delayed and a couple
more people who are coming, Rosa
Hernandez with the Northwest Justice Project
in Pasco and ... I understand that the primary
purpose for this meeting was for the folks
from EPA and state agencies who work with
EPA to hear directly from farmworkers. You
heard something of the perspective of legal
services last night and what we learn from our
clients, and we are happy to talk more about
those issues, but first I suggest that we go
ahead and allow farmworkers who are here to
tell you about their experiences.
Worker; What we are going to talk about
is about something that happened last year.
We made a complaint about pesticides
because we got pretty sick from them. We
made a complaint and we never understood
what happened. We need to know this thing
because this is something that happens to
farmworkers at work.
Rebecca Smith: Can you explain to us
what happened?
Worker: What happened was we got to
work and we went into a field that was
recently sprayed. The foreman didn't pay any
attention to us. He wasn't there when we got
there and after one hour we started getting
sick. We had to go to the doctor and even
now, speaking for myself, I still don't feel
good. That's all I have to say on my behalf.
Worker: Same things that my friend has
said. We got sick because we went into a field
that was recently sprayed.
Rebecca Smith: Can tell us what happened
to you? What symptoms?
Worker: I had dizziness, vomiting, rash in
my body, itchiness in the eyes. Everything is
because they don't have more precautions for
workers who went into the field without
knowing that the field was recently sprayed.
After one hour of work we were sick.
Rebecca Smith: Did you ever find out
what it was that was sprayed?
Worker: No, we never found out what it
was.
136 Washington
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State Rep: I am interested to know who
the incident was reported to.
Worker: To the foreman.
Worker: To the foreman and then to
Labor and Industries.
Worker: After passing the information to
Labor and Industries, we never found out
what happened. The first thing that Labor
and Industries does is tell the employer and
nothing is ever resolved.
Worker: When you make a complaint to
the health inspectors, the first thing they do is
talk to the employer and so the employer
sends someone to clean the bathroom and
when the inspector arrives, the bathrooms are
clean and everything is fixed and makes it
seem that the workers are lying.
Worker: One year they gathered all of us
at the shop to watch TV to see what the
chemicals are about. Then one worker from
El Salvador stood up and asked what
guarantees we have if we die in the field. He
was told that someone who dies in the field is
the same as if an animal dies in the field. This
was in 1988 and the person was a
representative from the chemicals. In this
ranch, there are chemicals that are 48 hours
and chemicals that are 72 hours and
sometimes we have to go in and work after 40
hours and that is the way it is. The first thing
that the foreman says is, "If you want to work,
fine; if not, hit the road."
Bill Jordan (EPA Rep): Is this just one
grower or do you see this in a lot of growers?
Worker In this area of Tri-Cities, this is a
big problem.
State Rep: Do you have proof that this is
a problem here?
Worker: There is a problem with having
proof, because the foreman takes the papers
and burns them.
State Rep: What papers?
Worker: The labels. The problem is that
you tell the foreman that the chemical makes
you sick and then he takes the labels and says
that this will not hurt you. Also, they change
the labels at their convenience.
Worker I will like that since we are here in
this meeting, and we are talking about this
subject, to pay more attention to our lives.
Because we are working, we pay taxes, they
take money from us to pay the ones in the
office. Because our lives are valuable too. I
believe that even though we are dirty, we still
have value, and this is all I have to say.
Carol Parker (EPA Rep): Does anybody
know if these incidents are being tracked?
Not necessarily by the farmworker, but by
another person?
Daniel Ford: In Washington State, we
have what is called the Pesticide Incident
Review and Tracking Panel and the
Washington 137
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information that tihis panel gets depends on
people reporting pesticides incidents to state
agencies. This can happen through several
ways. There is the state law that requires
physicians to report probable pesticides
incidents. In fact, relatively few of the
incidents reported in Washington are reported
by physicians. Most of the farmworker
incidents are reported through the workers
compensation system. There are also
incidents reported through the Poisoning
Control System in our state, in reports to the
State Department of Health, Department of
Agriculture or the Health and Safety section
of the Department of Labor and Industries.
Worker: There is a thing here with my
fellow worker. He had a problem with
chemicals. We took him to see a doctor to
Prosser or Wapato. Unfortunately, at that
ranch, Broetje ranch, if you feel sick, you have
to report to the foreman. You go to the
office and they tell you to go to the hospital
and at the hospital they tell you you don't
have anything and to go back to work. Then
when you go to Labor and Industries, they
don't pay any attention to you. You put your
claim, and they tell you they are going to put
it into the system. Evidently our word has no
value.
Worker: He is still sick, sometimes he gets
dizzy. He has headaches because of
chemicals.
Worker: I cannot get into a sprayed field
because I feel dizzy. And that happened to
me.
Daniel Ford: We read a report by the U.S.
government, the General Accounting Office.
And we have experience representing our
clients that there is a lot of under-reporting of
pesticide incidents for various reasons. One
• being that workers may not recognize
pesticide poisonings by themselves, and
obviously this is connected to workers not
receiving the training. Also workers being
afraid to go to the doctor or not having the
money to go to the doctor. And doctors
sometimes not being aware of pesticide
poisonings and workers not knowing the
information to give to the doctor. We had the
experience of having clients see a doctor in an
emergency room or a clinic visit, who found
that the problem is not related to pesticides.
The client comes to us and we are able to
refer him to a doctor who is more familiar
with pesticide cases and may be diagnosed as
pesticide related. All doctors are not equally
aware of the symptoms of pesticide
poisonings and how to take an occupational
history.
Bill Jordan: Have any of you had training
to recognize symptoms of pesticide
poisoning?
Worker: Some time ago they showed us
something on TV and had classes later.
Worker: I never had been ill until that
time.
Bill Jordan: Was there any training at the
workplace?
138 Washington
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Worker [To another worker]: Did they
give you training or tell you about what was
bad for you?
Worker: No, we didn't have it.
State Rep: You referred to a video. What
was this about?
Worker: That was a video in '88. A video
about how to climb a ladder and how to be
careful with using a ladder. That was
something kind of to cover our eyes because
we never had anything like that.
Daniel Ford: There is another gentleman
here and maybe he could give you some
information from his perspective and he could
participate in answering the general questions.
Worker: I worked since 1977 to 1995 in
the Tri-Cities area and all of a sudden they
discharged me from work. I had been spray-
ing all that time. We started spraying since
January 20th until August 15th or 20th every
year. And when they took away my job, the
farmer told me that they had younger workers
and that since I had an operation I had lost
the ability to work. Then I told him that was
no reason to take away my job. And he said
he was very sorry, that he is the boss and he
can take away the job any time he wants. But
for the pesticides, they never gave us any
training. They would tell us, "Here are the
chemicals, here is the list, and be careful not
to get the chemical in your face and go to
work."
Daniel Ford: It is not clear to me what
kind of work do you do.
Worker: Spraying.
State Rep: Is he licensed?
Worker: No.
Daniel Ford: Who are the people that
replaced him?
Worker: Other people working there.
Daniel Ford: Does he knows if the other
people are licensed?
Worker: No, they aren't.
Rebecca Smith: Is this in 1977?
Worker: Until 1995.
State Rep: Did he mention something
about an operation?
State Rep: Was this related to your work?
Worker: To my belief it was. When the
doctor interviewed me, he told at first that it
was .related to work, but when I had an
interview with the administrator, then the
doctor said no.
State Rep: Which administrator, the ranch
or the hospital?
Washington 139
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Worker: The hospital, the doctor. The
doctor told that it was not related to
pesticides. Like my fellow workers here, they
are saying the truth. They only say that they
are going to do things but they don't. The
ones that get passed by are the workers all the
time. They know clearly that every three or
two months that the inspectors go to the
ranch and when they know that they are going
out, they tell us, we need to be very careful.
But that is for their good, not for ours. Here
you have me, I'm ill due to pesticides. My
joints hurt, my feet, I get dizzy, I have like a
rashness in my throat. And yet, they told me
at the last minute that is not related. Where I
worked, there was a young man named
Natividad, he became ill. They sent him to
Seattle and did not pay him transportation or
lost days. And then at the last minute, they
gave him a report that it was not related to
that.
State Rep: How long did you feel ill before
they fired him?
Worker; Since 1990.
State Rep: Did he complain about this?
Worker: No.
State Rep: Did they know that you were
feeling sick?
Worker: Yes.
Worker [To another worker]: There is
something here that you should verify. She
asked you who told you that you were not
sick, if it was the administrator, and you said it
was the hospital administrator. But it was the
ranch administrator not the doctor. At first
the doctor said you were sick but then later he
told you that it was not related to work.
Daniel Ford: Last night there was another
meeting, and there was a complaint to our
concern by a lot of the farmers at that
meeting, about the legal requirements to keep
a record in a central place for 30 days of the
pesticides that are applied in the workplace. I
guess I have two questions I would like to
hear your answers to. Number one is: Are
you aware that that information is posted or
has been posted in a place where you worked,
where you can find that information about
pesticide applications? And the second
question is: Would that information be useful
to you and what is the best way to get that
information to you? It is really three
questions and might be confusing but if you
have thoughts about any of those concerns or
questions, I think the people here would be
interested in that.
Worker: What I would like to know is
where could I get that information. Because
this is something that we have never known.
That's all.
Daniel Ford: Would it be useful to you to
have that information?
Worker: It might be helpful to us having
some knowledge of the chemicals we are
using.
140 Washington
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Daniel Ford: Do you have ideas on the
best way to get that information to you?
Worker: No, I don't.
Bill Jordan: The regulation says that the
information must be at one place, available to
the worker, and that the farmer must tell the
workers, when they start on the job. Did that
happen to any of you?
Worker: No.
Worker: I believe that the chemicals, like
in the ranch, there are various ranches that
unfortunately, they take the bags of chemicals
and we don't even see them. But there are
some ranches where I have seen this at
[referring to the pesticide safety poster] But
there are other ranches -that it does not matter
if they have 100 because if you are working
here and the truck is spraying, it drifts on you
and the information is some other place.
Carol Parker: Is it your grower that is
spraying you or is it a neighbor?
Worker: In the same ranch.
Carol Parker: And they know it is drifting
on you?
Worker: Right now where I'm working,
everything is fine. The only place that has
problems is Broetje Ranch.
Unidentified Speaker: So, there are some
that are better than others?
Workers: Yes.
State Rep: When they sprayed, do you
know if it is a fungicide, herbicide or
insecticide?
Workers: We don't know, but if they
would put a notice saying, "Poison— don't get
in"... In that ranch that we are talking about;
Broetje, there are signs that say, "Do Not
Enter," but the signs have been there two or
three months. They never put them down.
They never put them down, if one wants to
go in, you go in. I believe that all of you know
well that when there is a warning sign, after 72
hours it should be taken down. That's all.
State Rep: Are they working on the
orchards or in row crops?
Worker: In orchards. They are the ones
[referring to the other workers] that have been
working recently.
Worker: I worked for this grower since
the end of 1986 to 1991. And there I found
out about discrimination against Mexicans,
even the Mexican foremen. Sometimes things
happen and the owner never finds out. In
1988-1989 I made a big strike to Broetje, I was
a leader in the strike. They fired me. Then,
with the lawyer Guadalupe Gamboa, he
helped me and in the library there was Broetje,
YoYo, Jessie Valle and I asked them why they
fired me. And Jessie Valle said it was Yoyo
and Yoyo said no, it was Jessie. Mr. Broetje
turned red and Jessie was trembling. And I
said, why are you trembling, we are not going
Washington 141
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to fight. I just want to know why I was fired.
Then Broche told me that he had nothing
against me because it was something good for
all the workers. Because the bin had been
paid at $8.50, they would deduct $1.00 for
bonuses, leaving $7.50 and after the strike, we
were paid at $12.00 an hour.
State Rep: The boss himself, Broetje, told
you this.
Worker: Yes. And he told me that if I
came back, I could have my job back. So I
asked him, "If I come back, is the foreman
going to be angry?" And then he said, "If
you go to work, and a foreman gives you a
hard time, you tell me."
State Rep: Was it a foreman that was
giving you a hard time?
Worker: It was Yoyo, his brother-in-law.
Unidentified Speaker: What have you
done to educate yourselves, being agricultural
workers?
Workers: Unfortunately, we cannot
educate ourselves. Because if I need educating
and you're the teacher, you are going to
educate me. In the situation concerning
chemicals, there has to be a representative that
will tell me, step by step, so I can learn to
educate myself. Because if you don't explain,
itfs like ... because I don't know what kind of
chemical it is. It could be poison and I
wouldn't know it, and I could hurt myself.
Unidentified Speaker: So haven't they
given you any pamphlets like this or have you
ever gotten pamphlets like these?
Workers: No. We have put in complaints
but no one pays them any attention.
Carol Parker: Have you ever been warned
to stay off the field, verbally or have you seen
signs?
Worker: Yes, at other ranches, but they
are smaller ranches, of 10 or 15 acres.
Carol Parker: Have they also told you to
stay off of the farm?
Worker: There are ranchers that do, but
not in that one.
Daniel Ford: When any of you were
sprayed or had pesticide drift on you, were
you aware of any facilities on the farm in
which you could wash off the spray?
Daniel Ford: Anybody?
rker: Yes, we had showers.
Daniel Ford: And you were a sprayer?
Facilitator: What type of safety equipment
did you use when spraying?
142 Washington
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Worker: The first thing we have is rubber
boots, a suit, gloves, a face mask, goggles.
Unidentified Speaker: Did you have the
opportunity to change filters... [Taping
suspended momentarily]
Worker: He got sick, he got a rash, and
his blood was poisoned. He tried to get help
locally, when he found that he could not get
cured here, he returned to Mexico. He after
becoming stable, was still sick. And in 1991, at
the same pkce, a 32-year old man died due to
chemicals. When they took him to Seattle for
an examination, they found his blood was
poisoned and he had a paralyzed lung, and
from those illness, he could never recover.
And they were told it was not due to
pesticides. And then after him, the following
year I became ill.
Bill Jordan: When you were spraying, were
there days when it was too hot to wear
protective equipment?
Worker: No, we always had to use it,
because there are chemicals that are dangerous
to your eyes. We always had to use them.
There were times the temperature was about
80 to 85 degrees, but we still had to spray
because the chemical was more effective in
hot rather than cool temperatures. And there
are chemicals that are more effective to the
plants when sprayed at night. Since we are
agricultural workers, we have to work as the
work comes, cool or hot.
Dr. Alice Larson: Could you ask him,
how did he know that a chemical was way
dangerous, and what protective clothing to
wear?
Worker: The only thing that we have are
the labels on the bags and drums, but they are
all written in English. We don't know anything
about that. But, the foreman said that
anything with a picture of a skull and bones
was dangerous. That's the only way we would
know. We were never given any instructions.
And that is why sometimes we get sick.
Bill Jordan: What would be one of the
things that would be most important to make
working around pesticides safer?
Worker: Well, in the first place, like she
said, to have a little education like all the
people who work with chemicals. Another
thing that I would like is, that we could
communicate more with you and to have
more conversations with you. There are many
complaints and many people that were not
aware of what was going to happen today.
But if you notify us that on a given date you
are going to have a meeting... many of us
don't want to come because we are afraid.
Like in that ranch, they tell you , if you don't
come tomorrow, don't come back. They
threaten you.
Worker: That is what happened to me for
fear of losing my job and security. But it
didn't do me any good. The administrator
said, "Up to here and no more."
Washington 143
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Daniel Ford: If the people who work for
the government want to hear more from
farmworkers, what is the best way for them to
doit?
Worker; I think the best way would be for
us to be more united. There are only four of
us here. But if there were 20 of us here, our
case would be stronger. There would be more
complaints and more commentaries, because
everybody has their own thoughts and
grievances. I can't say what bothers someone
else.
Daniel Ford: What I'm asking is, is there
a better place to meet or a better way to tell
people about the meeting?
Worker: That's the problem.
Unidentified Speaker: On Monday and
Tuesday, in Oregon, our lawyers and
paralegals went out with pamphlets and stuff
to the farmworkers and there seemed to be a
consensus of fear, as far as speaking out.
They didn't with us, but there was fear of the
farmer. And I think that he is right, there still
is a lot of fear, because their livelihood is farm
work and that's it. Where do they go except
to another farmer who might be practicing the
same thing. And if they do get a farmer that is
a good one, they are lucky. Not everybody is
going to get lucky. So, the population is so
big that not all of them are going to come and
meet, and speak and say, "I hear this and I
hear that." So, I think that trying to get
everybody together is going to be a big
problem.
Worker: It is going to be a big problem,
because they say just because they are
organizers for the Farm Workers Union of
Cesar Chavez they got fired. And they think,
"Just for being an organizer...If I don't bother
the foreman..." But because it is not
convenient to the rancher because I am a
believer of the union... If I go and I ask them
for work, I will ask them for $5.50 per hour.
But if three other people come behind me and
he can pay them $4.25, he will hire them and
not me.
Carol Parker: The Worker Protection
Standards require cards to be issued out after
you've been trained about pesticide safety.
Have you ever seen these cards?
Worker: No, it's like I said, they would tell
us in meetings that they are to send someone
to have our blood checked for pesticides.
That's what they said, but they never did it.
Daniel Ford: I have a question about that
for the EPA. The EPA has been considering
requiring blood test for people who spray,
mix, or load pesticides. I am wondering
where the EPA is on the process.
Bill Jordan: As far as I know, the last year
and a half, we have not worked on that and I
don't know what happened before then.
Daniel Ford: As I understand it, there are
various ways to test poisonous levels in the
blood. Many ways are accepted by the
medical community. The important thing is
to choose one method that is standard, so that
144 Washington
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if the blood is checked by different labs, the
results come out the same.
Worker: I would like to make a comment.
If the people representing the government
work at the Department of Labor and
Industries, I would be very interested, I think
everybody would be interested.. If you will be
making an investigation about chemicals, the
persons that will be going from the Health
Department never let the farmer know that
they will be coming. It would be best when
the farmer finds out, is when the person is
already there. That is what happens, that they
let him know ahead of time.
Unidentified Speaker: If the inspector is
from the EPA, this does not happen. But
that's not at the federal level, the state is
different. The reason for the state to do it
this way is because the state wants the farmer
and the applicator of pesticides to be present.
Worker: The person should be present.
Before the strike there were about three
bathrooms for about 400 people. There was
no water, no soap, not drinking water. Now,
after the strike, there is water to drink, but not
to wash your hands. You need to wash your
hands because they are dirty from chemical
powders. If there is no water to wash your
hands when you go to eat, poison gets into
your food.
Daniel Ford: Anything else?
Worker: From my part I think this is all.
We said everything.
Worker: The most important thing is that
attention be paid to what we have said.
Because if we talk and talk and everything
stays the same, it is like if we had not spoken.
Worker: Another thing, now that I am
sick, they sent me to three places and from
those three places they "annulled" me. I went
to the Department of Labor and Industries
and they told me that I could not do anything.
I went to the isurance people, to the injury
claims part and everybody "annulled" me.
They sent me a paper, a lot of papers, to tell
me they couldn't do anything for me, that they
were sorry, but that they could do nothing for
me unless I was dying. Then, why do they tell
you to go to these places if they are going to
do nothing for you? The same administrator
told me to go to a place that could help me.
I went there and the same thing happened.
The people that are working there are at fault.
They give you a bunch of papers, you fill them
out and nothing happens. The paper that you
gave me for my back injury, I took it to a
lawyer and until now he has given me no
response, not even an appointment.
Daniel Ford: Thank you, everyone, for
coming, everybody.
Washington 145
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Written Comments
Hermann G. Thoennissen
AgriNorthwest
Butt Chestnut
Chestnut Orchards
Daniel G. Ford
Columbia Legal Services
Ricardo Lucero
Allen T. Apodaca
Northwest Regional Primary Care Association
Leo Sax
Washington Growers Clearing House
Burt Chestnut
Washington State Farm Bureau
JeffBritt
Washington State Nursery & Landscape Association
Sam Thornton
Washington State Potato Commission
146 Washington
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Agnftorthwest
June 19, 1996
P.O. BOX 2308. TRI-CITIES. WA 99302-2308
509-735-6461
Jeanne Keying
Office of Pesticide Programs (7506C)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
401 M Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20460
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Hermann G. Thoennissen. I'm a 40 acre
grower of pears and apples in Tieton, Washington. I also work for AgriNorthwest where I direct
all operations connected to a 1400 acre orchard. Through my consulting company HTG
International I have worked with some on the largest companies in the world. I currently serve
on the Washington State Horticultural Association Board of Directors and I'm a commissioner on
the Washington State Tree Fruit Research Commission. I'have worked in horticulture for the
past 25 years in different countries.
Tonight I want to make a few comments about just one part of WPS, the chapter titled "The
Information at a Central Location". This posted information and the requirement to leave it there
for 30 days which in the most extreme cases can mean 28 days after harvest has nothing to do
with protection and safety, and nothing at all with common sense. It has to do with trust.
Russia, China, and North Korea trust the American farmer to provide food to fend off famine.
Starving children in Africa trust for the ladies and men in The American Agricultural Industry to
supply the daily ration of protein they need to enable them to reach the age of 20. Most
Americans trust that the American farmer keeps the safest and lowest cost food supply coming
just like it has always been. But somewhere in the corrupt halls of D.C., where trust is an
unknown word, there are officials who do not trust the American farmer to act responsible.
Central posting is the brain child of mental midgets at best. Central posting is impractical. It
does not do what it was intended to do.
To discuss details would be my pleasure but it would take hours just as it would take hours to
read the information which is posted on an average sized farm. Most phone books in local
Eastern Oregon and Washington are smaller than the print out on a mediurn size diversified farm
in the Willamette Valley, Oregon or the Yakima Valley, Washington. By the way, I have yet to
see a central poster at a city park.
Ladies and gentlemen it is high time that we get common sense back into the system. We have to
trust the American farmer. After all, we all are fed by them every day and we all are Americans.
Therefore I submit my objections to parts of the Worker Protection Standards in writing.
Thank You.
Hermann G. Thoennissen
28/0 'WEST CLEARWATER AVE.
KENNEWICK. WA 99336
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Posting at a Central Location
1. Whenever any worker employed by the employer is on their agricultural establishment
and a pesticide is about to be applied, certain information must be displayed at a central
location.
• The time and space involved in procuring, distributing and maintaining the
information necessary outrageous.
• The workers gain very little benefit from the posting.
• Workers are already informed in other ways.
• Many of the workers cannot read the information and those who can don't.
• The EPA's record keeping requirements conflict with the state's.
Current requirements for worker notification of pesticide applications are adequate
to protect workers and posting at a central location requirements should be
eliminated.
Field Posting Signs
Employers must make sure that workers know where pesticides are being applied or
where the reentry periods are still in effect.
• Signs must be replaced often due to vandalism, weather, and machine damage.
• Keeping track of when and where signs go up and down can be a full time job.
• Many employees either ignore or misunderstand the signs.
• The EPA and state have different sign designs and sign posting requirements.
Sign posting should be an optional method of notifying workers of pesticide
applications.
Overall Complexity of Rules
• The Compliance manual is 132 pages long. Who has time to read it.
• State and Federal rules already exist which address many to the same safety
issues.
• Filling out forms does not keep workers safe and informed.
• The more complex the rules the less likely they are to be complied with.
• Growers are frustrated with the complexity of the safety rules.
Keep the rules which protect the workers but eliminate or rewrite those which don't
work and cause undue hardship on the employers.
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Growers Provide Safe Work Places
!
• Growers care about the health and safety of their workers.
• Growers already notify their workers of any hazards.
• Growers keep workers out of dangerous areas.
Growers want to keep their workers safe from harm. They do not need complex
rules to help them accomplish this.
Educational Scare Tactics
Employers must make sure their workers are trained in general pesticide safety. That
training must include: The hazards of pesticides resulting from toxicity and exposure,
including acute effects, chronic effects, delayed effects, and sensitization.
• The possible dangers of pesticides are over-emphasized.
• How safe pesticides are is under-emphasized.
• Workers misunderstand what are actual risks and what are only perceived
risks.
• Workers fear pesticides instead of respecting them.
• Pesticides get blamed for illness or injuries in error.
• Some workers misuse alleged pesticide illnesses or injuries according to the
statistics.
Pesticides are safe when used according to the label directions. The risk to field
workers from exposure to pesticides is minimal. Educational materials should
educate workers not scare them and must realistically reflect the minimal risk.
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How to Comply Manual Update
The How to Comply Manual includes detailed in formation on how to comply with the
WPS requirements, including exceptions, restrictions, exemptions, options, and
examples.
There are already new changes to the WPS.
The HTC manual has not been updated.
When will the HTC manual be updated?
How will the grower know when and what changes have occurred to the WPS.
Are EPA WPS Update Bulletins sufficient? (The last one was issued in
January of 1995.)
Is the EPA really committed to worker safety? If so they should give growers all the
resources they need to comply with the law. Keeping up with WPS has become a
full time pursuit just to know what the rules are. Growers are being left behind as
the difficulties increase.
Conflicts and Overlaps Between State and Federal
Regulations
• Haz Comm (right-to-know)
• WSDA pesticide application record keeping requirements
• L & I Ag Safety Standards
decontamination
first aid
PPE
Signs
•Field Sanitation
•Label
PPE provisions
REI provisions
Growers must sort out the regulations from three to five different state and federal
agencies. Many of these regulations overlap and some actually conflict making it
impossible for the grower to be in compliance with both. These,types of rules will
not be taken seriously by growers on the whole.
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WPS and the Hazard Communication Standard
The occupational safety and health standard is intended to comprehensibly address the
following issues: What are the potential hazards of chemicals. How do we inform
workers of those hazards, what are appropriate measures to insure the safety of workers.
• WPS and Haz Comm overlap but have many different provisions.
• Growers must have MSDS and Labels available.
• Growers are left to sort out and interpret the differences between WPS and
Haz Comm.
• Different agencies enforce the rules.
The EPA has been aware of these issues since the inception of WPS but has failed to
address it. Growers are frustrated with the overlap and conflict in the regulations.
This growing frustration with the government's lack of willingness to act leads to
loss of respect for government authority.
-------
Jeanne Heying .. • .
Office of Pesticide Programs'
(7506 C) U.S. EPfl
401 M Street SW
Washington D. C. £0460
Washington Stats has been''.(sinee 1985) doing thru the worker
Right To Know Program all of what WPS is requiring.
The WPS requirements (in their present form) are expensive
for the farmer to implement. " What Washington State has been
doing since 1985 -has been very adequate. Most of the WPS
Standard lacks common sense. Not much thought of cost was
considered. It lacks the experience of someone who has
worked in the Agriculture community.
Washington State Dept. of fig. has been a weak partner. .
Trying to use just one person in the field and not asking
ftNY fig. 'Group for assistance.
Washington State Dept. of fig. is using their own training
card and not the EPft training card. This causes confusion
for the Farmer and' .Worker. The Worker cannot use the
Washington card, irt other states and vice versa.
Wa. State figriculture groups and the Dept. of Labor &
Industries offer far -more classes and training.
The whole Pesticide issue should be coordinated between State
and Federal and ONE SET OF REBDLftTIDNS and by ONE .ftBENCY.
CHESTNUTORCHARDS
2050 10TH N.E
EACTVe!ATCHEE,,WA988!»
PKGK& 509/884-9614
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COLUMBIA LEGAL SERVICES
MEMORANDUM
TO:
FROM:
DATE:
RE:
Environmental Protection Agency
Daniel G. Ford
October .11, 1996
PESTICIDE ISSUES AFFECTING FARM WORKERS
^~^
N°V 22 J996
OPf> R1BUC DOCK*
Background
Agricultural workers suffer the highest rate of chemical-related illness of any occupational
group, according to the 'U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.1 The Environmental Protection
Agency estimates that nationally farm workers suffer 20,000 to 300,000 acute illnesses each year
because of exposure to pesticides.2 In addition to those acute illnesses, pesticides can cause
chronic illnesses, such as cancer, birth defects, and neurological damage.3
The full extent of the chronic effects caused by virtually all available pesticides remains
unknown.4 Nonetheless, at least 50 active ingredients are known or suspected carcinogens and
20 are known ^or suspected teratogens.5 Indeed, numerous epidemiological studies have begun
to document tne link between pesticide exposure and cancer.6 For example, one study estimates
that the incidence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma among men exposed to a particular herbicide for
more than 20 days per year may be as high as 6 times the incidence rate among those not thus
exposed.7 . -
Washington's workers' compensation data confirms that pesticide-related illness is far too
common among farm workers in our state. The data shows that for the period of 1987-90, farm
workers had a rate of systemic poisoning that was 3.2 times higher than the rate for workers in
1 52 Fed.Reg. 16, 050, 16, 059 (1987).
Environmental Protection Agency, Draft Final Worker Protection Standards, at 21 (1991).
M. Moses, "Pesticide-Related Problems and Farm Workers," American Association of
Occupational Health Nursing Journal 37:116-130 (1989). See also. General Accounting Office,
Hired Farm Workers: Health and Well-Beinq At Risk. (1992), at 12.
The EPA has been reregistering pesticides for nearly 2 decades, but only a fraction of active
ingredients have been fully evaluated for chronic effects. '.
See V. Wilk, The Occupational Health of Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers in the United
States at 67-68 (1986). " "
See M. Moses, Cancer in Humans and Potential Occupational and Environmental Exposure to
Pesticides: Selected Abstract (1988). ~ "
General Accounting Office, Pesticides on Farms: Limited Capability Exists to Monitor
Occupational Illnesses and Injuries, at 3 (1993). ' ~~
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all industries; their toxic disease rate was 2.2 times the norm; their respiratory disease rate was
5 times the norm; the rate for conjunctivitis among farm workers was 2.4 times the norm; and
the rate for dermatitis was 3.9 times the norm.8 (See Attachment A.)
The Department of Labor and Industries has acknowledged that these figures show only
the tip of the iceberg because occupational disease among farm workers is grossly
underreported.9 A 1988 study of 47 Washington farm workers who indicated past health
problems from pesticide exposure found that only one person had filed for workers'
compensation.10 Officials from various states have informed the General Accounting Office
(GAO) that underreporting results from: 1) workers' difficulties in recognizing symptoms of
pesticide poisoning, 2) intimidation of workers by employers, 3) lack of access to health care,
'4) lack of health care professionals trained in the diagnosis of pesticide-related illness , and 5)
the unfamiliarity of health care professionals with reporting requirements and/or their
unwillingness to report cases.11
In 1993, 27 Washigton farm workers were admitted in hospitals or treated in hospital
emergency rooms because of their exposure to Phosdrin, an extremely toxic insecticide. (See
Attachment B.) The Phosdrin poisonings illustrate many of the problems with pesticide
registration, regulation, and enforcement in our state. The following is an analysis of those
problems and proposed solutions.
1. Alternatives to Highly Toxic Pesticides
A few drops of a Category 1 pesticide can cause extremely harmful effects.12 Such
effects include severe acute systemic illness, blindness, severe burns and death.13 Several of
the Phosdrin -poisonings in Washington State occurred through relatively minor lapses in
judgment, contact with contaminated personal protective equipment, or no apparent violation of
the label guidelines.14 Several of the workers were so severely ill that they likely would have
died without emergency medical treatment.15
Some other highly toxic pesticides are used much more than Phosdrin. For example,
8 Department of Labor and Industries, Farm Worker Health & Safety in Washington State: A
Look at Workers' Compensation Data, Olympia, WA, at 11 (1991).
9 id. at 9-10.
10 K. Gerstle, Symptoms Related to Pesticide Exposure Among Farmworkers in the Skagit Valley
(1989).
11 General Accounting Office, supra note 7, at 9, 15.
12 ]d./ at 3.
13 See 40 CFR §156.10.
14 Washington State University, Washington State Department of Agriculture, "Safety Alert for
Mevinphos (Phosdrin) Use in Washington," (August126, 1993).
15 Testimony of Marion Moses, M.D., before the Washington State Department of Agriculture
(October 7, 1993)
-2-
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azinphos-methyl (Guthion) is applied to 90% of Washington's apple crop an average of three
times a year.16 In June, 1993, 55 workers reported symptoms including nausea, headaches,
and lightheadedness after an adjacent field was aerially sprayed with a mixture that included
azinphos-methyl.17 The Environmental Protection Agency has put azinphos-methyl on a list
of five "immediate action" pesticides because of its high toxicity, widespread usage, and
involvement in numerous pesticide incidents.18
Studies have also shown disturbing long-term effects caused by acute poisoning from
Category 1 pesticides. A study of 100 people poisoned by organophosphate pesticides an
average of 9 years earlier showed significant deficits in intellectual functioning and motor skills,
as compared to a control group.19 In another study of 117 individuals who were acutely
poisoned, 33 still suffered central nervous system effects, including visual disturbances, 3 years
later.20
In most situations there appear to be widely accepted alternatives to most Category 1
pesticides used in labor-intensive crops. A survey by the Washington Agricultural Statistics
Service shows that most Category 1 pesticides are applied to a minority of the area of the labor-
intensive crops in which they are used, and some uses of Category 1 pesticides have already
been withdrawn. (See Attachment C.) Under industrial hygiene principals, alternative practices
or substances should be substituted for the most dangerous chemicals.21
The EPA should phase out the most acutely toxic pesticides. The agency should
identify existing alternatives to Category 1 pesticides now in use, and ascertain whether there
are critical uses for Category 1 pesticides where no feasible alternatives exist. Where effective
alternatives exist, Category 1 pesticides should not be allowed. If there are no effective
alternatives, substantial resources should be devoted to developing alternatives to Category 1
pesticides, as well as alternatives to pesticides that have been identified as presenting a risk of
cancer, reproductive effects, neurological effects, or other chronic damage.
2. Retaliation for Reporting Pesticide Illness or Violations
The GAO reports that intimidation of workers by employers contributes to the
underreporting of pesticide illness among farm workers and interferes with the workers' ability
16 Washington Agricultural Statistics Service, "Washington Agricultural Chemical Usage: Apples"
(1992).
17 Department of Health, "Quarterly Summary of Pesticide Incidents: Report from 4/1/93 to
6/30/93" at 36. ,
18 Environmental Protection Agency, Letter to registrants of immediate action pesticides (April 6,
1993).
19 M. Moses, "pesticide-Related Health Problems and Farmworkers," AAOHN Journal. 37:115-
130 (1989) at 125.
20 E. P. Savage, et al, "Chronic Neurological Sequelae of Organophosphate Pesticide Poisoning,"
Archives of Environmental Health. 43:38-45 (1988).
21 See 29 CFR §1910.134(a).
-3-
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to obtain medical care.22 In this state, farm workers have repeatedly reported that employers
have retaliated against them for seeking treatment for pesticide-related illness, filing workers
compensation claims concerning pesticide incidents, or reporting pesticide incidents to state
agencies. This retaliation violates the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act (WISHA)
and the industrial insurance statute.
As one example, Legal Services represented seven workers who were fired from their
jobs in Okanogan County after the Departments of Agriculture and Labor & Industries began
investigating their poisonings. The workers were sprayed and drifted upon continuously while
cleaning up brush hi an orchard downwind from where Thiodan (endosulfan), a Category 1
organochlorine insecticide, was being sprayed. None of the workers was provided with
protective clothing required during pesticide application. When one of the workers told their
employer that they were getting sick from the pesticide, the employer told them to get back to
work in the orchard unless they wanted to lose their jobs. The workers returned to work,
suffered further exposure and became even more ill, experiencing tremors, burning and itching
eyes, blurred vision, severe headaches, vomiting, stomach aches, skin rashes, and disorientation.
The employer later fired the workers after Legal Services asked state agencies to investigate the
poisonings.
In another case, a Legal Services client was fired after he told the farm manager that a
piece was missing from his respirator. The manager told the worker not to worry about the
missing piece, and the worker continued spraying. The worker then became ill and told the
manager that he was going to see a doctor. The following day, the worker was fired and his
family was evicted from a house on the orchard property.
In order to address retaliation, state agencies must promptly and effectively investigate
allegations of- retaliation, and make these cases a priority for legal action by the Attorney
General's office. All state workers who investigate worker poisonings should be trained in the
investigation and referral of retaliation cases. In addition, the state should compile statistics on
retaliation incidents and the promptness and results of investigations.
3. Medical Monitoring for Pesticide Handlers
Since 1974, California has had a program of mandatory blood cholinesterase monitoring
for workers who handle highly toxic pesticides. Researchers from the California Department
of Health Services have concluded that the monitoring program is "an important health protective
measure" because it can: 1) prevent acute illness by removing asymptomatic workers with
depressed cholinesterase levels from further exposure; 2) trigger reviews of hazardous work
practices before a major poisoning occurs; 3) increase worker awareness of the toxicity of the
chemicals they handle; 4) prevent chronic sequela of overexposure; and 5) determine when it
is safe for a worker to return to activities that may involve pesticide exposure.23 Monitoring
22 General Accounting Office, supra note 7, at 15.
23 R. Ames et al, "Protecting Agricultural Applicators from Over-Exposure to Cholinesterase-
Inhibiting Pesticides: Perspectives from the California Programme," Journal of Occupational
Medicine. 39:85-92 at 91 (1989). See also, R. McConnell et al, "Monitoring Organophosphate
Insecticide Exposed Workers for Cholinesterase Depression: New Technology for Office or Field
Use," Journal of Occupational Medicine, 1:34-37 (1992) (Medical monitoring can provide
significant insights into work site risks and practices, and permit preventative intervention and
instruction on a timely basis).
-4-
-------
can also help provide better information on the extent of harmful worker exposure to pesticides.
A California study that followed monitored workers found that 24% of the workers had
to be removed from duty because they had plasma cholinesterase levels below the allowable
threshold.24 Five workers were removed twice during the same year. Even with the
monitoring and removal program, 5 % of the workers suffered symptoms of overexposure to
pesticides.
The vast majority of the workers who were admitted to hospitals or treated in emergency
rooms for Phosdrin poisoning were pesticide handlers.25 While California requires removing
handlers from exposure when a worker's red blood cell (RBC) cholinesterase level is depressed
more than 30%, the RBC level of the Phosdrin handlers was depressed as much as 90%. (See
Attachment D.) The California program also requires removal if plasma cholinesterase is
depressed more than 40%. The plasma levels for the Washington Phosdrin handlers were
depressed as much as 97%. Without proper treatment, these workers could have died.26 They
clearly should have been removed from exposure before their cholinesterase levels were so
severely depressed.
Washington's only cholinesterase monitoring program is a "non-mandatory" program
promulgated by the Department of Labor and Industries last year.27 The experience in
California and Washington demonstrates that a mandatory monitoring program is needed to
remove pesticide handlers from hazardous levels of exposure before their health is seriously
impaired.
4. Closed Systems for Mixing and Loading Pesticides
Because workers who mix and load pesticides handle concentrated formulations, they
face a high degree of risk. According to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation,
"Hand pouring has. been found to be the most hazardous activity involved in the handling of
highly toxic pesticides."28 Ten of the Washington workers sent to the hospital in 1993 for
Phosdrin poisoning were involved in mixing and loading activities.29
Since 1977, California has required that Category 1 pesticides, such as Phosdrin, be
mixed and loaded through closed systems that limit the spilling, splashing, and leaking of
pesticides onto workers. (See Attachment E.) A report by the California Department of Food
and Agriculture shows that in the ten years after closed systems were required in that state,
Category 1 mixer/loader injuries dropped to about one-fifth of their previous level (from 75
24 C. M. Fillmore & J. E. Lessenger, "A Cholinesterase Testing Program for Pesticide Applicators,"
Journal of Occupational Medicine. 35:1 (1993) at 63.
25 Washington State Department of Health, "Phosdrin Cases as of 10/5/93."
26 M. Moses, M.D., Testimony before the Washington State Department of Agriculture (10/7/93).
27 See WAC 296-306-40011.
28 R. Rutz & D. Gibbons, Pesticide Safety Information: Closed Systems. California Department of
Pesticide Regulation, Sacramento, CA (1991).
29 See Attachment B.
-5-
-------
injuries/year to 16 injuries/year).30 (See Attachment F.) The California Department of
Pesticide Regulation states that proper use of a closed system reduces the potential for human
exposure between 10 and 100 times.31
Because mixer/loader incidents are likely to be serious due to the concentrations of the
chemicals involved, Washington workers should be protected by closed systems, particularly for
Category 1 pesticides.
5. Certification of Handlers of Highly Toxic Pesticides
Under current state law, workers may mix, load and apply the most toxic pesticides
without certification or licensing. The Department of Agriculture requires that persons who use
or apply "restricted use" pesticides be certified or under the "direct supervision" of a certified
applicator.32 But the Department's policy has been to define "direct supervision" as having a
certified applicator available anywhere within 5 minutes travel time on the farm. This policy
allows farms to employ uncertified mixer/loaders and applicators to work in isolation without
necessary advice and, when necessary, emergency assistance from certified applicators.
The current requirements do not adequately protect workers who handle highly toxic
pesticides. The investigations of the Phosdrin incidents showed that many of the workers who
handled this pesticide were not properly trained or informed of its hazards. State certification
should be required for mixing, loading or applying Category 1 and 2 pesticides.
6. Enforcement of Pesticide Regulations
If agricultural employers are to follow established pesticide laws and regulations, there
must be serious, concerted enforcement and education efforts. Enforcement efforts must include
more periodic inspections of agricultural work places. The inspection process should not depend
upon complaints from workers who are afraid of losing their jobs. There must be effective
penalties for seious pesticide violations.
f:\wpuscrs\paul\dt\PIAFW-01.pck
30 R. Rutz, Closed System Acceptance and Use in California, California Department of Food and
Agriculture, Worker Health and Safety Branch, HS-1393 (1987).
31 Rutz & Gibbons, supra note 29.
32 See WAG 16-228-164.
-6-
-------
Percent Distribution of WA State Fund Workers' Compensation Claims
1987-90 — Illness Claims
Nature of
Illness or
Injury
All
Industries
1988
All Farm
Workers
1987-90
Orchard
Workers
1987-90
ratio ratio
1*' 2*
ILLNESS
contact dermatitis
dermatitis '
allergic dermatitis
conjunctivitis .
eye disease
toxic
systemic poisoning
respiratory condition and
upper resp.
rhinitis
influenza
hearing loss
A(%)
.44
.12
.04
.45
.10
.78
.06 '
.01
.0.03
.02
.30
B (%)
1.78
.47
.26
1.08
.09
1.74
-19 •
.05
.22
.25
.03
C(%)
2.32
33
33
1.27
.15
1.56
.18 -
.02
.11
.12
.02
B/A
4.1
3.9
6.5
2.4
0.9
2.2
3.2
5.0
73.0
12.5
.10
C/A
5.3
2.8
83
2.8
1.5
2.0
3.0
2.0
37.0
6.0
.07
*Rado 1 refers to the percentage of claims for all farm workers divided by the percentage of claims for
workers in all industries (column B divided by column A). Ratio 2 refers to the percentage of claims for all
farm workers in orchards divided by the percentage of claims for workers in all industries (column C divided
by column A)
ATTACHMENT A
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USE Off \TEGQRY I PESTICIDES IN^ \JOR
LABOR-INTENSIVE CROPS IN WASHINGTON (1991)
APPLES
, . ' ' Insecticides
i Azinphos-methyl
! Endosulfan
* Ethyl parathion
Fprmetanate hydrochloride
Methidathion
. Methyl parathion
Oxamyl
*Phosphamidon
Percent of
Crop Area -Applied
90
33
32
6
3
28
21
72
Number of
Applications
2.8
1.4
1.0
. . 1.1
1.0
1.5
1.1
2.1
Total Applied :
(1000's ofjbs.):
345.0
98.9
72.1
7.7
3.4
96.7
14.7
152.5
•• s t
\
.1- , * /','
& f f <
Fungicides <-..
:j Dodine
Percent 'of
Crop Area Applied .:.
5
Number of
Applications
1.3
Total Applied
(1000's of lbs,).:.
16.0
PEARS
i^V^s^ ' ,\, ' , , - ,;-lf/,f-
< \"-^;; -
Azinphos-methyl
Endosulfan
* Ethyl parathion
', - ^rPercehtCof'/
''' " r* ' ' A'-" f fT ,'' J " '
.ivCrop.ATefi -Applied -
70
70
43
,. plumber] p,f
Applic^atlohs
1.9
1.1
1.4
Total Applied ,
(1Qo6;s,of fbs.J ,
"29.9
38.7
19.9
, -
'$%$$/
-------
SWEET CHERRIES
i : > *""*- '
InS^ciJGlqils..; , :
,*.s.. •-,>&<« /^.-Jft/STSSSfaf.'. . .;
Azinphos-methyl
Endosulfan
*EthyI parathion
Methidathion
Methyl parathion
. Percent .;o.f
G:rp:p;. Area Applied
39
5
74
3
4
iJJurtib.er oil
..."A;p;:pite:ations
1.5
1.1
2.7
1.0
1.2
"Total -Applied
{1,0,66V of fbs.)
6.8
1.3
31.1
0.4
0.9
"-T,- t< •' ' • '^v*^ V ^5,« #• ••
: '- ',*^x ••
:;, -?;vi.- -FungJ6ldes -> v -
Basic copper sulfate
Copper sulfate
^••-, • :?. • •
Percentlied;:
3 .
12
Number of
Applications
1.0
1.1
Total Applied
(1000's of Ibs,.}
2.0
4.0
GRAPES
t-> A " •£*•*** ^ * S *
^ 'lfl%^ ffA$y$ ^ f"
v, ''^^fnse'cttcVes^^" >
* Ethyl parathion
> , Percent of
Crop Areas Applied
12
Number of
Applications
1.0
Total Applied
(1000's of Ibs.)
4.9
RASPBERRIES
" V - , * **# (' '**"**'
t t. ^ Jf tVJ&fJ* f&v***" < > ••
„ '- ,~ — Y-ii&I**-*;'^'"* y*( ' <
^^rtH^^msectpiidgs^^ ^ ,
*Ethyl parathion
Mevinphos
> * 'x /- /•
Percent of
s -Crop Area Applied
5
. 8
Number of
Applications
1.0
1.3
Total Applied
{ 1000's of IbsJ
0.3
0.2
No longer permitted or registration withdrawn.
Sources: Washington Agricultural Statistics Service, "Washington Agricultural Chemical Usage";
Extension Services of Oregon State University, Washington State University and
University of Idaho, 1993 Pacific Northwest Insect Control Handbook: Washington
State University, 1993 Crop Protection Guide for Tree Fruits in Washington.
ATTACHMENT C (CONT)
C:\WPOOC\DF\PESTICID\O518.LMG
-------
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ATTACHMENT D
-------
Pressure
Regulator
to spray boom
Throltle Valve (if necessary)
Figure 2
ILLUSTRATION OF
CLOSED SYSTEM FOR
MIXING AND LOADING .
ATTACHMENT E
-------
TABLE I—Pcstlcid< mlxcrlloadrr illnesses in California.
Toxicity Category 1
Other
Total
-:'8S
--8*
=33
-32
J81
P80
T79
"78
"77
•^76
16*
17*
22*
31'
S2<
50
73
' .89
8S
75
: 62
'68
74
96
69
66
59
53 •
60
47 '
78
85
96
127
121
116
132
142
1*5
122
•' Information obtained through Doctor's First Reports of Occupational Injury. Pcsiicidc Illness Re-
3ns. and follow-up pesticide, illness investigations.
* Data include only liquid Category 1; prior years include all formulations.
This minimum number was extrapolated from other data.
ATTACHMENT F
-------
EPA HEARINGS ON WORKER PROTECTION ST.
Approximately 4 million migrant farmworkers provide
multibillion dollar agricultural industry, contributing to the.
majority of them (88 percent) are legally authorized to work
percent are U.S, citizens, 15 percent are legal residents and 33 per
work Even with citizenship and legal status, their health often
in Third World Countries. Limited by poverty, frequent mobility, low literacy, language
and cultural barriers, inadequate transportation, and geographic isolation, less than 15
percent of these farmworkers and their dependents have ready access to health care
services.
Migrant farmworkers confront greater risks and suffer more health problems than the
general population. Working and living in unsanitary conditions makes them more
.vulnerable to conditions such as tuberculosis (TB) and parasitic infection. They are
subject to more accidents, pesticide and chemical exposure, dental disease, malnutrition
mental health, and substance abuse problems than any other- subpopulation in the
country.
The farmworker's health condition is a risk at work, where he lives and the general
environment where they spend their entire lives. Pesticide exposure of the farmworkers
may result in acute systemic poisoning or skin or eye problems such as rashes,
inflammation, or corneal ulceration. Chronic health problems may include chronic
dermatitis, fatigue, headaches, sleep disturbances, anxiety, and disturbances of
concentration and memory disorders, and.abnormalities in liver and kidney functions.'
.•*•"''
Pesticide is a generic term that covers a wide range of compounds used in. pest control:
Insecticides (anthropods), fungicides (smut, blight, mildew, etc.), Rodenticides ( rate,
gophers, rabbits, etc.), Herbicides (weeds); Acaracides (mites), >Algicides (algse hi
swamps, ponds, marshes, etc.), piscidcides (fish), avicides (birds), Molluscides (slugs,
snails), nematocides (worms), and rumigants. The Federal Insecticide, Fimgocode. and
Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) of 1947 calls pesticides "economic poisons" and defines them
as any substance intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any insects;
rodents, nematodes, fungi or weeds or any other form of life declared to be pests...; and
any substance or mixture of substances intended for use as a plant regulator, defoliant, or
dessicant (Moses, 1983).
Each year the United States uses about one billion pounds of pesticide domestically and
manufactures at least 800 million more pounds for export. Currently in this country, more
than 1,500 active pesticide ingredients are formulated to make more than. 45,000
registered products (Coye, 1985).
4154 California Ave. S.W. • Seattle, Washington 98116-4102 • (206) 932-2133 • FAX: (206) 932-6441.* E-Mail: nwrpca@wolfe.net
-------
Pesticides are aborbed into the human body through the skin (dermal), via the lungs
(inhalation), and by mouth (ingestation). Field laborers are exposed to pesticides in a
variety of ways:
(1) Direct spraying of farmworkers in a field through aerial or ground application
(2) By Drift, for example, pesticides that are sprayed on one field are carried by the wind
to adjacent fields where workers live and work; .
(3) Coming in contact with pesticide residues on plant leaves (e.g. via exposed hands,
arms, face, and neck): -
(S
(4) Eating in the fields using pesticide-contaminated hands;
(5) Eating the fruits or vegetables that are being harvested without washing them to
remove pesticide residues;
(6) When cups are not available, drinking water out of hollowed-out cucumbers, bell
peppers, apples, etc., all of which have been treated with pesticides.
(7) smoking without washing hands to remove pesticide residues.
(8) Drinking, bathing, or cooking with water contaminated by pesticides (e.g., water
from irrigation ditches);
(9) Contaminating the genital area after elimination due to inability to wash hands ( no
clean water and soap available);
(10) Using pesticide-corrtammated leaves or twigs in the field as a substitute for toilet
paper.
Another factor to consider when measuring the extent of farmworkers* pesticide
exposure in the proximity of their housing to the fields; for example, a labor camp may
regularly be contaminated by pesticide drift from adjacent fields as they are sprayed.
Exposure is even greater for those workers who are without housing of any kind, who
actually live in the orchards where they pick the fruits.
Our recommendations therefore are that:
EPA finalize the implementation of the Worker Protection Standards in collaboration
with the states.
That this joint collaborative partnership institute a comprehensive pesticide education
program about the effects of exposure to pesticides.
-------
That this partnership include strong language on labeling of dangers for contamination
by chemicals.
That proper protective clothing be worn to reduce the danger of exposure to pesticides.
All Chemicals should be properly labeled in both English and Spanish.
Provisions must insure that housing conditions are tree from pesticides and located away
from/adjacent to sprayed fields to prevent/reduce worker and dependents from drift
contamination.
This partnership must monitor adherence to implemented regulations and where
violations occur appropriate corrective action be taken.
-------
WASHINGTON STATE
FARM BUREAU
Washington state Farm Bureau Testimony
EPA Public WPS meeting
Pasco/ WA
June 19, 1996
My name is Burt Chestnut and I am the Safety Director for the
Washington State Farm Bureau. I am here to testify on. behalf of
the farmers and ranchers we represent. •
Today, family'farmers and ranchers face a maze.of regulations,
whether it be hundreds of pages of WPS regulations, WISHA
requirements, State Department of Health requirements or the
State Department of Ecology's environmental rules. Some of these
requirements not only overlap they often contradict each other.
Combine this with' the fact that very few of them are easy to read
and comprehend/ let alone implement on the ground and you can see
why farmers have a real problem trying to-comply.
It's not that farmers don't want to provide a safe working place
because the farmers and ranchers who participate' in Farm Bureau's
Retro/Safety program have an excellent safety record. Our family
farmers work hard to provide a safe workplace because we depend
on our workers to help us bring in the crops. Not to mention the
fact that often family members are.working'right along side with
our workers. The problem is that too often worker protection
standards are written without real world, on the farm experience,
and the end result is often very costly or completely.unworkable.
In Washington the State Department of Labor and Industries worked
very closely with the agriculture community in formulating new AG
Safety standards. These new standards have been written in user
friendly language which makes it far easier for the worker and
the employer to read, understand and implement. While this has
not been an easy process, we believe that the final•product will
result in even better-safety protection on our farms.'
Farm Bureau commends you for reaching out to farmers and asking
'for their insight/ concerns and ideas on implementation of the
Worker Protection Standards. We believe, that 'if EPA.were-to take
the same approach-as our Department of Labor and Industries and
rewrite a simplified version of the current regulation it would
work much better. .If farmers and farmworkers clearly understand
the practices they need to protect themselves from pesticides
then they will be far more likely to actually use those
practices.' •
1 work on the ground every day and I can tell you that the
current WPS requirements are very expensive .for the family .farmer
to implement. Providing-,decontamination kits for 30 days, for all
pesticides and restricted, entry intervals, are two that come to
mind.. The supplies required to outfit a single.worker can run
upwards of several hundred dollars •. This is especially costly
when our members have.several orchard^ scattered over large areas
of territory, many of which are being -worked simultaneously.
10U 10th Avenue S.E. • P.O. Box 2009 • Qlympia, Washington 98507 • (36*0) 357-9975
-------
I understand that your goal in proposing to shorten the time that
decontamination sites are required after the use of four-hour REI
products is to encourage farmers to use low-toxi.city. pesticides.
One way to ensure this is a zero day decontamination requirement
for four-hour REI products. Currently you require
decontamination kits be available for 30 days for all pesticides
and this simply means that the farmer will choose the pesticide
which is most cost effective. But if EPA were to revise the
decontamination requirement to zero days for pesticides with
four-hour REI's this would provide a great incentive to farmers
to use those lower risk products. The-farmer will balance the
cost of not using 4 hour REI products and providing contamination
kits for 30 days with using the low-toxicity pesticides and not
having to provide the kits. Suddenly using the low-toxicity
pesticides is much more cost effective and makes sense. We urge
you to revise your decontamination requirements • to zero days for
four-hour REI products.
The Washington' State Department of Agriculture {WSDA) is the
regulatory partner which provides assistance. Unfortunately the
Washington State Department of Agriculture has only, one person in
the field. This makes it extremely difficult to provide
assistance in a state the size of Washington. Currently the WA
Department of Agriculture also utilizes their own training card
instead of the EPA training card. In many instances this has
caused confusion, especially for those workers who have worked in.
other states. it would be extremely helpful if EPA would require
WSDA to utilize the EPA,training card for consistency.
We would also like to see the Agency shift its focus on helping
to educate fanners and farmworkers and assist them to bring their
farms into compliance without leveling fines the first time.
This would be especially helpful if a farmer doesn't have-a
history of non-compliance. Save the fines for those who just
refuse to comply. The Department of Labor and Industries and
agriculture groups across'the state offer many classes and safety
training for our workers and we would welcome the additional help
in this arena.
Farmers remember a time when Government was there to be helpful
and willingly provided assistance/ a time when farmers looked
forward to working together with.government employees towards the
same goals.' Instead today we have farmers which are frustrated
and believe that government only stops by to raise revenues
through fines. We believe that good .solid incentives will help
EPA and farmers reach their goal of a safe workplace.
The Washington State. Farm Bureau offers a suggestion which we
believe would benefit everyone, and that would be to eliminate
the overlap of regulatory agencies1 in the pesticide arena. It is
time to eliminate turf battles and have one agency administer
pesticides with one set of user friendly rules, common sense
rules.
-------
WASHINGTON STOTE
NURSERY &
LANDSCAPE
ASSOCIATION
June 24, 1996
Ms. Jeanne Keying
Office of Pesticide Programs (7506C)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
401 M Street SW
Washington, D.C. 20460
Dear Jeanne:
As the chair of the Washington State Nursery and Landscapers Association Pest
Management Committee I would like to take this opportunity to comment on our
organizations' successes and struggles with the Worker Protection Standards.
For the most part, our members were well aware of, and carefully practiced, our own
states' laws regarding pesticide usage and worker safety. When the Federal Governments'
E.P.A. imposed then" own law on top of our states laws many were left confused as to
which agencies laws to follow and how to comply to often conflicting regulations. As we
became more familiar with the E.P.A. laws and began implementing them in our
businesses we searched to find adequate training material that would be meaningful to
workers in our industry. Much training material is written for large scale agriculture and
not for the ornamental nursery, landscaper or greenhouse grower. Smaller growers were
definitely impacted by the monetary costs of purchasing training material and the time-
costs involved in implementing the standards.
Today there still exists policies in the law that we feel need improvement. The following
is a summary:
a) There needs to be greater flexibility in the size of the required posting signs to
meet our growing conditions, be it a greenhouse bench, a customers backyard or a
production field.
b) REI's need to be reasonably set with better allowance for non contact re-entry
and inspection requirements.
c) Sign requirements should be in the language of the worker, not just English and
Spanish.
P O BOX b/O " SUMMER. WA 98390-0670 • (206) 663-4482
-------
Ms. Jeanne Keying
June 24,1996
Page - 2
d) Further agreement on State requirements vs. E.P. A. requirements on matters
such as posting and record keeping.
We have for the most part found the "regulatory partner", the Washington State
Department of Agriculture, to be helpful in our understanding of this new set of laws. The
first year of their inspections for our compliance was more as an advisor. When they
begin finning members for non-compliance to minute details to this law we may form
another opinion.
In summary, the WSNLA recognizes the need for a standardized protection of our
agricultural employees we just seek the understanding that some flexibility should be
allowed when protecting workers in a nursery and landscapers setting.
Sincerely^
JeffBritt
Washington State Nursery and Landscapers Assoc. Pest Management Chair
cc: Alan Welch, Region 10 E.P.A.
-------
Published by Washington State Potato Commission • 108 East Interlake Rd. • Moses Lake, Washington 98837 • (509) 765-8845
June 10, 1996
Hemy C. Michael, President & CEO
. Sam Thornton, Assistant Administrator
COMMISSIONERS
Jeanne Heying
Office of Pesticide Programs (7506C)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
401M Street S,W.
Washington D.C. 20460
Dear Ms. Heying, .
Herein are contained some key comments and suggestions for the Worker
Protection Standards hearing on June 19th at the Red Lion in Pasco, Wa.
!• Respirator Testing Criteria. NIOSH's testing criteria for respirators is
based on old mining standards and stifles innovation. Agriculture and forestry
need light-weight, battery operated, inexpensive hood or helmet type powered
air respirators. Can EPA dedicate some research funds to develop this type of
safety equipment?
2- Posting at a Central Location. -This has been the most cumbersome
WPS requirement. It has proven to have little benefit in informing workers of
their risk of exposure in agriculture and forestry settings (No clear definition of
what is a central location). Current Worker and Community Right-to-Know
laws are more effective. .
?• Application Record Keeping. The states also require application
record keeping. The state and federal standards are inconsistent and mandate
two separate record keeping systems.
4- Posting of Field Signs. Once again the Federal and State standards are
inconsistent. In addition, there are currently differences between three state
agency requirements (WSDA, L&I and DNR).
District Nn )
Rick Miller
Othello
Dan Elmore
Othello
• District No. 1
Treasurer
Jim Reimann
George
Ron Stetner
Qutncy
District No. 3
Milton "Bud" Mercer Jr.
Prosser
Secretary
Kevin Bouchey
Toppenish
District Nn. 4
Edward Schneider
Pasco
Chairman
Ron Reimann
Pasco* "
District No. 5
Gerald Nelson
Burlington--
At Larpe
Patrick Connors
Wapato
Lynn Olsen
Othello
Phil Schoening
Richland
Vice Chairman'
Allen Olberding
Pasco
Director of Agriculture
Jim Jesernig
Olvmnin
-------
June 10,1996
Page 2
5. Complexity of the Rules. WPS.is an overly complex set of rules.
Many WPS requirements are costly, time consuming and do little to protect
workers. .
6. Poor Risk Communications. WPS training materials overemphasize .
the dangers of and exposure to pesticides when proper mixing, loading, storing
and handling techniques are utilized. The proper use of PPE can eliminate- a
majority of the exposures and risks to employee health.
7. Inadequate Training Materials. Some industries covered by WPS
have no training materials relevant to the work environment. As an example, the
forest industry in the Pacific Northwest has had to use training videos and
materials prepared for the agricultural workplace. These have proven inadequate
in providing employers an opportunity to comply with WPS. 'There is also a
lack of funding available for training.
Thank you for your consideration of these suggestions.
Sincerely.
Sam Thornton/
Assistant Admmistrator
ST:lb
cc:
Senator Slade Gorton
Senator Patty Murray .
Congressman Doc Hastings
Congressman George Nethercutt
-------
DATE:
WASHINGTON GROWERS.CLEARING HOUSE ASSOCIATION, INC.
FUU.ER-QUIQQ BUILDING
POST OFFICE BOX 2207
WENATCHEE. WASHINGTON 98807-2207
(509) 662-6181 FAX (509) 664-667O
June 18, 1996
TO:
FROM:
RE:
Jean Haying
Office of Pesticide Programs (7506C) , US EPA
401 M Street SW
Washington, DC 20460
Leo Sax /Manager
WA. Growers Clearing House
PO Box 2207
Wenatchee, WA 98807-2207
EPA Worker Protection Standard - comments submitted
public meeting; Pasco, Washington, June 19, 1996.
for
The Washington Growers Clearing House represents over 2700 fruit growers
in the state. .Our grower members are subject to many complex regulations
involving application of pesticides. We recognize that some regulation
is necessary to protect workers exposed ;to pesticides on the job.
/ • '
The following are concerns that our members 'have expressed, in regard to
the current EPA Worker.Protection Standard. Most of these concerns
relate to requirements that are costly,, .unnecessary paperwork, and have
nothing to do with the safety of our employees.
1 • •. Posting, of information at a central location. The employer is
required to' disclose on a bulletin, board information on pesticide
application. The list must include location and description of area to
be treated; product name; EPA Registration number; and active ingredients
of the pesticide; time and date pesticide applied and restricted entry
interval. When growers do post -this information and inform workers where
it is located and allow access, they find that employees do not take the
time to read the displayed information. We ask that this specific
posting- requirement be delated from the .EPA Worker Protection Standard
since' it doesn't relate to employee safety.
2- We need continued communication between federal and state agencies
on the EPA'Worker Protection Standards. One problem that could have been
averted, with better communication, is the lack of a uniform WPS Training
Card. The state card is green and federal EPA is blue. The second issue
relates to the posted warning signs for pesticide application. The state
signs .are different than the federal and at this, time are not being
accepted by EPA to meet this requirement. Federal EPA should accept the
state signs. This is. because many of the EPA Standards, including
posting, have'been in place in our state under "Worker Right to Know"
since 1985.
3. To my knowledge, EPA has not made it clear that in certain emergency
situations, workers may enter application areas before the four hour
waiting period. Such, an emergency could be'a fire, flood or weather
related incident that couldn't wait for the state to declare that an
emergency exists.
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6. Pennsylvania
Public Meeting:
Biglerville, PA
• June 26, 1996, 7:00 p.m.
• 118 participants (54 registered), including 26 speakers
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions:
Cooperative Extension Service, Pennsylvania State University Agriculture Department,
Biglerville, PA
• June 27, 1996, 8:00 a.m.
• EPA staff met with Bill Kleiner and other state officials on agriculture in Adams County, PA.
Hollabaugh Brothers Inc. Fruit Farm & Market, Biglerville, PA
• June 27, 1996, 9:00 a.m.
• EPA staff toured the 300-acre fruit farm and met with Brad Hollabaugh, owner.
Ashcombe Vegetable Farm & Greenhouse, Mechanicsburg, PA
• June 27,1996,1:00 p.m.
• EPA and state staff toured the 90-acre farm and met with Mr. Ashcombe, owner.
Meeting with Farmworkers and Key Stone Health Care, Biglerville, PA
• June 27, 1996, 7:30 p.m.
• EPA and state staff met with 10 farmworkers and two health care workers.
Pennsylvania 147
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Transcript of Public Meeting
Biglerville, Pennsylvania
June 26, 1996
David Bingaman: I'd like to welcome
everyone here tonight. I see a lot of folks
have come from a great distance within our
state and I see a lot of people that have
traveled from other states. I appreciate you
all coming. I see a wide representation of
growers, workers, and industry representatives
from agriculture in general. I think it is
encouraging to see people here and I think
that, due to busy work schedules, we're going
to see some additional people certainly over
time.
I'm not going to have a whole lot to say
tonight. I basically want to give some credit
to people who have worked in Worker
Protection within the various states in just a
minute or two. First of all, I'd like to
recognize our translator (Jose Sanchez)
tonight who will handle any translations that
are necessary. Russ Bowen will be our
facilitator tonight Wayne Casto, the pesticide
contact from West Virginia, is here tonight
representing his state. Don Delorme, the
WPS contact in Virginia, is also present.
Alvin Harris from Washington, DC, is present
tonight. From the State of Pennsylvania
Pesticide Education Office, Kerry Hoffman,
William Kleiner, and Scott Harrison. Not
mentioned here, but from the Pesticide
Education Office in Maryland, Susan Gardner
is somewhere in the crowd (I got to speak to
her earlier). And from the State of
Pennsylvania, our local inspection staff is well
represented with David Scott, Abbie Clark,
Phil Phitzer, Roger Dressier, and myself. In
addition, Joe Uram, our Pesticide Enforce-
ment Officer is also available. From Region 3,
we have Magda Rodriguez-Hunt, WPS
Coordinator for the region present, along
with Don Lott, Tom Maslany, Director of
AR&T, Stan Laskowski, Deputy Regional
Administrator. And now from headquarters
EPA, we have Ameesha Mehta, Delta
Figueroa, Michael Walsh, Cathy Kronopolus,
Kevin Keaney, and Associate Assistant
Administrator James Aidala. James will be
making comments following my comments—
which are ending right now.
James Aidala: Thank you, Dave. I'm Jim
Aidala from EPA headquarters in
Washington-that part of EPA that handles
pesticide programs as well as a few other
things; and so the Worker Protection program
falls under our responsibilities. I'd just like to
welcome everybody here tonight. This is
really a large turnout. We're trying to have a
series of public meetings across the country
(altogether around 10) representing various
parts of the country, various kinds of
agriculture, to learn more about the standard--
how it's going, where it's been, where we need
to go. And again, we're just really glad to see
a large turnout. You all know that the rule is
148 Pennsylvania
-------
designed to try to provide the basic
protection for agriculture -workers in various
ways by trying to inform people about the
hazards of pesticides and by adjusting the
exposure they have to potential kinds of
materials [Inaudible]...You can say at this
point that it is a very high priority for the
Agency and for the Administration in general.
This is important not just because it is
designed to protect 3.5 million agricultural
•workers, but because it is something that has
been underway at EPA for 20 years.
Public meetings like this are designed to
try and learn more about how to begin
working hand-in-hand with people and how
we need to be different about it. Obviously,
some of the changes that we made since the
standard came out include reducing the
number of days of [Inaudible]...have basic
training [Inaudible]... and entering treated
areas to perform certain contact activity.
Today, for example, there's a fact sheet on the
front table we just published for making final
changes to the warning sign requirements to
allow languages, any non-English second
languages, whereby the worker has a better
opportunity to see the sign. And, also, we
amended the decontamination requirements
so that the decontamination supplies need
only be available for workers for seven days
after the expiration of the re-entry interval of
low-toxicity pesticides. Again, these are all
part of ongoing activities to try to change the
rules to have them make more sense. We're
still continuing to make amendments to the
rule.
Again, I would just like to say one more
thing before I close. That is the very
important role of the states. We have been
blessed in having states like Pennsylvania
around to help us implement the rules. Under
the federal pesticide laws, the states are to be
the enforcement agencies; and, without their
cooperation, without their partnership, not
just this rule but the entire pesticide worker
standard wouldn't work. So we're happy not
just to be in Pennsylvania, but in different
parts of the region and this is absolutely
essential to making this rule work. This part
of the world is represented by our
Philadelphia office, where Stan is our Deputy
Regional Administrator.
i
Stan Laskowski: I am Deputy Regional
Administrator of EPA of Region 3 of the
middle Atlantic states. This program
[Inaudible].... I only have about an hour of
remarks—just kidding! I wanted to tell you
that it is really very appropriate to have you
here tonight to work with you and to have
you tell us just how effective our standards
really are. As Jim indicated, the states are
really the key to what we do. And I just
wanted to mention a few of the key activities
of the states in our region: [Inaudible]...labor,
the Cooperative Extension Service, who are
our state partners in implementing the
Worker Protection Standard and
[Inaudible]...dealing with the agricultural
community. One example of what they do is
to provide assistance for inspections, as well
as outreach and training opportunities.
Pennsylvania is one of the leaders in that area.
The Virginia Department of Agriculture, and
two of their services, for example, developed
brochures that explain such topics as the
Pennsylvania 149
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volunteer training verification program, as
well as the rights of workers. Our West
Virginia Cooperative Extension Service
developed a training video for workers and
employers and some of it was provided by the
West Virginia Department of Agriculture.
Some of our state partners have also
interfaced with health organizations to
educate health care providers about pesticides.
The Virginia Department of Agriculture
entered into an agreement with the Virginia
Department of Health. Another example is
the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
which established an agro-medicine program
with the College of Medicine at Pennsylvania
State University and the College of
Agricultural Science. The fundamental aspect
of this kind of medicine is that it is
comprehensive to agricultural safety issues.
These are just a few examples of what we see
that the states are doing and, with that, I think
I'll turn it over to Russ.
Russ Bowen: Good evening. My name is
Russ and I'm with the EPA Region 3 in
Philadelphia. I'll be facilitating the meeting
tonight and... [Inaudible]...so if you have any
specific questions [Inaudible]...we'll take a
break about 8:30. Each speaker is registered
and will be given five minutes to speak. At
four minutes I'll stand up and at five minutes
I'll sit back down. At six minutes, I'll press
this button and a trap door opens. [Laughter]
So, if you have any questions, please stay
through the break. If you decide during the
course of the meeting that you would like to
speak, please go out to the lobby, sign up, get
a number, and you'll be added to the list. You
will be given an opportunity to speak. And
with that, I'd like to call Brian Shrader of
Harper's Ferry Job Corp.
Brian Shrader: Good evening, my name's
Brian Shrader with the Harpers Ferry Job
Corps in Harpers Ferry, WV. Since 1993,
•we've trained almost 240 students—about 80 a
year—in the safe handling and application of
pesticides, herbicides, insecticides. My
students have learned to be very self-
conscious, safety conscious and responsible
with what they learned. They take it very
seriously. Their personal protection equip-
ment is always kept up to standards. They
know that when they leave the shop to spray,
anywhere on the center, they better have it
right. They only get one chance at it. They
inform other students if areas are posted, they
need to stay out of there. They have stopped
staff from violating federal regulations.
Everybody at our center would be very
pleased with the help the West Virginia
Department of Agriculture has given us. We
could not ask for a better coordinator as
Wayne Casto or Bob Frame out of
Charleston. Thank you all.
Wayne Casto: [Inaudible]...for the State of
West Virginia with the West Virginia
Department of Agriculture. I would like to
thank EPA for providing this forum for both
myself and the other people that I have with
me from the State of West Virginia to present
these comments on the Worker Protection
Standards. Those people from West Virginia
that we have attending here tonight represent
a cross-segment of the agricultural industry.
150 Pennsylvania
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The first one I would like to thank personally
is Jamie Wilburn, he's a crew leader and also
a handler; Brian Shrader, he is the IPM
supervisor and ag instructor with the U.S.
Department of Interior; Phil and Matthew
Lowe from Potomac Farms Nursery and
greenhouse operation in Shepardstown; Mr.
Gary Lutman, who is the vice president of
Mountainview Orchards; and also Robert
Cheves, he's with the West Virginia University
Extension Service and he's also the
Hampshire County Extension Agent.
I would like to thank you again for
allowing me to state or address some of the
concerns that have been expressed to me by
our growers and also some of our agribusiness
communities. There is some concern from
our growers about the issue of liability of the
trainer, if a trainee or a worker has been
involved in alleged pesticide injury after he
has left their facility. Number two, the
verification of workers who you have really
trained or not trained. An example is that
one of our workers was trained three times at
three different locations, with the same Social
Security number, home address, but different
signatures.
There is some confusion about REIs
•when it comes to various levels of intensity
and toxicity. Strawberries, one particular one
is Captan, would have a 24-hour REI, apples
a 96-hour REI, with a pre-harvest interval of
no hours. There is some confusion when it
comes to protection. Some of the other
things that they were concerned about was
they felt that a lot of times decisions were
made by EPA and other government agencies
without really connecting with the people in
the field. They would like to see more people
from EPA region coming to their locations,
traveling with them and experiencing their
problems and gaining experience in real-life
situations. The growers in West Virginia are
doing an excellent job of complying with
WPS. They have set the example in many
areas. They have cared for workers for more
than 22 years in a safe manner. Last year we
can be proud that there was one pesticide-
related incident not directly related to the agri
industry but outside of it. Therefore, I
applaud the fruit growers, greenhouse and
nursery operators, the ag instructors and so
many other agri persons in West Virginia for
doing an excellent job with worker protection.
Thank you.
Robert Cheves: I come here tonight with
a fairly different background, just being an
extension agent in that when I got out of
college I was with a chemical company from
sales through top management. I then left
there because I bought a farm and I farmed
for 12 years, both with nursery and instruction
with agriculture. In 1989 I went to Extension
as county agent in Hampshire County, West
Virginia, which is a horticultural, fruit-grower
county, beef county primarily.
I come to Extension with a fairly different
approach than most of my counterparts in
that I feel like I'm pro-active. I actually show
the farmers the information that I want them
to have or information that the university
generates that I feel they should have rather
than just teach them something. And in that
1 light, when the Worker Protection Standards
came into play and Wayne Casto came on the
Pennsylvania 151
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scene in West Virginia with the same type of
enthusiasm for getting information out, that
is, trying to make sure you're doing it at the
time that the group would be there and so
forth, we've •worked as a good team in putting
the program together at least in the area that
I'm for.
I think it's proved to work and is
successful, but it's not perfect. We combined
together to do a lot of the programs on
Sunday afternoon when it would be more
convenient for the workers, for example, but
we still didn't get—as Wayne said—we had
some slip-ups and some things happened we
weren't sure about. The atmosphere was that
what we were doing was necessary in helping
the farmers rather than forcing something on
them. Once the orchards and so forth
became sold on the concept that we were
there to help them in that light, it went very
easy for them to cooperate in the
participation. I mention that because other
agencies have not necessarily taken that
approach. They have showed up with a
violation book or a list of fines, whereas this
program has shown with an educational
program and with the concept of getting the
job done. I applaud that.
I had some suggestions that I've written
out. You have to, in my area anyhow, you
have to assume that the grower wants to
comply if you all should happen to go in there
because I think that's the attitude. I'm not
sure that that's always the case in all areas. I
would say to not nit-pick; evaluate the total
attitude and the program that the grower is
trying to do, if they're doing that. Use science
and common sense as your basis of looking at
the operation; measure your success by
percent compliance, not by fines levied, as I
think some programs are monitored or taken
to the farmer. Recogntee that we're very close
to saving our farmers' time—that's a concept,
that by the time the various agencies get done
with them that there's little time left to farm
maybe. And I would say, as I said earlier,
continue on your approach to training. I
would even say to go so far as to align
yourself with agriculture in this effort. Don't
let yourself through TV exposure be beaten
down in what you're trying to do. I say this
because of the programs where I felt that not
only the farmer, but you all were taken to task
unjustly. I think you all could better prepare
and deter that in the future and in doing so
align yourself with a portion of this nation
that's made it great. So I'll stop there. Thank
you.
Philip Lowe: Yes, my name is Philip
Lowe. I hope you all can hear me in the back.
I just wanted to say that I have about a two-
acre greenhouse, accommodations in
Shepardstown. I know that the first time that
a couple of years ago when Wayne [Casto]
stopped by to see me, it was definitely
worker-friendly. I like that word a lot because
I think we first heard about three or four
, years ago when we were stiffing down the
rules and regulations of the EPA, there was a
lot of fright. I think that because of the way
that Wayne came across to me, not only as an
inspector or a trainer, but he also came across
to me as an individual who wanted to help me
to continue to stay in business as a taxpayer,
to help my state and my county, and also my
152 Pennsylvania
-------
employees and my family. That's why I started
my own business in the greenhouse part.
I think Robert just kind of explained, too,
I think the fines that sometimes you all
wanted to bring up on some small growers, as
myself, can be quite harsh. I know that we go
out of our way to try to accommodate your
rules, but not ever trying to over-exceed the
responsibility and safety of our employees
that work for us and that are not part of my
family. That's one thing. I think we have to
realize that these small growers like myself, if
they are fined to death, due to the fact that
we are against a lot of different weather
elements, and I think that all of us in the
Agriculture Department realize that, you
cannot predict this type of weather.
I think, I sure do wish, that hopefully you
folks that are up here on this table can have
the opportunity to maybe visit a small grower
and see how low, people that are at the
bottom of the totem pole, see if they're doing
a good job. They don't even know who you
are, just to find out what we're doing and
hopefully we're doing it right because that's
the way we want to do it and especially for
our state, West Virginia, because it's very
important. So I thank you and I thank Wayne
for the worker-friendly protection that he's
helped us with. When we see him coming
through the door, we're out to shake his hand
and welcome him very much. So thank you
for those words here.
Gary Lutman: My thoughts on the
Worker Protection Standards, being strictly a
grower and everything of this nature, is that a
lot of times a few gentlemen hear comments
coming back to you that are negative and
everything, from ground roots people such as
myself that actually have to go out and
implement worker protection safety for our
employees and everything. I won't say
anything, as you can tell from us people in
West Virginia, we're well pleased with the field
representation that we have out there,
instructing us and trying to help us, like being
in compliance and staying in compliance, with
changing rules and everything. Lot of times
you may even take a look at your own house
and state to see that you've got people that are
worker-friendly, grower-friendly, trying to get
us in compliance, get them to working right,
like that makes us feel more safe, which
doesn't help us looking over our shoulder all
the time every time you see a strange vehicle
come into a field or anything. Things work
much better like this.
I should also remind you, as a grower, that
with these rules and everything that come up,
these are bottom line costs that we must
absorb into our operations, some of which are
in red due to bad weather, which you all are
familiar with across this country. Always keep
that in mind, we try our best to stay in
compliance because we think a lot of our
employees and everything that we have with
us. A lot of people are long-term like that, and
we don't want to make them feel unwelcome,
'like they don't have a job or anything, like that
is worker protection safety work, and we must
force them, after being in orchard
backgrounds for quite some years in their life,
having to take on a new way to do everything,
like this gentleman...
Pennsylvania 153
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We get along great in West Virginia. We've
got great field people out there. I wish all the
other states represented here tonight had the
kind of people that we have to work with,
which makes worker protection much easier
to do and implement in our operations.
Richard Pallman: My name is Richard
Pallman. My brothers and I grow 300 acres of
green tomatoes, 275 acres of wheat, 12 acres
of strawberries, and maintain 300 acres of
hayland in our rotation. We are also in the
poultry business. I am here today speaking as
president of the Pennsylvania Vegetable
Growers Association and as chairman of the
Pennsylvania Farm Bureau of Labor Advisory
Committee and as a concerned farmer. I
would like to thank you for the opportunity
to present my views on the Worker
Protection Standard and how it has affected
our farming operation.
I continue to be frustrated by regulations
which are forced upon us by governmental
agencies which have no working experience in
the industry in which they are trying to
regulate. Apparently the agriculture
community is still regarded as an employer
who treats his employees with no respect or
regard for the health and safety of his
workers. The workers are the backbone of
our business; without them we do not exist.
We, therefore, want them to work in an
environment which is safe and healthy and
that causes the worker to want to return to
our workplace.
New regulations usually mean additional
expense. Other industries can usually pass that
additional expense on by raising the price of
the product that they sell. In the agricultural
industry, we work on supply and demand
pricing of our product. We do not have the
luxury of saying that, because we had an
increased cost of $5,000 in implementing WPS
on our farm, that I need 10-cents a box more
for my tomatoes. Unfortunately, that ability to
increase our selling price is out of our control.
Most of the WPS we have been able to
deal with in our operation with little change,
but several areas of the WPS have caused us
some major problems and I would like to
discuss them. The biggest problem is the re-
entry times which have been assigned to
chemicals with little, if any, scientific evidence
to support it. How can a chemical like Benlate
have zero days to harvest label for spring and
then have an REI of 24 hours?
Our biggest problem is with soil
incorporated herbicides which are used prior
1 to the planting of our tomatoes. Specifically,
I incorporate Tillam into the soil. I must wait
12 hours for my planting crew to enter the
field because three of the workers must walk
on the grounds and occasionally touch the
treated soil. This system is fine as long as we
are dealing with dry weather in extended
periods of dry weather. We have a very small
planting window for our tomato product—
approximately May 15 to June 15. Days
become very critical to us. Our heavy soils do
not dry out very quickly once they become
wet. A field which has been prepared for
planting will dry out much slower than a field
which has been only plowed. Therefore, if I
prepare a field for planting this afternoon and
it rains during the night, the soil could be too
wet to plant the next day. Now I got no place
154 Pennsylvania
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to plant that day and the workers have no
place to work because even if I could work
plowed ground, I still have to wait 12 hours,
again, to enter the new field. This all translates
into lost dollars for me and my workers. I
have to re-work the field that was rained on
after it was prepared for planting, I lose a day
planting, and the workers lose a day's work.
First of all, when these regulations were
first proposed in 1974, soil incorporated
herbicides were meant to be excluded.
Secondly, why after 30 years of using Tillam
according to the label without any known
health concerns, do we have to now wait 12
hours before someone can go in and touch
the soil? We are not dealing with a fumigant;
we are dealing with a herbicide.
My second problem area with WPS is
with the central posting of the time when a
field is to be sprayed. I can post a day when
we'll be spraying a particular farm or field, but
we cannot post the time prior to spraying that
field. Because of traveling and field locations
and weather, that becomes a physical
impossibility. Breakdowns, whether there's
road travel—that makes it all difficult.
Also, the information that is required to
be posted is very similar, but not exactly the
same as the United States Department of
Agriculture federal pesticide record keeping
requirements. Why can't we have a better
coordination of regulation requirements
between agencies so that we as the ones being
regulated have less duplication in what we
have to do? Both agencies are trying to do the
same thing, but each wants it in a different
form.
I hope that after hearing from farmers
around this country that some changes can be
made to the WPS that will make our
compliance easier to deal with without
compromising the health or safety of our
farmworkers. Once again, thank you for the
opportunity to present my views.
Bryan Litde: Russ, I should start by saying
thanks and if I start to get over six minutes, if
you could just throw something at me instead
of opening the trap door, I'd appreciate it. My
wife would like me to come home unbruised
if possible.
Ladies and gentlemen, my name's Bryan
Litde and I serve as the director of
governmental relations with the Washington
office of the American Farm Bureau
Federation, the nation's largest general farmer
organization representing farmers in every
state and Puerto Rico. I'd like to begin by
commending the Environmental Protection
Agency for this effort to reach out to farmers
and their representatives at meetings around
the country to deal with issues arising from
the implementation of Worker Protection
Standards.
It appears that EPA recognizes that the
Worker Protection Standard is unlike anything
the agency attempted before and as a result
they create so many problems. At AFBF, we
welcome the opportunity to work with the
agency to ease all regulatory burdens on far-
mers, including the Worker Protection
Standard. Because of its complexity, WPS
compliance can be difficult and, in some
instances, it may not be possible to be
completely in compliance all the time. In
Pennsylvania 155
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Florida, for example, state enforcement
officials found violations in 27 percent of all
the inspections conducted between January 1
of last year to February of this year. For labor
intensive farms, compliance is even more
difficult Florida nurseries had violations in 71
percent of the inspections conducted;
greenhouses were in non-compliance 48
percent of the time; family farms with a large
compliance standard, had violations only 5
percent of the time.
Farmers want to protect workers and
want to follow the intent of the law, but the
complexity of WPS means that most farmers
will miss something despite their best efforts
to be in compliance. The Farm Bureau
believes that worker safety would be better
served by a simplified version of the current
regulation. Farmers and farmworkers who
clearly understand the practices that are
necessary to protect themselves against
pesticide risks are far more likely to
implement those practices. But requirements
which are overly complex create confusion
resulting in non-compliance and increased
worker risks. For those reasons, the Farm
Bureau supports WPS changes that simplify
the requirements in order to protect workers
and to make compliance easier.
AFBF supports WPS enforcement
policies that support compliance for farmers
and farmworkers and this could include
making reasonable efforts wherever necessary
to educate farmers and farmworkers on the
standard. I might also take the opportunity to
commend the agency for doing what we think
is an excellent job that, particularly early on in
implementation of the standards and really
going out of the way to get educational
material out to state departments of
agriculture and through farm bureaus and
other organizations.
We recommend allowing those who may
not be in compliance to get into compliance
before levying penalties against them. This
approach could be especially useful for
farmers and for others who don't have a
, history of crime on compliance. And I might
say that from what I've heard from farmers,
this has been the experience in a lot of states,
particularly true of Pennsylvania, where the
Department of Agriculture has been very
good about helping farmers to be in
compliance rather than trying to catch them
and fine them when they're not.
We welcome EPA's clarification, by the
way, the preamble to the September 1995
proposed rule, which I understand became
final today, to the effect that no
decontamination provisions were required in
cases where there will be no entry by workers
in the treated area or where all treated plant
materials have been removed.
The Farm Bureau also believes some
additional changes could be made to the WPS
to clarify requirements and enforcement.
First, EPA should eliminate the requirement
for a decontamination site after crops are har-
vested. We believe there are few cases, if any,
where contact with treated surfaces occurs
after harvest. While live plant material and
foliage remain on many crops after harvest,
there are few farm cultural practices that bring
workers in contact with treated surfaces.
Under normal circumstances, for example, in
orchards, clean up tasks will occur well after
156 Pennsylvania
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the expiration and the post-harvest interval
for food consumption. Thus, we believe
excessive exposure risk is relatively small.
We disagree with the agency's assessment
that determining the crops that are ineligible
for such an option, would be too resource
intensive. We believe that the number of
crops with contact with treated surfaces
occurring after harvest would be relatively
small and eliminating the requirement that the
decontamination site after harvest, with
exceptions, would remove an unnecessary
requirement for many farmers.
A few additional suggestions in terms of
what you need to change in the Worker
Protection Standards: we think it would make
a lot of sense to eliminate any decon-
tamination requirement after the expiration of
the REI. Your own data as cited back to you
by the National Association of State
Departments of Agriculture comments on
your proposed September 1995 rule, cite the
fact that risk substantially declines after the
expiration of the REI, therefore, most of the
risk has already passed. We think that a fixed
30-day decontamination period does not
create the necessary incentives for farmers to
use lower toxicity pesticides, an objective that
has been part of the agency's proposal.
Pesticides with 24-hour REI are treated the
same as pesticides with a 72-hour REI and,
for these reasons, we urge the agency to
consider making this change.
I've got a couple of other things, but Jim,
you and Cathy and I have talked about all
these things in the past. I'll probably continue
talking with you about them in the future and
I probably should wrap up before you push
the button on the trap door by saying that the
Farm Bureau believes that some of these
improvements in WPS could be doable by
simplifying the regulation and providing
essential safeguards for pesticide workers and
handlers. We urge the Agency's consideration
of some of these proposals. Thank you.
Russ Bowen: I have a question raised and
perhaps it needs clarification at this point in
time. The order of the speakers tonight is on
a first-registered, first-speaking basis. If I
hadn't made that clear at the beginning, I
apologize.
Brad Hollabaugh: Thank you. I'm also
speaking tonight I think on behalf of the
Adams County Fruit Growers Association
and also because I chair a legislative
committee with the State Board Association.
I think I will be speaking also on behalf of the
State Board Association. I do appreciate this
opportunity here to speak before the panel
here about the Worker Protection Standards.
!
My group truly hopes that we will arrive at a
more realistic method of accomplishing
worker safety in a flexible, meaningful way.
Although there are really many, many aspects
of the Worker Protection Standards that I
could address specifically, I don't have the
time. I thought tonight I would at least
address one issue that I feel is very important,
that is a basic contradiction I feel between the
philosophy of the standard and the actual
implementation of the Worker Protection
Standard. We've been hearing examples of it
all evening here and I suspect we'll hear more.
Pennsylvania 157
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I think the basic concept of worker safety
is very sound, but the standard as it was
written is flawed. Again, we are hearing more
and more issues as we go through the evening
to that effect. Practically speaking,
inconsistent implementation of the standard
has been difficult for a multitude of reasons.
, Those reasons closely relate to the fact that
there is such a variety in farm operations
across the country. A 23-acre fruit operation
doesn't have the same environment, resources
and so forth as a 300-acre farm or 5,000-acre
operation in the Southwest. Some businesses
are family operations, like ours, where we
have historical methods of safely handling and
applying pesticides and also developing good
communication methods with our seasonal
employees. Other companies operate with a
variety of long-term and temporary
employees and often have developed good
track records for the safe use and handling of
chemicals as well.
Problems arise with implementation
because the standard simply does not and
cannot identify and address each and every
variation in the makeup of modern farm
operations. Our farm is basically composed of
contiguous orchards; many farms are not.
Our farm is also surrounded by many public
highways, which acts as an offering of scores
of different opportunities for access ways into
the orchard, which contain not just one fruit
crop, but many fruit crops in many cases. The
length required to complete one type of spray
material on our orchard varies dramatically
depending on the crop we're spraying, the
time of the year and so forth and from farm
to farm that is true as well depending on the
application method of the operation.
Sometimes family members handle all the pest
management exclusively and in other cases
only the regular employees or seasonal people
will do that. And often the field workers don't
enter a crop area for weeks at a time because
of the seasonal nature of orchard fruit. And I
hardly think there is a danger posed to the
workers in the winter time in this area at least.
My point is that taken individually, each
stipulation in the standard could be argued to
be valid, necessary and essential to ensure the
safety of workers. But in the real world, do all
these additional regulations really change the
level of safety for the worker at large? For
years I had struggled to meet the challenge of
each new set of regulations and bring our
company into 100 percent compliance to the
best of my ability. I think there are those in
this room that will attest to that fact. But
when the Worker Protection Standard came
along, I reached a point when my time was so
eroded dealing with the details of compliance,
that I was spending dramatically less time
applying the skills most important to our
business. Those skills related to horticulture,
business management, planning for the future,
and yes, other human resource management
as well. Because the standard itself seemed to
be constantly in flux in the early years both
with regard to the date of enforcement and
with the regulations themselves, I chose a
course of action for our company which
placed us somewhere between full compliance
and no compliance. Those items which helped
us to continue to achieve greater worker
safety were incorporated into our system of
operation often in exchange for other
158 Pennsylvania
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methods that were what I considered less
effective. But safety didn't come to our farm
with the Worker Protection Standard. Long
before any such regulations were forced upon
us, we had already established many practices
•which reflect common sense and respect for
the chemical tools of our trade. The primary
difference is that we did what worked for our
company and we did it in a way that
minimized expense, but yielded the desired
result. As our company has changed over the
years, we have reevaluated our methods as
necessary, but being more strictly regulated in
a way that increases expense to our
company... [Taping suspended momentarily]
Nelson Carasquillo: ...Good evening, my
name is Nelson Carasquillo. We are here
tonight representing both the Farmworker
Health & Safety Institute and CATA, the
Farmworker Support Committee. We are
based in New Jersey and also have offices in
Puerto Rico and Kennett Square, PA,
representing thousands of workers who travel
along the Eastern migrant stream. We are glad
to be here tonight and to speak on behalf of
the farmworkers, those men, women and
children who are most adversely affected by
pesticides, but whose voices are seldom heard.
As farmworkers, we have struggled to get
the Right-to-Know Act passed in New Jersey
and are pleased with the creation of the
Worker Protection Standard. While these may
represent progress in environmental justice
for farmworkers, it is only the beginning and
much work still needs to be done. In
Pennsylvania, the Worker Protection Standard
has yet to be fully implemented. The
Farmworker Health & Safety Institute has
developed and implemented a unique worker
protection training for farmworkers. We have
been approved by EPA nationally and by
numerous state agencies. We are appalled by
EPA's Puerto Rican office and their unwilling-
ness to certify the trainings that we provide
on the island. We are considering legal actions
towards that. In particular, I would like to
comment about the flagrant violations
committed by farmers' WPS trainings and the
lack of enforcement of the WPS by both EPA
and the Department of Environmental
Protection, in this case, New Jersey.
We have heard testimonies given by
farmers on how the WPS is complicated,
there are too many pages to read in the WPS
book, some re-entry intervals are too long and
that it is costly, especially in regard to
decontamination sites. The focus is a
monetary one, not human, in terms of
compliance. We have received reports from
farmworkers working in southern New Jersey
that it is common practice for pesticides to be
sprayed in the same area where they are
working. This is against the law and this
occurs not only in New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, but all over the country.
Farmers are not complying with their
responsibilities as stated in the WPS. They are
not providing transportation for farmworkers
who need medical care. Farmworkers are
handling pesticides without special training or
clothes and the workers are not aware of the
re-entry intervals. In those cases where the
farmer is providing the information and the
worker understands it, most are afraid to
complain for fear of retaliation by the farmer.
Pennsylvania 159
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The five-minute limit prevents me from citing
additional abuses committed by the farmers.
We are also concerned about who is
training the farmworkers and the quality of
this training. The video seems to be the most
popular method used by farmers and state
representatives. They usually show this video
to large groups of farmworkers without
monitoring the training or providing the
additional information required by EPA. In
one case, the farmer told the workers that
they needed to see this video, put the video
on the table without hooking up the VCR or
putting the video in the VCR, left the room,
returned and gave the farmworkers their
worker protection cards without their ever
having seen the video.
It seems to us that there is a conflict of
interest in allowing farmers to train
farmworkers. What farmer do you know that
will inform his or her employees where and
how to file a complaint if he or she is not
complying with the basic requirements? Even
if the farmer is meeting the minimum
requirements by showing the video or
handing out the booklets, the quality of the
training is severely lacking. While we believe
the card system is needed, how is EPA/DEP
monitoring that the workers with cards
actually receive the training or understood the
booklet or the video?
Both EPA and DEP, the New Jersey
Department of Environmental Protection,
are not doing their jobs in ensuring qualified
trainings and training that is culturally
sensitive and effective. Last week at the pre-
season conference in Milleville, New Jersey, a
train-the-trainer workshop was given by the
New Jersey DEP. After only an hour and 15
minutes of instructions and seeing the video,
those present could be certified as trainers.
This is not sufficient time to learn how to
train someone in something as complicated as
the WPS.
It appears that the emphasis on this type
of training and the excessive use of the video
is to demonstrate the quantity of the trainers
being certified and the numbers of
farmworkers being trained rather than the
quality of both. This undermines the power of
the WPS trainings. Is this the type of training
that you all condone? EPA and DEP, you all
need to start monitoring the trainings and be
more stringent in your requirements in
certifying trainers so that farmworkers are not
only receiving this information, but are
understanding it.
In closing, I would like to challenge both
EPA and DEP. You need to take a stance and
hold farmers accountable. This is your job and
if you don't do it, who will? We at CATA are
involved in the ongoing struggle, but we can
only do so much. Despite the current political
climate and budget cuts, we are asking you
both to make a commitment to strengthen
the WPS by enforcing it and by not
weakening the regulations. We are asking you
to ensure quality training and certify trainers
who are concerned with the well-being of
farmworkers and not to certify trainers who
provide the training and then go spray
pesticides on their workers. If you don't do
this, then what good is the WPS? Thank you.
Jose Guzman: My name is Jose Guzman.
[Speaking in Spanish with English interpreter]:
160 Pennsylvania
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He works for CATA. He's a pesticides trainer.
He will be talking about what is going on in
South Jersey. He goes to speak with workers.
They have to train them. Yes, one of those
days, somebody, they told him that yes, they
got the training. The farmer gave it with a
video and booklet. He asked the workers if
the farmer was complying with the
regulations. The workers told him that the
farmer was spraying the pesticides over
them... having side effects of rashes. Yes, we
have for a long, long time with terrible
problems from the pesticides. Because the
farmer doesn't provide transportation to the
hospital or a doctor. They have to get their
own transportation to the doctor. Rashes,
headaches are the symptoms.
Another farm, the worker told him they
were spraying directly on the people. Because
the houses where they live are very, very close
from the field. This farmer gave them the
training and he wasn't in compliance with the
regulations. In these fields, there were three
workers sick with the same kind of symptoms
like headache, rash and tired. One of the
workers went to the hospital, a friend helped
him, took him to the doctor. The other two
never went because fears of the farmer. The
person that went to the hospital, when he
returned, he was fired from his work. What
the farmer told him was that he doesn't need
sick people, sick employees. They went to
that field for a training because a few of the
workers were working without authorization
or a permit. On that occasion, the farmer
found, they were given a training. The farmer
told them they were without a right to be
there providing these kinds of service to the
workers. And even the workers had any
rights. On another farm, they saw a person
applying the pesticide without proper
protection and without the training. Thank
you.
Shelley Davis: I'd like to begin by talking
about two pesticide incidents that have
occurred since the Worker Protection
Standard has come into effect. Just two short
weeks ago, June 13, a worker was assisting a
tractor driver who was applying pesticides to
shade tobacco in Connecticut. The farmer's
job is to clear the debris ahead of the tractor
and to open the enclosure, if you can picture
how shade tobacco is grown. The tractor
driver who was applying the pesticide did have
protective equipment. The farmworker on the
ground had none. That night he developed
nausea and vomiting, became very violently ill,
and was poisoned by the pesticide.
The pesticide that was being applied that
night was [Inaudible] ...which is a toxicity
category three pesticide. In other words, this
is not your most toxic pesticide; this is a
moderately toxic pesticide. But that doesn't
mean that you want to put it in your bath
water. This is the kind of thing that if it drifts
onto you as it did on this worker, makes
someone extremely ill and, for that reason,
has to be treated carefully.
Many people tonight have talked about
making the regulations more simple, and that
is a sentiment that we at the Farmworker
Justice Fund heartily endorse. But simplicity
doesn't mean eliminating protection. I'm a
little bit afraid that that is the meaning that
many of the people that have spoken before
Pennsylvania 161
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me want to give to that concept. I think that
we can all agree on the need for simplicity and
common sense, but we have to fulfill the
purpose of the regulation, thinking about how
to make work practices safe. That was not
done there.
Let me give you another example, because
some of these stories don't have happy
endings. On July 21, 1995, Raymundo
Hernandez was working in a tobacco field for
the first time. It was his first day there. He
was an H2-A worker from Mexico. He'd been
a farmer for all his life. He was fine in the '
morning. Around 1:30 in the afternoon he
became very ill. He became dizzy, disoriented,
vomiting. So the grower agreed to take him
back to the labor camp and on the way, the
grower stopped at his home which -was
between the field and the labor camp. He was
in his house for a few minutes. When he came
back out the worker wasn't in the truck. The
grower says the worker was walking away and
wouldn't get back in the truck. So the grower
went back to his work and finished his day.
Two-and-a-half-months later, Raymundo's
body was found 12 feet off the road.
This was a tragedy that could have been
prevented in a host of ways. First of all, the
way he was poisoned was that there was a
tractor that was spraying pesticides 40 feet
ahead of where the workers were working.
Second of all, obviously, I guess we don't
have to say it, that that obviously was not
appropriate. Second of all, the grower should
have taken this -worker directly to the hospital.
When someone is ill, it's not a time to try to
think about how sick, what the deal is; that's
a time to seek medical attention immediately.
The third thing that I think is also very
important for all of you who are in the
enforcement side of it is that no adequate
investigation of this incident was ever done.
The grower said there were no pesticides
applied; that's his answer to what happened
that day. The workers in that crew say that
there was a tractor applying pesticides right
ahead of them were never interviewed by the
Department of Agriculture in the State of
North Carolina. One reason they were never
interviewed is that the Agriculture
Department doesn't have any employees who
speak Spanish. It's too common here to know
that everyone has Spanish-speaking workers
for that to be an acceptable approach.
There are many things that I would like to
say, but I'm going to try to wrap up a few
important ones. In our experience throughout
the East Coast of the United States, the one
part of the regulation that is being imple-
mented is in the training, and that is very
good because that's a very critical piece.
Problems with the trainings are that there are
not translators available to answer questions
and that kind of thing, workers still don't feel
that they can exercise their rights. As workers
from CATA have said, they're afraid. These
are all big problems, but at least training is
starting and we encourage that, too, but
nothing else is happening. All the complaints
about decontamination logs strike me as odd
in that no workers have ever reported seeing
any decontamination log. Workers don't see
chemical lists being posted. One worker told
me, lif a chemical is posted, no one has ever
told me where it is. There's no point in doing
it unless workers know where it is.
162 Pennsylvania
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We are in favor of flexible enforcement. I
applaud the agencies that go out and work
with the grower to figure out how to comply
in their operation, but enforcement then has
to have teeth. Then the enforcement officer
has to come back to find out whether the
operation did come into compliance. At that
stage, there has to. be fines. This can't be
announced in advance. These inspections
have to be real so that actual protections
occur and that people aren't hurt. We owe it
to the Raymundo Hernandez's of the world
to make this right.
There are a couple of things that we
would like to see added. We would like to see
a Right-to-Know Act that's national, that
workers get crop sheets and that they know
what they are actually being exposed to and
the symptoms that these things may cause.
We'd like to see drift protection. I think we
can all work together to make things right.
We need a safe workplace. Thank you.
Guy Donaldson: Good evening, my name
is Guy Donaldson and I am president of the
Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, the state's largest
farm organization. I am here to speak on
behalf of the more 26,000 farm families that
we represent. Let me clarify a couple of com-
ments that have been made here.
I'm a lifelong resident of this county and
fourth generation farmer, fruit grower all my
life, and I have never seen workers being
sprayed in Adams County. If it's one thing I
•would not tolerate, it would be that. I don't
know what you see in Jersey or North Caroli-
na or anywhere else, but that does not happen
in Adams County, Pennsylvania.
; I commend the EPA for hosting this
series of meetings to receive comments from
those who are most affected by the Worker
Protection Standards, that is the growers. I am
one'of those growers. My family is involved in
the partnership. We grow apples, peaches,
cherries, vegetables and operate a retail farm
market. America has the highest quality, the
lowest priced food in the world. We want to
keep it that way. This country's agriculture
exports are more than double the imports and
if you look at the economic standards that
have been put out, it's the exports of agricul-
tural products from this country that are ma-
king our balance of trade payments stand up.
Agriculture again is becoming increasingly
more important to the overall economy of the
United States. Burdensome regulations,
however, have the potential to change all that.
The Worker Protection Standard for
pesticides is a good concept, but it's often bad
in reality, putting us at an economic
disadvantage to the rest of the world. The
compliance cost in time and money could
very well bankrupt some of our growers.
These regulations need to be revised with
common sense and economics in mind. There
are various improvements that could be made
that would increase compliance by making
compliance easier and cheaper without
compromising safety.
Many of the rules cause confusion and
often pose economic burdens without any
overriding need. In our own operation, when
we bring our workers in to do the training, let
me tell you very frankly, they're there to work.
We do the video, we do the verbal work with
them in Spanish, and all they want to do is get
Pennsylvania 163
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out and work. They're there to work piece
rate. Now if I'm training my own hourly
workers, they'll spend every day in there
getting the training. But the workers that
come in there to work want to get out and
work. So I'm wondering many times if the
training is really that effective. Maybe the
video needs to be updated, maybe we need to
make it reach them more, I'm not sure.
Another problem I have is how to utilize
effectively our workforce because of the re-
entry times. We used to do a lot of summer
pruning and it's almost impossible to move
people around in a feasible way to get that job
done. So we simply eliminated them. Instead
of having our workers come in and work in
the summer months, they stay in Mexico or
wherever because we're not going to put up
with it. So it has a serious effect there.
Some specific recommendations that we
would like to make are this: The Farm Bureau
supports a shortening of the required
decontamination time period. The EPA
should eliminate the requirements for a
decontamination site after the crops are
harvested. There's no need to have it then
because then we're not using any pesticides.
EPA should eliminate the decontamination
requirement when the restricted entry levels
expire. Decontamination requirements for
early entry workers and handlers need to be
coordinated with requirements for field
workers. Location and accessibility should
dictate the placement of the decontamination
sites.
Farmers need to have common sense
regulations that they can easily understand
and remember. They have a vested interest in
safety. I know because I work in the field with
my workers. Yesterday I was spraying with
one of the sprayers. I want them to be safe,
for the regulations to be safe for me and my
workers and I'll make certain they are, if
they're common sense. Just get me regulations
that are reasonable, cost effective, based on
sound science and legitimate safety concerns
that my workers can understand. On behalf of
the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, I want to
thank you for this opportunity to speak here
this evening and I urge you to address the
problems that you've heard and those you will
continue to hear. Thank you very much.
Kenny Annis: Good evening, and thank
you for letting us participate in this
conference. My name is Kenny Annis. I'm
currently chairman of the Virginia Governor's
Board on Migrant Seasonal Farm Workers.
We have issues come before the board and we
represent both the grower and the worker.
Some of the problems we're having in Virginia
is many of our workers come from Florida.
They're trained in Florida, they're trained in
South Carolina, they come to Virginia and
they're trained again. Some even come on to
Pennsylvania. Growers do not wish to rely on
another employer providing training. They're
really concerned. It was mentioned, employer
liability, and that is a critical issue with
employers.
Many growers in Virginia have small
farms, tobacco lots, rented land. It's almost
impossible to meet the posting requirements.
Down where I live on the Eastern Shore of
Virginia, it seems like Friday night is the
evening that you go out and you put up all the
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signs once you get through with the 9-11
signs. It happens everywhere. Growers are
concerned about this. One of the problems
that came before the Governor's Board of
Migrant and Seasonal Farm Workers was the
tobacco crops. I don't know how many of
you've been outside today, but it's pretty
warm. If you were in a tobacco field, it would
be extremely warm. When you're wearing
technical clothing, if you're breaking the
blossoms or pulling the suckers and putting
the pesticides on them, it's a very hot job.
The growers are trying to provide the
necessary clothing and safety equipment.
However, it's very difficult to get the worker
to utili2e this equipment when it's being
prepared. I agree with a lot of things that's
been said here tonight. Thankfully I live on
the Eastern Shore and I've never seen
farmworkers being sprayed. I was at
[Inaudible]...for 27 years and now I'm a retiree
so I can speak what I see. I don't think
anyone goes out and sprays workers
intentionally. I don't think growers use
pesticides because they want to. They're very
expensive. I think the housewife looks at
apple, cucumber, squash—you name it. The
pesticides are going to be on there as long as
you want them. The gentlemen mentioned
the cheap price of food in this country,
basically it's due to pesticides. Not all
pesticides are bad; not every worker or
employer—Something's been bothering me
for some time: when I hear of workers being
exposed to pesticides. I've been told that
growers and workers are combined nationally
when referring to workers being exposed. I
would like to hear the figure on the number
of farmers that have been exposed by their
maybe careless handling of pesticides. Where
I live, they do the applications; it's not the
worker. The corporate farms may use
workers.
The last thing that came before the board,
and I know this may not be the place, but
there's a lot of research going on nowadays
that can help reduce the amount of pesticide
that is being used. I know that in Virginia, the
Department of Agriculture, the County
Extension, it's pest management nowadays,
you reduce pesticides because it is very costly.
But we would like to see research that's going
on now. Tremendous things are happening to
reduce the amount of pesticides. I think the
growers would like that. The growers do not
wish to use any more pesticide than necessary.
I thank you.
Lori Rottenberg: Good evening. My name
is Lori Rottenberg and I'm with the
Association of Farmworker Opportunity
Programs also known as AFOP. I come here
tonight as head of the National Farmworker
Environmental Education Program. Basically
we're the largest national pesticide safety
education program for farmworkers in the
nation. Last year alone we trained over 45,000
farmworkers on pesticide safety in 12 states
across the country. From January, 1996 we've
already trained about 14,000.
I really appreciate this opportunity to
share with you the experiences of our
program with the Worker Protection
Standard. The reason that I'm here is that I
believe our program offers a real strong
model for grower-friendly and a worker-
Pennsylvania 165
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friendly way to implement the standards. We
believe that there is a win-win way to comply
with the standard, particularly with the
training provisions of the standard, and our
program represents that.
I want to start my testimony by just telling
you a little bit about how our program works.
It's in its second year of operation and it's in
partnership with the AmeriCorps Community
Service Program, which some of you may
have heard about. Through AmeriCorps we
get individuals who provide a year of
community service for a minimal living
stipend and an education award at the end of
their service. Through this program, through
this partnership, which requires non-federal
matching funds and all kinds of donations and
whatnot, we had 68 trainers in 1996 in 12
states, as I mentioned, including here in
Pennsylvania, whose full-time role it is to train
farmworkers on pesticide safety. In 1997,
we're going to still be in 12 states and we're
going to add a couple more as well so we're
broadening our scope with time.
Basically we developed this program
because we saw a real need out there. We
know that state Departments of Agriculture
and other state agency staff are burdened with
many things that they do and many didn't
have the time or the bilingual staff or the
other resources that they needed to go out
and train the workers. So we took the need
for the worker training along with the
AmeriCorps Program and put the two
together to provide this service for growers
because many farmworkers were not getting
trained before we started.
What we do is we provide intensive
training to all our AmeriCorps members
through a national conference. We then send
them back to their states so that they can get
certified by their states and receive
certification to provide EPA verification cards
or whatever the tool is in that particular state.
And I'm glad to see training for farmworkers.
We teach that win-win approach is possible
and necessary in training farmworkers on
pesticide safety. We tell them, you're not there
to be union organizers, you're not there to be
inspectors, you're not there to stir the pot.
You're there to train workers on pesticide
safety because what we've heard tonight is
there are a lot of growers out there who do
want to do the right thing by their workers
and we want to help them to do that by
allowing them to save their time and their
money to do what they need to do, which is
farming. We can command and provide
trained bilingual resources to provide the
training.
Another reason why we're so successful is
that the training that we offer is free, it's
bilingual, it's live and it's interactive. I've heard
some people tonight talk about video. I think
me video is better than nothing, but I think at
the same time that it's really not very effective
in training the workers. You have to
remember you're dealing usually with a low
literacy audience that's not used to classroom
training. In fact, I've seen workers when I've
gone out to visit the field who tell me, "I
already have the card and I already have the
video, but can I sit in on your presentation? I
really didn't understand that video and I fell
asleep and nobody was there to answer
166 Pennsylvania
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questions for me in Spanish so I'd really like
to sit in on your presentation as well." So we
get that quite a bit.
We also provide the workers with the
EPA-prepared handbooks. The members use
EPA-prepared flip charts to go through the
11 basic points of the Worker Protection
Standards. It's all very structured and laid out
so people aren't just out there just telling
them whatever they •want to tell them.
We try to work with growers whenever
possible, but we do run into those growers
who really don't want to train their workers.
We have run into that situation,
unfortunately. None of them are probably in
this room tonight, but we do run into that.
When we do face that problem, the members
go elsewhere. They go to parks, they go to
churches, they go to community centers, they
go to housing complexes—wherever the
farmworkers can be reached, that's where we
go to train them. We'll train them however we
can get them.
In addition, our program is innovative
because we conduct evaluation activities.
We're not just conducting the training and
then running away without wondering how it
came out or if it was indeed effective--
somebody mentioned if the training was
effective. What we have seen is that this
training is effective. We use evaluation, pre-
and post-training questionnaires both in
English and Spanish, some are written, some
are picture-based for those who have
difficulty reading and writing. We found that
the majority of the farmworkers who sit
through this training do improve their score,
usually by an average of 30 percent before and
after the training. There is real learning going
on there. We may be one of the only
education programs out there to really
evaluate that at all.
Our program has had a lot of experience
with the Worker Protection Standard over the
last couple of years. What we have found is
the standard is providing some basic but
viable protections to farmworkers. If any
changes are made, we hope that as Shelley
Davis was saying, that there will not be a
weakening of the protections in the standard.
We think that they are at a very low level right
now and they're really not comparable to
protections in other industries who work with
hazardous chemicals. At the same time, what
is being done with the training in some of the
decontamination and signage is super-
important.
What we have seen is that farmworkers,
many of them either have been told or come
to believe that pesticides are medicines for the
plants. We've heard that over and over and
over again. People have been told, "This is
not harmful to you, this is no problem." So
they think, "Oh, I have this on my skin, I'll
just take a little of this stuff if its good for the
plants, and I'll rub it on my skin," and they
wonder why they get a rash. I mean there is a
basic level of knowledge that is not out there
in the work force and that's why the training
is so incredibly important.
Russ Bowen: I'm going to have to
interrupt because there are a number of
people who haven't had an opportunity yet to
speak.
Pennsylvania 167
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Lori Rottenberg: I'll finish up real quick,
thanks. I'm sorry, I didn't see you stand up.
Some of the things we've seen: we've seen
people sprayed with low toxicity things, like
sulfur even, who have had eye irritations.
We've seen people with breathing problems,
with skin irritations, with lung irritations that
are still happening today. I've heard countless
stories of workers who've been affected by
drift. It may not be happening here in
Pennsylvania, but in my other site visits across
the country, it is indeed happening. I would
recommend strong enforcement, maybe not
a fine right first thing, but we are there to
help and we would be happy to offer our
services at any time. Thank you.
Jill Edwards Hughey: Hello. My name is
Jill Edwards Hughey from Mountain Brook
Orchards. We're located in Franklin County
and Adams County here in Pennsylvania. We
have several different commodities that we
grow. We have bearing apple trees, non-
bearing apple trees, peaches and pears. All of
those are separated into probably about 30
blocks totaling approximately 1,000 acres.
The two specific areas of the standard
that I have found most difficult to comply
with because of the size of our operation are
the decontamination stations and also the
posting and the central location of the intent
to spray and the spray records. The
decontamination stations, to get one every
quarter of a mile from every point in our
fields where a worker might be on any given
day, is very nearly impossible without having
a person full-time to move stations around.
What we have tried to do is provide workers
that are on tractors or sprayers with the
equipment and the water required in their
'spray cabs or on their mower with them or
however we can. But the reality of getting
three gallons of water plus all the other
equipment required in a spray cab is difficult
at best. I found it impossible to find any
container that can withstand the kind of
conditions that those spray cab tractors go
through for any period of time.
The posting at a central location of the
intent to spray is difficult for a reason that
another grower mentioned earlier. I don't
know for sure when I'm going to spray. I
don't know until 7 o'clock in the morning
when we get to the barn and I see what the
weather conditions are and we go through
what other fires there might be to put out,
that we're even sure we're going out that day.
As to when we get to each of the 20
blocks that I have bearing apples, I might as
well throw a dart at a dart board as to guess
that. The way we handle it is to keep
everybody out of all the blocks that we are
potentially going to spray that day. But that
doesn't technically fulfill our requirement to
post that information. I have protected my
workers by keeping them out of the orchards,
but if an inspector came, would he or she be
satisfied?
As far as posting what was sprayed and
when, that's a whole other ball game. It takes
me four spray rigs and an entire nine-hour day
to cover my bearing apple trees. Now, for me
to get the information from them, where
they've been, at what time they enter, what
time they left, and get that posted in any
168 Pennsylvania
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meaningful amount of time that it's going to
help any worker is again nearly impossible.
Traditionally in our farm, everyone meets
at a central location first thing in the morning
and everybody sort of knows what everybody
else is doing that day because everyone is
getting their instructions with the whole
group present. And that has worked very well.
I find it difficult for me to justify my time
fulfilling these areas of compliance because,
quite frankly, I have never seen a worker look
at that board, not once. My seasonal workers
know where it is, my full-time workers know
where it is—never have I seen anyone look at
that board. If they want to know what's going
on, they ask me or one of my other foremen.
They know that I'll tell them. If the spray rig
people want to know what's going on, they
have access to the spray shed and they go and
pull the label off themselves. We're not hiding
anything from anybody, we never have.
I'm afraid that the whole nature of the
protection standard is to assume that
employers want to mislead their employees
and to assume that the workers don't really
understand what's going on and can't protect
themselves. I feel that these portions of the
standard are cumbersome and unnecessary.
Our old oral system of telling our workers
what is .going on, not sending our workers
into areas where the re-entry interval is in
place, is essentially what we're still doing, but
actually is protecting the worker. I agree with
everyone else and I thank you for the
opportunity to speak to you about this. I
think the farmers are doing their best to
comply with the letter of the law. I'm sure
that there are farmers out there who aren't,
but I feel that no laws in the world are going
to force people who don't care about other
people to exercise the common sense
necessary to protect their workers. But the
majority of farmers, we were already doing
that before there was a standard. I hope that
some amount of common sense and flexibility
can be introduced in so that farmers are made
to comply with the intent of the law without
having such specific instructions on how it
has to be done. Then it becomes impossible
to comply. Thank you.
David Benner: pnaudible]...dealing with
some personal protective equipment
requirements especially in the heat of summer.
So I respectfully request that you look those
over again. I would just offer as a suggestion,
for instance, you may go from a long-sleeve
shirt to a short-sleeve shirt and to require
washing your hands or something or I don't
know.
Another thing I find very confusing is the
re-entry levels. I would hope and request that
you look at all these products and let science
give the answers. The number one problem
we have within our operation is Captan. Also,
the Worker Protection Standard is an exercise
in communication and education. Commu-
nication is part of it. In the operations that are
in the hundreds of acres, I would respectfully
request that you consider things like cellular
phones and radios in the equipment as a
substitute for maybe some decontamination
site requirements. Some-times we can get to
someone who has a problem, we can get to
him quicker than he can get to a
decontamination site.
Pennsylvania 169
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I would also request that you all would
consider that production agriculture has a
very difficult time passing along any costs
directly into the production ag system. In
March I attended an EPM conference. One of
the topics in that conference was the fact that
the federal government was looking for ways
to quantify and qualify strategic plans and
being able to justify programs. Yesterday I
attended a meeting sponsored by USDA,
Committee on Resources, Education and
Economics, again to review a strategic plan,
five-year plan, the assumption being made
there that whatever plan was made, at some
point it would have to be quantified or
qualified. I would assume that your
organizations involved in WPS would fall in
the same categories. I've heard mentioned in
the introduction that there are 3.5 million
farmworkers. I, for one, will be paying
attention to that. It is my hope and I hope
that it is the intention of WPS that the
number of emergency room visits and the
number of health care related incidents, the
dollars spent for those, will be reduced by the
implementation of the Worker Protection
Standard. I would hope that at some point
these dollars could be passed back to the
grower community for our reduction.
Even though our workers are better
trained and educated, implementation of WPS
has caused me to have to deal with increased
worker paranoia and neighbor paranoia. One
of the most interesting features of the WPS
label is that when the neighbors get hold of it,
they get more excited. Thank you very much
for the opportunity.
Adelma Monferro: Hello. My name is
Adelma Monferro. I am teaching pesticide
safety training with the farmworkers. I am
bilingual and I find that increasing for them,
when they get a Spanish speaking person they
have the opportunity to ask me questions and
just not listen. I'd like to relate my experience.
Two cases only I will relate. One is I was
training in the [Inaudible]... fields and I was
very sad to see that all my training
about"you've got to change your clothing
every day after you wash separately'—I'm not
going to go over that because I know you all
know about the training—I found that they
have not facilities available. They have not
shower, not washer machine. So these my
comments, I just leave my comment there.
Another situation is I gave training to a
person, asked him, were you ever taught
pesticide safety training? He said to me, yes, in
Florida. But, I gave him the training because
he said that he couldn't get [Inaudible]... He
explained to his boss, he said he did nothing
but sit in the truck and roll the windows up.
So he was protected, that was more a
compartment, but the training, no.
Nevertheless, they both gave him a very
friendly explanation which was, if we don't
finish this today our green peppers are going
to peak out so we have to move to work in
the green pepper field tomorrow, so I am
sorry about that. So it was the worker health
versus the interest of the business interest.
Those things I believe can be arranged and I
hope that will be done. Thank you.
Leonardo Gutierrez: My name is
Leonardo Gutierrez. I am a member of
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AmeriCorps. We found several problems.
Workers have been training, a few of these
people have education, but when they asked
the person about safety concern with
pesticides they noticed that these people were
not knowledgeable enough about pesticide
specifics. They thought it was not a good
thing to give them some kind of retraining
again. Another thing is that many of these,
they ask many of the workers concerning the
video, they saw it. Yes, they saw the video,
but they don't have enough knowledge
concerning the pesticides.
[Speaking in Spanish with English
interpreter]: He thinks in his opinion that a
worker really doesn't care or he is not, doesn't
care about the pesticide, how to deal with the
pesticide. They say that they have been
trained, they are trained to improve the
training and give them good training using
some kind of questions about the activity to
see how much they learned from the training.
He said that many of these farmers or the
employer, they ask the workers if they could
be fired, would they protect themselves from
the use of pesticides. Yeah, if they could be
fared they would protect themselves from the
use of these pesticides. They are trying to
emphasize for the workers that the state is
there to protect and teach them the rights
that they have.
Russ Bowen: Thank you very much. I'm
going to ask you to close now.
Modesto Cruz: God bless you all. I just
want to state here and act as a witness today.
I joined the AmeriCorps Program in January.
I think the method towards farmworkers are
real positive. I feel the training classes are just
helping the farmer tremendously. I can see
the results towards the pre and post
questionnaires, comparing the post trainings,
like Lori was saying, the effects were, to me
who is doing it visually, I found that they were
rising up 50 percent. So I think a lot of
farmworkers as we know don't have a high
level of education. I think there are some of
them, for them to understand the training, we
heed to sit down with them maybe one-on-
one and maybe with a group so they can
understand the questions and understand
what's going on in the training.
I feel AmeriCorps is something real
positive especially in our community. We
found that a lot of growers that we approach
don't have a lot of understanding of what
we're doing. I just want to say to all the
growers that are here: if you do find some
AmeriCorps members that approach you or
maybe write you a letter, maybe you can
respond to them. If you don't have an
understanding then maybe get some
information because we are here to help you.
For example, we were speaking with a grower
and he couldn't find in his schedule time for
us to get in there and do some trainings. So
we offered to him that we're there for his
convenience. We have done early trainings, as
early as 4 to 5 o'clock in the morning to get
the farmer workers before they go out to
work. So I think the AmeriCorps Program is
a positive program. Also, I think it's very
effective and I think it's escalating hiring. For
the growers, I hope that you can open your
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doors and accept our program so we can
apply it and put it in practice. Thank you.
Angel Crespo: My name is Angel Crespo.
I work out of the Westchester, Pennsylvania
office. What I'd like to bring out to the
audience here today is we have sometimes a
hard problem getting into the companies that
we can give our training. They look at us.
They are very skeptical, which I understand
because of new people, I've never heard of
them before. In situations like that, we will
wait for them to come out of work and we'll
approach diem. We'll talk with them and then
they'll let us know if they've been trained or
not. But when we do ask them what kind of
training they receive, they say, they watched
the video and most of us fall asleep and some
don't understand it because it goes too fast
and we don't know who to ask questions to.
So what's the use of watching it. These are
what people tell me.
We treat them as a human being so they
won't get hurt working. So I will tell you, this
is what I've got to say and it's basic training, I
will train you real quick, in about half an hour
is the maximum and then on top of that I will
give you a certification card, a certificate
saying that you're certified in Pennsylvania.
That's something that is a little more motive
for them to listen to us because they have
something now to show to everybody else
that they got trained.
Most farmworkers they get scared when
people approach them. Sometimes when they
don't understand a question, they're scared to
ask somebody. What we do is deal individually
with that person to make them feel
comfortable is ask them questions to see if
they understand. Another example I'd like to
bring out: we also go through a clinic, a health
clinic in Kennett Square. What we do, we sit
in there and watch people as they come into
this clinic. One time I was sitting in there, I
seen this older man came in and sat next to
me. I was looking at him. He had half nails, he
had a severe rash across his face.
I asked him, "Where do you work?"
He said, "I work in the fields, I pick
mushrooms."
I said, "Why are you here?"
He said, "I got this infection in my face
which I don't understand what it is."
I told him, "Before you started working,
did they teach you anything or show you a
video?"
He said, "Yeah, I watched the video, but I
never understood and then three weeks later
I got this on my face."
He was putting creams and stuff like that
and it's not being taken care of. So I forced
the issue on the growers and stuff like that.
So if they pay attention to the video, great.
But if there ain't nobody there to answer their
questions, to make sure that people are
listening to it, it's useless for them. So we're
going out there and dealing with people. I've
got a person who deals with chemicals, started
dealing with them with his bare hands. That's
part of the reason he has no nails on his
hands.
AmeriCorps is a great program and I think
it forced people to listen. If you want
information, we're here to help you. We're
here at your convenience. We have them at 5
in the morning before people enter the fields.
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We've been here late at night We will go to
soccer games, where people live at, where
they eat at just for them to get the training if
they need it. I think this is a great
organization. Thank you.
John Peters: I don't have any particular
things other than to thank everybody for
relating their different experiences. It was
interesting to hear what goes on in New
Jersey and South Carolina. We here in Adams
County can be thankful we've been able to
keep ourselves out of such practices and keep
our workers safe. This Worker Protection
Standard law, my feeling is what its goal is
obviously is to limit the worker's exposure to
pesticides. That is a good goal. However, I
believe this can and must be done in a way
that also avoids putting an unnecessary
burden or liability on the growers. As a
grower, that's obviously what concerns me on
one hand, and also the safety of the workers
on the other. So I thought I would give you
examples of situations where the Worker
Protection Standard... [Taping suspended
while tape was changed] ...responsibility,
reliability for me as a grower, but I'm not
necessarily sure that it actually gains any safety
for the worker.
One is the thing about the notification
with the quarter-mile boundary of any
spraying or anything that's done a quarter-
mile, you're supposed to notify workers. The
way our farm is set up, we have six main farm
groups and five of them are contiguous and
then we have one that's off of it. Each farm
has its own group of workers that only work
on that particular farm. So even though they
may be within the quarter-mile area of
spraying on farm A, workers at farm B, we've
got workers that have worked for us for 20
years, 30 years, that have never worked upon
more than one farm. So I don't necessarily see
how notifying them of spraying that's going
on in a farm that's -within a quarter-mile, but
still a farm that they don't even work on—that
doesn't necessarily improve their safety.
Also, somebody could be in a certain area,
we have a big block of trees where they don't
get trimmed or picked or anything done to it
all in one day so you may be in the same
general area for a period of weeks doing the
same job. Meanwhile, say you're picking
apples, say you're trimming apple trees,
somebody could be spraying the peach
orchard that's nearby or somebody could
spraying the pear orchard that's nearby, but
your workers are supposed to be trimming the
apple trees. So if they're where they're
supposed to be, their exposure risk is really
none because they're not in the pear orchard,
they're in the apple orchard.
One thing that we found to be successful
in keeping our workers safe that's maybe a
slightly different twist than what the standard
requires is that, rather than worrying about
telling each individual worker who's in the
tree—if you have a group of 10 people, say,
rather than going to each one of them—
you've got to make sure that your man
operating the sprayer knows where that group
of workers is. If you can say to him, "OK, I've
got workers in the apple orchard, don't spray
that, spray something else that day," that does
a heck of a lot more because that's where your
danger is, where your sprayer is. It doesn't
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matter if...they can be in an area that's not
being sprayed and they're not going to be in
danger of exposure there.
Then the other thing was this thing about
designating blocks for posting your notifi-
cation. We have numerous lots where we can
have more than one variety of crop within
that different block, say, a sweet cherry block
or a peach block. Well, you may have 'six
varieties of sweet cherries in and may start
picking two or three weeks ago and you won't
finish for another few weeks. Well, that may
be one block of 20 acres say, but if they're
picking at a lower area, if this center section is
your block, if they're picking at a lower area,
the other side of that block could be
thousands of feet away. But for designating
that a block, you're still, I guess, technically
spraying in the block even though you're fat
away. But if this is a block here and this is a
block, you can designate your spraying in
here, but you can have a worker working
closer on this side because this is a separate
block. There are some things there that just
don't quite add up. I think you can safely
spray in the same block where workers are
working provided that you ensure that there's
no drift and you observe the re-entry
intervals. I mean, if the workers are doing 100
trees a day or something and in their group
and you have a four-day re-entry, why that
means you've got to leave at least 400 trees
unsprayed so they have a place to work for
the next four days and then try to work
around them. I hope that there would be
some adjustment in that. Because the prob-
lem we have is that our trees are already
planted and we can't move our trees to adjust
with this new regulation. We have to deal with
the thing.
And we have a sweet cherry block that
people are working in, that if we don't spray
them there won't be anything there for them
to pick. With all the rain that we've just had
recently, why there's all the decay and there
•won't be a job for them anyway now. At the
same time, we're not going in there and
spraying the worker to save the crop. There
have been comments that that's occurring in
other areas, but I want to say again that in my
experience—and I'm not speaking for anybody
else—my experience is that that doesn't occur
in Adams County.
I guess my final closing thing would be just
to say that keeping workers safe and free from
injury of any kind, not just pesticides, but any
kind of injury on the job—whether it's falling
off a ladder or anything—is a primary concern
that we as employers have. I want to impress
that to any of the advocacy groups we have
here with us as well. Aside from any monetary
value that you want to put on a worker, why
just as human beings when we don't want
to...how can you tell a man to go to work for
you and then two hours later drive a sprayer
and spray him. I can't do that and I don't
think very many people in this room can.
Maybe they can in South Carolina or New
Jersey or some of these other places, but this
meeting is in Adams County and maybe that's
the reason we had it here [Laughter] because
iwe don't do that here. As a general rule, now
there may be an accident, but as a general rule
that doesn't occur here. The unfortunate
irony is that in more time that we as growers
are forced to spend dealing with the
174 Pennsylvania
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mechanical aspects of the regulation, all the
note-keeping and everything else, that keeps
us out of the field and that keeps us away
from our workers where we could stop a
sprayer that might be coming by or we could
tell a guy, don't spill that on himself. Those
things are where we could be much more
valuable and infinitely more effective at
keeping their accidents and their exposure to
a minimum. So I thank you and sorry about
going over.
Mark Rice: I didn't want to speak. I was
afraid I would put my foot in my mouth. I
guess there are growers out there afraid that
I'll put my foot in my mouth, too. I run an
800-acre orchard company, six-figure
pesticide budget annually. I make all the
decisions, call the shots, tell people when
they're spraying, what they're spraying. I'm in
charge of everything so I deal with the -worker
protection and safety of my workers and
everything that goes on on the farm every
day.
I wanted to start out by bringing some
statistics into it. I think that there's about
40,000 annual deaths from car accidents,
about 25,000 annual deaths from gunshot
wounds, several thousand drowning, several
thousand deaths from falls. I think that there
are probably several dozen lightning strikes
that kill people. On a farm, I know there is a
problem with tractor overturns. They
probably kill dozens a year. I'm not aware of
ever hearing of death from pesticide
poisoning. So why are we here? Why are we
here? My share of the national debt is
),000. My little daughter's share of the
national debt is $60,000. My whole family's
share of the national debt is damn near a
quarter of a million dollars. How can we
afford to be here fighting a problem that
doesn't exist? It does probably exist, but has
this accomplished anything to mitigate that
problem? I don't believe so.
I think that there is a basic dichotomy
here between the efficacy groups and the
growers. The growers' motive is not hard to
understand. We need profits to stay in
business. We see a lot of good in staying in
business. Our motives are fairly
straightforward and simple. Farming, as
anybody can tell you, isn't. It is filled with
pitfalls that affect our profitability. The
advocacy groups have another agenda entirely:
it's social, it's political. I don't think there'll be
a meeting of the minds.
I think the Worker Protection Stan dard is
absurd. It's filled with so many absurdities
there's no time to address them all. Why, for
instance, is every DuPont poison no posting,
but [Inaudible] which is not even toxic,
requires posting? It makes no sense.
Gramoxone requires posting. We could
spread Lannate on the trees. Why? Right now
I've got 25 people on the fields thinning
peaches and they're dealing with this 4-day—
I'm using Captan, sulfur, [Inaudible] as my
spray schedule. I spray Captan and I got a 4-
day re-entry interval and I've got a 2-day re-
entry on [Inaudible], that was two days, sulfur
I think's 24 hours. So some rigs go out with
Ziram, some go out with Captan so that I can
come back to the field sooner. And yet, I
don't believe for a minute that you or
anybody can tell me that there's any more risk
Pennsylvania 175
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for Captan than there is for Ziram. As a
matter of fact, Ziram, the LD-50 on Ziram is
2,500 milligrams per kilogram and Captan is
9,000 so Captan's essentially non-toxic. Yet
Ws got this 4-day re-entry. So you lose respect
as these things accumulate and as you see all
these inconsistencies. Not that we don't try to
comply, because we really do, we have to.
There's too much to lose.
Let me say with regard to farm work in
general, that I think it's not an easy life. I
think it's a terrible life and I think anybody
who can should get out of it. It's got long
hours, it's got low pay. Most of the people
have bad diets. Most of the people don't have
the best personal hygiene. They travel around
in rickety cars. These don't reflect an
occupational illness, they reflect poverty. I try
to fight their poverty. I sign their paychecks.
I give them a paycheck, I give them a job,
OK? Now there's been a lot of talk about
training, training. It always mystifies me,
training. I'm supposed to train the people. I
do train the people. I got the little booklets, I
got the compliance materials, got the set of
overalls in the van where the people are. For
some strange reason, after we sprayed for
four days, five days ago, and they'd been
pruning and working in there for two days
and all of a sudden they've been contaminated
and need to change their overalls. We've got
the overalls in the van so we're legal, but are
we accomplishing anything? No.
OK, training these people. OK. I've got
these 25 guys, they don't run spray rigs. They
tend peaches, they pick peaches. They use
hoes. They don't spray pesticides. Anybody
who runs a tractor and sprays pesticide is
intensely trained. The first training is how to
drive the tractors because if the tractor
overturns, not knowing how to use the brakes
and the gears on the tractor is so much more
dangerous than anything else that we're doing,
that we're talking about, that that's where the
emphasis is and of course everything else...
The training, OK What am I supposed to
train these people to do? They got to go up in
the trees and they've got to pull the peaches
down and believe me, we've got to spray. I
mean I know that so well. We have to spray
or we won't have this food, people want this
food. What am I supposed to train them in?
OK, wash their hands, don't smoke. Wash
their hands before they eat, don't smoke, wear
a long sleeve shirt and there's not a lot more
to it than that. They're either going to listen to
me or not. They're probably going to smoke,
they're probably going to eat an occasional
thing without washing their hands even
•though the hand wash is there, believe me.
That doesn't amount to anything.
Then, these advocacy group's going to say,
we need to train the workers. Well, what are
they really doing? They've got a legal and
social agenda and what they really want to
train the workers to do is to feel suspicious
and fearful of the bosses. It's a political
agenda; it's not a safety or health related
agenda. I cannot tell people that chronic
exposure to pesticides is good for them. I
don't necessarily believe that. My experience
here in Adams County is that fruit growers
live a long and healthy life. These other things
don't lead necessarily to long and healthy lives:
poor hygiene, poor diet, the lack of money in
general.
176 Pennsylvania
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The training that comes in, I don't know
what they're talking about. They're going to
teach them to be afraid of pesticides. Now we
know, we know. You guys should know if you
don't know that there's this big thing that
happened in Vietnam, they used Agent
Orange. I can tell you what's in Agent Orange
2-4-5-TP mixed with 2-4-D. 2-4-5-TP is
contaminated in the manufacturing process
by dioxin. Dioxin is a very potent human—I
don't know if it's a carcinogen or what. It's a
very strong poison second only to botulism
among known poisons. The thing about it is,
all the servicemen in Vietnam who came
back—there's a tragedy going on in this
country—there are several thousand, many
thousands, tens of thousands of Vietnam
veterans who believe very fervently that they
have been poisoned and their lives ruined by
Agent Orange. But the government itself, no
matter how many studies they've done, can't
correlate that with anything. Statistically it
isn't borne out.
Russ Bowen: Thank you. We're going to
have ask that you [Inaudible]...so everyone
else has an opportunity to speak.
Mark Rice: Well, I'll leave it at that then.
Guy Moore: Well, my worst fear has been
borne out, I get to follow Mark. [Laughter]
What else can I say? I would like to say to the
advocacy groups: I have never, eve'r, never
sprayed anyone [Inaudible]...! don't know
anybody who •would do that Any farmer who
would willfully spray the workers should have
all the appropriate counties brought against
him. I do not consider a member of the
farming community that would willfully do
that to a worker. Everything else has been
said. Many inconsistencies. Here on the East
Coast, lot of growers out here are also
growing vegetables, cantaloupes and
tomatoes. Chlorothalonil is a 24-hour REI.
That is the fungicide of choice. It is the most
effective available. When you pick these crops
every day, tomato and cantaloupes, you spray
them with something that's a 24-hour REI
you're going to be in violation so what's the...
[Taping suspended while tape was changed].
I hope that we can do something that works
out for the best for everybody.
Nancy Santiago: I'm representing the New
Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection, Pesticide Control Program. At this
moment I'm -working as a worker protection
coordinator, but before I worked as a worker
protection coordinator, I was an inspector of
pesticides, exposures. For this reason, I have
a lot of experience. I am very surprised, this is
very good to hear that in Pennsylvania that
you don't have problems, but my experience
as an inspector being daily in the field showed
me that sometimes accidents happen. And
because of that I know that workers could be
exposed, even farmers could be exposed. I
know that it's very difficult if the people don't
have the knowledge.
What I see about the worker protection is
that it's an opportunity for the workers to
know something and in the daily community
it is really the community that responds. What
I see with worker protection is an oppor-
tunity in a poor community to complain
Pennsylvania 177
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about something that maybe in the past they
never realized. I can see regarding New Jersey
we have very excellent growers in New Jersey.
Those that have complied with Worker
Protection Standards, they are the first ones
•who are working with us in the department.
And we also have a few that really don't want
to deal with the issues of worker protection,
but we know that is a very important issue at
this moment.
At this moment we trained already over
1,000 growers. Myself, I did over 1,000
growers. I'm training with a couple of groups
and a group from CATA here and a group
from Rural Opportunities and the clinics,
we've trained over 5,000 people in New
Jersey. And I know that some of the trainings
have been very difficult for people to accept
because what happened, for example, is some
growers don't want the advocacy groups to go
to the farms. On the other hand, some
workers feel intimidated when the state
people go to do the training. There are places
where they even feel intimidated when the
farmer does the training. For this reason, it is
very difficult to evaluate the whole Worker
Protection Standard only in the training. But
I can say, for example, the parts of the
records, the records, for example, in New
Jersey, we know that can be done. It's
difficult, but can be done. We have done it
since 1988. It's exactly the same amount of
records that we have now in the WPS, it's
exactly the same that we have been doing for
1988. For this reason, I know that can be
done.
Before we did that, a group of farmers--
myself and the Department of Agriculture
that in New Jersey we are under
Environmental Protection [standards]—we did
a pilot project to check how the worker
protection is going to work. What we did is
we noticed if the farmers kept their records.
That was something, it's true, sometimes they
didn't notice the records. A concern that I
have is, for example, in New Jersey is the
different languages. We have over 10 different
Janguages in New Jersey, not only Spanish but
nine other languages, which makes it very
difficult. We noticed that sometimes people
would skip the flip chart. When they used the
flip chart sometimes they skip the
[Inaudible]...
Regarding other issues, we know that it's
very difficult sometime to implement because
we don't have enough money. But I think that
the Worker Protection Standard is one of the
ways to make the farmers and the workers
united, sometimes something in common that
they can share some knowledge about
pesticides. I would like to congratulate EPA to
make these public hearings, because it is
important to hear the other side of the story.
It's important not only for the state to listen
to what the farmers have to say, but also to
give the opportunity to the advocate groups
to talk about their complaints, that they told
me about New Jersey, all of these problems,
that happened in New Jersey. We do have
problems, but we also have an educated
community too.
David Bingaman: Thank you very much.
I'd first like to thank Bill Kleiner at the
Extension Office here in Adams County for
doing a lot of the legwork to put this meeting
178 Pennsylvania
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together. I'm neglecting him because he
wasn't on my laundry list of people at the
beginning of the meeting, but I don't want to
let that go.
I would like to speak to you not as a
worker protection coordinator for
Pennsylvania, but more on the part of a lot of
farmers in Pennsylvania with small acreages of
various crops that are greatly impacted by the
re-entry intervals on certain pesticides. A lot
of these pesticides fall collectively into the
category of fungicides. And touched upon just
a few minutes earlier, the cantaloupe situation
with chlorothalonil is an excellent example.
Previously we heard about Captan on
peaches, [Inaudible]... on strawberries—things
like this that prohibit growers from managing
their crops. They also prohibit workers from
having a job at certain times. We are in a
temperate zone in the northeast and the
exposure is limited by a shorter growing
season. I believe in California, some areas
around Salinas can produce strawberries all
year. I don't think any of the states
represented here today can make that claim.
I think some credits have to be given to
our growers even though for EPA at
headquarters it creates a problem in that now
you have to do risk assessments based on the
reality of agriculture in different areas of the
country. But I don't feel growers in temperate
climates should have to abide by regulations
that are more appropriate for a 12-month
growing season that we have in certain states
in the United States. I'm talking on behalf of
a lot of growers that would include the Amish
community in Lancaster County, where
growers may have only two acres of tomatoes
that they hand-pick for fresh market, a couple
of acres of cantaloupes and maybe three or
four or five other crops. They have mostly
hand labor provided by family personnel and
other extended relatives and in some cases
have exemptions under Worker Protection.
But nevertheless, I think we need to look
at providing certain types of exemptions that
might include certain personal protective
equipment for workers that will allow early
entry into fields. I spent a lot of time during
the hot months last summer putting a package
together for EPA on that to provide an
exemption, which was denied. This was to
piggyback onto a request that Delaware made,
realizing that cantaloupes needed to be
harvested every day during the production
season. During the harvest season this is
essential. And the fungicides need to be
applied to keep the plants healthy. It was a
real situation, but it was something that didn't
get addressed. As far as I'm concerned,
basically the growers had to do -what they had
to do last year in all the states that were placed
in this situation. Thank you very much.
Chris Baugher: I'd like to thank you all for
holding this meeting. I don't have any
prepared statements except I'd like to address
the question that you proposed at the
beginning and that •was, how effective is
worker protection? I would say on our farm,
in our situation, that it has made no difference
whatsoever to the protection of the workers.
Before Worker Protection, they were all
trained because they had to be trained for
HazComm under OSHA and they had to be
trained for Pennsylvania worker Right-to-
Pennsylvania 179
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Know again. They were all told that if the
sprayer was ever in the vicinity where they felt
they were going to be drifted upon, they
needed to get themselves out of the field
immediately. No one was ever asked to work
inside a re-entry interval. All the applicaters
were properly trained and had many years
experience. So as far as protecting the
workers, you've done nothing on our farm.
You have done a great evil to limit my
ability to spend time in the field. I have spent,
I have wasted probably three hours in the last
three weeks to a month training people who
don't work for me now. These people are
migrant, they're transient. They were trained
at the farm before they got to me and were
trained at the farm before that and were
trained at the farm before that. They've been
trained and trained to death and they're sick
of it. When you do train them, they're not
interested.
The one thing that I really concentrate on
when I do my training is the on site, site
specific training because I think that's the
most important, that they know where the
facilities are on our farm to protect
themselves and where the records are and
those things. But they never look at the
records. They know right where they are. I
have never seen any of them go into the box
and pull the records to check what was
applied. I've never seen any of them and
we've told them in the morning that we were
spraying today and to go in and look at what
is posted as far as what we're spraying, they
don't use it But it costs me a lot of time.
You may feel that you're protecting
people on farms where these—and I do tend
to believe that there are situations where
migrant workers get sprayed. I think
everybody in this room who is a grower
doesn't spray workers, never has. But that's
the kind of grower that shows up at this
meeting. There are growers out there who
might spray a worker, but they're not going to
show up at this meeting and they're not going
to comply and they're still going to spray
workers if they want to. Before Worker
Protection, the label language was already
there that they could be sued and they could
be thrown in jail. So it hasn't changed
anything there either. All you gotta do is get
'em. It was already the law. We didn't need
another law.
So if you really want to know how
effective it is, the answer is: completely
ineffective. The purpose was well intended,
but my grandfather used to say, the road to
hell is paved with good intentions. And I
think that's where we're headed because we
can't afford it. We just can't afford it. Our
margins are getting smaller and smaller each
year and I don't have time to spend in the
field anymore because I'm dealing with this.
That's all I have to say.
Russ Bowen: Thank you very much. At
this time I would like to ask if there is anyone
who has not had the opportunity to speak
who would like to speak.
James Aidala: I know it's been a long
evening and a very useful one, I don't want to
try to take up too much time. I just want to
say a couple of things. First of all, this really
does help us build a record and the record will
180 Pennsylvania
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be open if you want to, it's not that formal,
people can just write in letters and provide
comments, summarize what they said or what
they wanted to say and send it to us. Again,
the addresses are out front. That record will
remain open until this whole series of
meetings across the country ends. That will be
approximately late September. Some people
have asked us about the timing of that. This
all goes into the record. This all goes into
helping us make further deliberations of what
problems there may be, how to make
improvements, helps us build a record on
proposals that have come before us.
Let me recount a couple of major things
I've heard here. First of all, all these problems
notwithstanding, from all kinds of points of
view compared to when this whole thing
started 18 and 24 months ago, before it
actually hit the field in any way, there were all
kinds of dire predictions from all kinds of
perspectives, about 103 different things that
could really implode. The fact that I think I've
heard [Inaudible] centering on a bunch of key
issues, at least for this region, is to me good
to know—to help us go further and figure out
where we need to do some further thinking
or to perhaps find solutions that work for
some parts of the country and offer them to
see if they'll work over here in the mid-
Atlantic region. (Taping suspended
momentarily]
For example, the problems with central
posting, decontamination and re-entry
intervals, as many of the growers have stated—
again, compared to some of the other prob-
lems that might have occurred as originally
advertised, I think that's a universe of issues
that we do need to address and one that I
think some other states may help us bring
some information to you that can help. We'll
do that for state agencies to help things in the
future.
For better training—people are getting
trained and trained and trained with a video
that's called either too simple or too fast or
whatever. One person did suggest continually
attempting to improve the video or other
basic training materials and I guess it was
certainly on our list, but again, this gives us
particular information to try and apply to that
effort.
One particular thing I did want to talk
about is the pre-harvest interval and the re-
entry intervals, the reasons why they may
differ—on its face, why is it that there may be
very low pre-harvest intervals [PHI] and a
longer REI? The rationale is very simple in
that the questions of risk are very different. If
you're talking about a potential dietary risk to
the consumer by the time the product is
harvested and it gets to the consumer some
days later in the processing or even in the
fresh markets, that's a different kind of risk
equation that our scientists look at compared
to when we're looking at an REI. There are
going to be places that, in effect, there is a
disconnect. As we go through review of these
older materials, that's when all of those things
will be brought to focus and we'll have to sort
those out.
For example, on chlorothalonil, we've got
a request—not just last year, we got a similar
request this year—I was just told before the
meeting started by our staff, we've got some
additional information from the companies
Pennsylvania 181
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that may help inform that risk equation. So
that may help sort out the difference between
the REI and PHI there, based on good
science and based on protecting workers and
making sure we've got the risk protections
that we feel are essential.
As we go through these questions, those
are the kinds of things we're going to be
looking for, and looking for information—not
just from the companies but also from grower
groups and other advocates of any position as
we try to sort those things out.
Let me close on the point about the
record. From all perspectives, this is a very
controversial set of issues. Anecdotes and all
inform us, but we have to go on a record to
try and make changes. The more people can
do to help us build that record—which your
attending tonight helps us, the statements that
are made tonight help us—that is what we're
going to need to continue to make this rule
happen. Again, that goes for anybody who
has a suggestion—whether things should be
tougher, that they should be easier, that they
should be modified—we need that kind of
information to be put into the record that's
verifiable, held up to scrutiny before we can
consider making further changes. And again,
this whole effort, your attendance tonight,
statements made, the willingness to come
out...I hope many of you, if you haven't
already submitted comments, some of you
who haven't spoken will want to submit
comments for the record. This helps us do
our job and will help this program continue to
succeed. That's all I have to say. Steve, do you
have any other? Instead of passing the
microphone back and forth to keep you here
longer, that might be it. With that, then, I
guess we're closed and again appreciate your
coming out on this evening and helping us
with this effort.
[Meeting adjourned]
182 Pennsylvania
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Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Leobardo Alvarez
Rural Opportunities, Inc.
Kenny Annis
Governor's Board on Migrant Seasonal
Farmworkers
Miguel R. Arrate
CATA
C.B. Ashby
Frederick County Fruit Growers
Association
Warren Aukett
U.A.P./Ag-Chem, Inc.
Chris Baugher
Adams County Nursery, Inc.
Stanley L. Bauserman
Frederick County Fruit Growers
Association
David Benner
El Vista Orchards, Inc.
David Bingaman
Pennsylvania Dept. of Agriculture
Robert E. Black
Catoctin Mt. Orchard
Brenda Briggs
Pennsylvania Apple Marketing Program
Scott Brown
Browns Orchards Inc.
Nelson Carasquillo
CATA
Wayne Casto
West Virginia Dept. of Agriculture
Robert W. Cheves
West Virginia University Cooperative
Extension Service, Hampshire County
Bud Cottrill
Bowman Orchards
Angel Crespo, Jr.
AmeriCorps, Rural Opportunities, Inc.
Modesto Cruz, Jr.
Rural Opportunities, AmeriCorps
Tom Davidson
Congressman Bill Goodling
Shelley Davis
Farmworker Justice Fund
A. Tomas Diego
;CATA
Guy Donaldson
Pennsylvania Farm Bureau
Pennsylvania 183
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Tupper H. Dorsey
Virginia Horticultural Society
Ken Eaton
Ag-Chem Inc.
Aguilera Edelman
Rural Opportunities
Susan Gardner
Maryland Cooperative Extension
E.S. Goodman, Jr.
Bureau of Employment Programs,
West Virginia Job Service
Valerie Greene
Maryland Farm Bureau
Calveie Group
Group Orchards Inc.
Leonardo Gutierrez
Rural Opportunities, AmeriCorps
Jose M. Guzman
CATA
Susan Hagler
DHHS/HRSA/BPHC/DCMH/
Migrant Health Project
Win Hock
Penn State University
Kerry M. Hoffman
Penn State University
Brad M. Hollabaugh
Hollabaugh Bros. Inc.
Jill Edwards Hughey
Mountain Brook Orchards, Inc.
Roger Kaiser
ISK Biosciences
Lynn F. Kimp
Adams County Fruitgrowers
May Margaret Kuhn
Kuhn Orchards
David Kuhn
Kuhn Orchards
Daniel Leese
Pennsylvania Farm Bureau
Bryan Little
American Farm Bureau Federation
Philip Lowe
Potomac Farms Nursery
Matthew Lowe
Potomac Farms
1 Gary Lutman
Mt. View Orchard
V. Majicia
AmeriCorps
184 Pennsylvania
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Adelma Monferre
AmeriCorps, Rural Opportunities -
Lancaster
Guy Moore
Larriland Farm
Elizabeth Owens
ISK Biosciences Corp.
Richard Pallman
Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers
Association, Pennsylvania Farm Bureau
John Peters
Peters Orchards
Daniel P. Resh
Group Orchards Inc.
Ronald Resh
Group Orchards Inc.
Mark Rice
R&L Orchard Co.
Pennsylvania 185
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Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Cooperative Extension Service, Pennsylvania State University Agriculture Department,
BiglerviUe, PA
• June 27,1996, 8:00 a.m.
• EPA staff met with Bill Kleiner, fruit specialist, and other state officials on agriculture in
Adams County, PA.
• Among the topics presented by Bill Kleiner were:
— Presenters reported on the local agricultural economy, noting that fruit orchards in
Adams County and surrounding counties generate over $103 million annually.
— Fruit growing in Adams County area is a diverse, stable industry, comprised of
multiple types of operations, and well-positioned to take advantage of geographic
access to many market niches, according to presenters.
Hollabaugh Brothers Inc. Fruit Farm & Market, Biglerville, PA
• June 27,1996, 9:00 a.m.
• EPA staff toured this 300-acre fruit farm with owner Brad Hollabaugh. The farm, a family
operation since 1955, raises apples, peaches, plums, nectarines, and pears. All pest
management and pesticide application is done by the five family members who own the
company. Two or three other workers work year-round, plus an average of 40 workers
during peak harvest periods.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— The grower would like more flexibility from EPA and state officials in WPS
implementation and enforcement.
— Concern that posting warning signs is difficult in an orchard setting. Applications are
done throughout the orchards in a patchwork fashion, not necessarily in contiguous
blocks. It would be easier to tell workers where they can go rather than where they
cannot.
— Perceived overlap between the WPS regulation, OSHA Hazard Communication, and
Pennsylvania Right-to-Know requirements complicates efforts at compliance.
186 Pennsylvania
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— The grower opposes central posting as a waste of money, without offering any
benefits.
— Perception that WPS has made no appreciable difference to safety, but has added
extra administrative work. Fanners fear that potential lawsuits from -workers, even
over minor violations, could be costly and drive them out of business.
— Farmers appreciate EPA assistance and the WPS training materials are good, but
many workers do not want to be bothered with training. Each grower feels the need
to do separate training, so workers get bored.
Ashcombe Vegetable Farm & Greenhouse, Mechanicsburg, PA
• June 27,1996, 1:00 p.m.
• EPA and state staff toured the 90-acre vegetable farm. Ashcombe started in 1957 with 25
acres of fruits, vegetables, and a greenhouse retail sales facility. It now has 90+ acres, with
seven full-time employees and 45 workers at peak season.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— The grower spoke of a misapplication violation last year and recently hired a new
spray coordinator. All pesticide applicators have been certified.
— . The grower has installed a clipboard systems for each greenhouse to note the name
and amount of pesticide applied, time of application, re-entry interval, crop, pest
problem, and applicator's initials.
— Concerns about the complexity of government regulation.
Farmworkers and Key Stone Health Care, Biglerville, PA
• June 27,1996, 7:30 p.m.
• EPA and state staff met with 10 farmworkers and two health care workers. The farmworkers
were all full-time employees who had been with one employer from one to eight years.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Farmworkers reported that they had been trained about five times (each time a new
employee arrived, all employees took the WPS training). They liked the training
video and had no recommendations for improving it.
Pennsylvania 187
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Farmworkers reported attending a daily morning meeting about pesticide
applications. Applications were highlighted on maps in the meeting room. The
grower provided soap and water before lunch and before they left for the day.
None of the workers reported that they had ever been sprayed or caught in drift, or
had heard of a problem in Adams County. Housing is not located close to the
orchard, so pesticide drift over homes was not a concern. Workers were not
reluctant to see a doctor; and their employer had offered to take them to the clinic if
they were sick.
Health care workers (doctor and nurse) reported few pesticide rashes or heat stress
problems among the 3000-4000 people typically treated during the migrant season
for respiratory problems, poison ivy, rashes, cold, flu, and pregnancy problems.
Health care workers said that the farmers in this area were enormously cooperative.
They also have noticed more pesticide awareness on the part of workers since WPS
took effect.
188 Pennsylvania
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Written Comments
Brad M. Hollabaugh
Adams County Fruit Growers Association,
State Horticultural Association of Pennsylvania, Legislative Action Committees
Bryan Little
American Farm Bureau Federation
Lori Rottenberg
National Farmworker Environmental Education Program
Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs
Robert L. Baker
Jonathan B. Bishop
Bishop's Orchards
Nelson Carasquillo
CATA
Shelley Davis
Farmworker Justice Fund, Inc. !
Charles B. Ashby
Frederick County Fruit Growers' Association, Inc.
Richard Pallman
Pallman Farms
James N. Belote, III !
Virginia Cooperative Extension
Pennsylvania 189
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Dale:
To:
From:
Re:
June 26,1996
EPA
Brad M. Hollabaugh, Chairman Adams County Fruit Growers Association / State
Horticultural Associtaion of PA Legislative Action Committees.
Worker Protection Standard - Written Comments
The following remarks were provided to me in advance of the hearing to be submitted as written commentary
for your consideration.
• Part AT submitted by John R. Peters, Fruit Grower, 517 Goodyear Road, Gardners, PA 17324
• PartB. presented by Lewis Barnard, Fruit Grower, 1079 Wawaset Road, Kennet Square, PA 19348
• WPS - Philosophy versus Implementation, presented by Brad M. Hollabaugh, Fruit Grower. 481
Carlisle Road, Biglerville, PA 17307
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PART A '• .
One of the most troubling aspects of the WPS Law is that it continues along
in the highly undesirable trend of making the employer more and more completely
responsible and liable for the actions of his workers. All of the in.formfit.ion
exchange (posting.* verbal warnings, training sessions, etc.) seem to be designed
to do little more than move all of the legal risk surrounding pesticides away
from the worker and put it all on the employer. And it is done under the
guise of "protecting the worker." Most of the work that is involved in trying
to comply with WPS could be eliminated if employees were simply made to sigg
and comply with a simple statement; "I will only go to areas I am instructed
to go to; I will regularly was'myself and my clothes; I will wear the required
protective equipment when necessary; I will inform iny employer of any contamination
that I become aware of," You get the idea. I'm sure that the legal profession
would probably be able to pick mo$t of what I suggest apart but surely someone
could write something that would stand, up. We have so many things that we must
comply with already that it would seero to make sense to allow the worker to
share in some of the responsibility, particularly when he is the one that the
law is designed to benefit. If he doesn't go where he is supposed to or if
he doesn't feel lik putting on his coveralls, why should the employer be the
only one who is to blame? Why does the employer have to alert him to the fact
that the apple orchard has just been sprayed when the worker will be trimming
peach for the next week? You can't run an orchard business if you don't have
the ability to adapt to changes in conditions. Why does the government assuiae
that growers are not are not smart enough or honest enough to keep their
spraying away from the workers. That is the only conclusion I can get from
the posting and notification requirements. They act like we want to expose
our people and the only way to get us to stop is to make us tell them every-
thing we are doing, regardless of whether or not the worker will even be in the
treated area or not,
I suppose that I could go on and talk more about the monetary costs but those
are obvious enough so I won't mention it. I guess I should make one favorable
remark for WPS just to be fair. I do think that the record keeping idea is a
good one. It does make sense to keep general records of your spray program.
The grower can refer to the information for his own benefit, and if a worker
wants a question answered , the record is there. Having said that, I don't know
how important it is to report every individual tank, tirae,; and contents. For
example, say you have a certain area that got hit by hail so you add a different
fungicide to that area. You'll have a nightmare on your hands if you try to
explain something like that to am agency person. So I guess I am advocating'-
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a less^specific reporting requirement than we currently have, while agreeing
that some requirement for records probably is beneficial.
To summarize,, it appears that the government has done what it lately seems to
always do. It has found a "terrible" problem where ther was little or noae,
and then proceeded to over^egulate business while letting labor wash:>i€s hands
of any responsibility at the same time they get another legal hammer to pound
management.
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PART B
It has been a frustrating Winter and Spring for most fruit growers. The -weather
hflH a ftimnt inftnarva nn mir A»ily ggrfrvftiftg and mmeaageg and faitiTma From a business
standpoint, we must have flexibility to deal with mother nature's upa and downs. I have
hadevery bard time fitting WPS in with aigoing activities necessaoy to grow a crop. I
have tried to educate myself on its requirements and, last year, even bought a pesticide
records computer program, to help me achieve this. "Somehow, during the rush of the
growing gftanrvn^ my intentions fell wart.
Honestly and openly, I have foiled to fulfill the WPS requirements and I can not see
how I can possibly do better this year. Perhaps a non-farm large business .would consider
hiring a person to do this or delegate this responsibility. Financially, I can not consider
employing someone to oversee regulations, and have no-one to delegate this to.
i
As a relatively small acreage fruit and vegetable grower, I am and always have
tried to create safe working conditions. I attempt to gwe instructions and safety tips prior
to and during the workday,
Each of us, as employers and farm business people, haw our unique ways of
operating and are each better at some things than otherthinp. If WPS had been designed
to educate growers of the goals which are desired, and allow us to capitalize on our
strengths to achieve a general increase in safety, it would be an asset to all of us.
As it is, you require training of wodcers well in advance of the actual performance
of the task they are being trained for. Our workers are mostly not college educated people.
Some of them can read and speak our language; come can not Many time they respond
wife a yes answer to questions they do not understand at all. Many times, instructions
given one day are completely forgotten by the following day.
Regarding pesticide records. I have maintained records long before WPS required
them. They were records {hat helped me to safely use pesticides and know where and
when they were applied so it would be safe for myself, my ranuTy, and any outside
workers. Your reeoid requirements hinder my efforts to do this. If I am required to record
pesticide registration numbers for each chemical and record the number of acres sprayed (
even though my sprayer is properly calibrated to spray either 33 crt.6acri» per tank-full),
I am concerned that I may overlook the need to protect myself and my wodosrs while being
bogged down in absolutely useless • busywork''!!
I am sony. I do not fed that WPS has any real value to me in providing a safe
working environment Thank you for reading my comments.
NjA-^M^
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AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION'
225 TOUHY AVENUE - PARK RIDGE • ILLINOIS • 60068 • (312) 399-5700 • FAX (312) 399-5896
600 MARYLAND AVENUE S.W. • SUITE 800 • WASHINGTON, D.C. • 20024
(202)484-3600- FAX'(202) 484-3604
STATEMENT OF
THE AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION TO
THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY'S
WORKER PROTECTION STANDARD PUBLIC COMMENTS MEETING
BIGLERSVILLE, PA
Presented by:
Bryan Little
Director, Governmental Relations
American Farm Bureau Federation
June 26,1996
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STATEMENT OF
THE AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION TO
THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY'S
WORKER PROTECTION STANDARD PUBLIC COMMENTS MEETING
BIGLERSVILLE, PA
Presented by: !
Bryan Little
Director, Governmental Relations
American Farm Bureau Federation
June 26,1996
Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Bryan Little and I serve as a Director for Government Relations in
the Washington, D.C. office of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation's largest general
farm organization, representing farmers in every state and Puerto Rico. I'd like to begin by
commending the Environmental Protection Agency for this effort to reach out to farmers and their
representatives at meetings around the country to deal with issues arising from the implementation of
the Worker Protection Standard. It appears that EPA recognizes that the Worker Protection Standard
is unlike anything the agency has attempted before, which may create unique problems. At AFBF, we
welcome the opportunity to work with the Agency to ease all regulatory burdens on fanners, including
the Worker Protection Standard.
AFBF believes that Worker Protection Standard (WPS) for agricultural pesticides is an unnecessarily
complex and burdensome regulation. We arrive at this conclusion based on concerns expressed by
growers through our Labor, Horticulture and Nursery Advisory Committees, and concerns expressed
by state Farm Bureau staff who work with staff and members of county Farm Bureaus helping farmers
understand their obligations and responsibilities under the WPS. These same state Farm Bureau
staffers also work with many state Departments of Agriculture, who as you know are charged with
day-to-day WPS enforcement, to advise and assist with their compliance enforcement efforts.
Because of its complexity, WPS compliance is difficult, if not impossible. In Florida, for example,
state enforcement officials found violations during 27 percent of all inspections conducted between
January 1 of last year to February of this year. For labor intensive farms, compliance is even more
difficult. Florida nurseries had violations 71 percent of the time. Greenhouses were in noncompliance
48 percent of the time. Family farms, who have a lower compliance standard, had violations only 5
percent of the time. Farmers want to protect workers and follow the intent of the law, but the
complexity of the WPS means that most farmers will miss something, despite their best efforts to
comply.
Farm Bureau believes that worker safety would be better served by a simplified version of the current
regulation. Farmers and farm workers who clearly understand the practices that are necessary to
protect themselves against pesticide risks are far more likely to implement those practices.
Requirements which are overly complex foster uncertainty and:confusion, resulting in noncompliance
and increased worker risks. For those reasons, Farm Bureau supports WPS changes which simplify
the requirements in order to protect workers and to make compliance easier. Likewise, AFBF supports
WPS enforcement policies that will ease compliance for farmers and farm workers. This can include
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making reasonable efforts wherever necessary to educate farmers and farm workers on the Standard,
and opting to allow those who may not be in compliance to come into compliance before enacting
penalties. This approach can be especially useful for farmers and farm workers who do not have a
history of chronic non-compliance.
In September of last year, the Agency proposed several changes to the Worker Protection Standard. In
general, Farm Bureau supports this effort to re-examine the Worker Protection Standard. Farm Bureau
supported the Agency's efforts to examine shortening required time periods for decontamination kits.
While the Agency's proposal is limited only to those pesticides with a four-hour restricted entry
interval (REI), we recommended that EPA examine revisions in decontamination requirements for
pesticides with longer REIs as well. Farm Bureau supported a zero-day decontamination requirement
for all pesticides with four-hour REIs. There are two reasons why we support this change.
First, EPA states in the September 1995 proposal that one of the objectives for proposing to shorten
the time that decontamination sites are required after the use of four-hour REI products is to encourage
the use of low-toxicity pesticides. A zero day decontamination requirement for certain pesticides
creates this incentive. The current 30-day decontamination requirement for all pesticides means
fanners will generally choose the pesticide option that is most cost effective. Revising the
decontamination requirement to zero days for pesticides with four-hour REIs provides a great
incentive to use lower risk products, especially for fanners who employ workers in the field every day,
or for many consecutive days. This makes lower risk products more cost competitive. Despite what
the Agency believes, the cost of providing decontamination kits is significant, particularly for farm
operations with simultaneous activities scattered over a wide area, perhaps at several different farms.
The cost difference between no requirement to provide decontamination kits after the expiration of the
REI compared to providing the kit for 30 days will give many low risk products a cost advantage.
Farmers who use few, if any, workers will continue to make pesticide choices based on chemical
efficacy and cost effectiveness. But farms that employ many workers, the very people EPA is trying to
protect through this regulation, have little or no incentive to use lower risk products as long as the
current regulation fails to differentiate for reentry time and decontamination period. A 15-day
requirement for example, provides insufficient incentive for farmers to use lower risk products.
Second, EPA states in the proposal that the 114 active ingredients that have a four-hour REI "do not
appear to pose any significant risks to workers." It is unnecessary, therefore, to specify long
decontamination requirements for pesticides that pose insignificant or no worker risks.
We welcome EPA's clarification in the preamble to the September 1995 proposed rule to the effect
that no decontamination provisions are required in cases where there will be no entry by workers into a
treated area, or where all treated plant materials have been removed.
Farm Bureau also believes a number of additional changes should be made to WPS to clarify
requirements and ease enforcement. First, EPA should eliminate the requirement for a
decontamination site after crops are harvested. There are few cases, if any, where contact with treated
surfaces occurs after harvest. While live plant material or foliage remain on many crops after harvest,
there are few farm cultural practices that bring workers into contact with treated surfaces. For
example, cultural practices on tree fruits after harvest involve orchard clean up and mowing »tasks
that do not involve any contact with treated surfaces. Further, under normal circumstances such
orchard clean-up tasks will occur well after the expiration of the post-harvest interval for food
consumption. Thus, risk of excessive exposure is relatively small. For annual crops, farm practices
include normal tillage in preparation for the next crop or the next year, but typically do not involve any
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contact with treated surfaces. We disagree with the Agency's assessment that determining the crops
that are ineligible for such an option would be too resource-intensive. We believe that the number of
crops where contact with treated surfaces occurs after harvest is quite small. Eliminating the
requirement of a decontamination site after harvest, with exceptions, would remove an unnecessary
requirement for many farmers. •••.•-: :<
EPA should eliminate the decontamination requirement when the REIs expire. Farm Bureau agrees
with EPA that some farm activities involving significant contact with treated areas may pose some
risks, especially for high toxicity pesticides. However, EPA's own data, as cited in comments
submitted by the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture with regard to this
proposed rule, states that risk associated with pesticide exposure declines substantially when the REI
expires. Thus, EPA has set those time periods after which risk is reduced as REIs for those chemicals.
In general, Farm Bureau believes there is no need for any decontamination requirement beyond
perhaps a single day after the expiration of the REI, in the event some unforeseen weather condition or
other factor presents some previously unknown risk. The decontamination standard, like the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Field Sanitation Standard, is designed to deal with
acute hazards, hazards which by and large have passed when the REI has expired.
A fixed, 30-day decontamination period does not create incentives for farmers to use lower toxicity
pesticides — an objective that is part of the Agency's proposal. Pesticides with a 24-hour REI are
treated the same as pesticides with a 72-hour REI. For these reasons, we urge the Agency to consider
this change.
EPA should allow field workers to bring decontamination kits into treated areas as early entry workers
are permitted to do. EPA should also allow growers to make similar arrangements for provision of
decontamination kits for all types of agricultural workers. Currently, decontamination sites for field
workers must not be in an area being treated with pesticides or in an area under a restricted-entry
interval. Decontamination sites for early-entry workers must not be in an area being treated with
pesticides or in an area under a restricted entry interval unless that location is necessary for the site to
be reasonably accessible to early entry workers. Handler workers must have their decontamination kits
immediately available.
Farm Bureau proposes to permit farmers to harmonize these requirements by allowing
decontamination sites for field workers to be located in an area under a restricted entry interval
provided that location is necessary for the site to be reasonable accessible to field workers, under
similar conditions as required for early entry and handler workers. This change will allow sites to be
utilized in more recently treated areas, closer and more available to workers than the current
requirement. In short, if it is safe, and indeed a good safety practice, to provide a decontamination kit
in a treated area for early-entry and handler workers, it must also be a good safety practice to at least
allow a farmer to make similar provision for field workers. At a minimum, farmers should be
permitted to furnish decontamination kits in the field, or at the nearest point access, whichever is more
convenient. ;
Farm Bureau believes the above improvements in the WPS meet the dual goals of simplifying the
regulation while providing essential safeguards for pesticide workers and handlers and urge the
Agency's strong consideration.
f:\stm\epawps.626
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Testimony before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Region 3 Hearing on the Worker Protection Standard
Biglerville, Pennsylvania
June 26,1996
Lori Rottenberg, Senior Manager
National Farmworker Environmental Education Program
Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs
1611 North Kent Street, Suite 910
Arlington, VA 22209
(703)528-4141
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My name is Lori Rottenberg, and I work with the Association of Farmworker
Opportunity Programs, as known as AFOP. At AFOP, I head the National Farmworker
Environmental Education Program, which is the largest national pesticide safety education
/ '
program for farmworkers in the United States. Thank you for this opportunity to share our
program's experiences with the implementation and enforcement of the Worker Protection
Standard. I believe that our program offers a model in which pesticide safety training really can
work to create a win-win situation for both farmworkers and for growers.
Program Description
I'd like to start my testimony by telling you a little about our program. Now in its second
year of operation, the National Farmworker Environmental Education Program was created
through an innovative partnership with the AmeriCorps national service program. AmeriCorps
provides individuals with a minimal living stipend and a small scholarship for college in return
for a year of full-time community service. Through AmeriCorps, we have 68 full-time, state-
certified pesticide safety trainers in 12 states who train farmworkers and other rural residents on
how to protect themselves from pesticides. In 1996, the program is operating in about 40 rural
communities in Arkansas, California, Florida, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New
York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virginia. In 1997, the program will be in these states and
will also expand into Georgia, Louisiana, and Washington.
AFOP developed this program because we saw the need for a national pesticide safety
program targeted specifically to migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Due to a lack of resources
Page 2 ,
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and bilingual personnel, most pesticide safety education programs run by state lead agencies are
targeted to farm owners in the hope that the farmer will then train his or her own workers. Many
growers do this, but many others do not, due to time constraints, lack of training materials, and
lack of Spanish-speaking ability. The result is that many farmworkers do not get trained as they
should. AFOP requires each of the trainers in its program to train a minimum of 350
farmworkers, and many of our trainers train well over 1,000 in the course of a year. This special
focus on farmworkers has made us the single most successful program of its kind in the country.
We at AFOP provide intensive national training to all the AmeriCorps members in our
program about pesticides and the Worker Protection Standard and ensure that they are then
certified by their states to provide farmworkers with pesticide safety training in accordance with
the Worker Protection Standard. We station our AmeriCorps members at the non-profit
farmworker job training organizations in AFOP's membership network and give them EPA-
developed trainer flipcharts, which provide illustrations and a uniform training script that covers
the 11 basic points required of all WPS-mandated training, and other EPA-approved materials.
However, our members are trained to go beyond the flipchart to provide interactive, high-quality
training that includes plenty of hands-on demonstrations, questions, and sharing of experiences
while still only taking an hour or so of the farmworker's time. All services under this program are
provided free of charge.
PageS
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Why AFOP's Program Is Successful
Because of the extensive training and support provided to our members and because of
i
their extraordinary dedication to serving their communities, AFOP's program has been a success
i
in reaching out to farmworkers nationwide. Since the program's start, our small corps of
AmeriCorps members has trained nearly 59,000 farmworkers on pesticide safety, surpassing its
original first-year goal of 27,500 and likely surpassing its second-year goals as well. We have
also trained over 10,000 other community residents about pesticide safety and the provisions of
the Worker Protection Standard, and referred thousands of farmworkers to other education and
human services. There are many reasons why AFOP's program is such an innovative and
groundbreaking pesticide education effort. ,
The most important reason for our success is that we train our AmeriCorps members to
serve both growers and farmworkers alike. Our goal is to provide a free service that will make it
easier for growers to comply with the Worker Protection Standard at the same tune that we help
farmworkers to protect themselves from pesticide exposure. Our trainers know that their role is
to serve as a grower resource and to train farmworkers on pesticide safety and link them with
other social services on an as-needed basis. Period. Our AmeriCorps members tell growers that
they are not visiting farms as inspectors, union organizers, or other controversial figures, and that
they are there to build rather burn bridges in their communities. We are proud that so many
farmers across the country have come to rely on our program to train their workers on pesticide
safety, and feel that grower participation is the key to the success of the program in a local area.
Page 4
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In addition to establishing ourselves as a resource for both farmworkers and growers, we
are successful because we offer free, bilingual training whenever and wherever it is needed, and
we save farmers lots of time in conducting the training and in handling paperwork. Just over half
of our members are former farmworkers themselves, and 75% come from a Latino background,
so they figuratively and literally "speak the workers' language." Trainings are offered whenever
they are needed, whether it's before the sun comes up, late at night after the normal workday, or
on weekends to accommodate harvesting schedules. In addition, our members save growers time
by taking the tune to do the trainings for them and by providing them with copies of the detailed
logs they keep of the workers who they train and issue EPA training verification cards to so that
the grower can show his compliance with the regulation. We also provide EPA worker
handbooks to the farmworkers we train and frequently help to distribute safety posters and other
helpful materials to growers.
While we try to work through growers whenever possible, our members have also been
successful in areas where growers have been slower to embrace pesticide safety training. In these
cases, our members seek out farmworkers through churches, housing complexes, flea markets,
schools, stores, parks, and community centers. Because AmeriCorps is community service rather
than employment, our trainers have an uncommon dedication that makes them help farmworkers
in whatever ways they can.
Another reason our program is successful is because it emphasizes hands-on, interactive
training. While some other providers of pesticide safety training use a brief video to train
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farmworkers, we believe in live, interactive, hands-on training to best meet the needs of the
farmworkers we are serving. Live, bilingual trainers provide opportunities for questions to be
asked and answered, for simple demonstrations to be done (such as pouring baby powder on a
piece of fruit and passing it around to trainees), and for the sharing of experiences among
workers and growers. We have had farmworkers who had already been trained using the video
who asked if they could attend the live training session presented by our trainers; they usually
explain that they fell asleep when the video was shown or that they did not understand the
information as it was presented.
Finally, our program is innovative because we conduct extensive evaluation activities to
examine our trainers' skills and to see if the workers are truly learning. Our trainers are required
to use short multiple-choice questionnaires with at least 25% of the farmworkers they train
before the training begins and after the training ends. We have the training questionnaires in two
languages (English and Spanish) and in two formats (traditional written and picture-based for
low-literacy groups) to accommodate the needs of our trainees. The results of the questionnaires
show us that a majority (56%) of farmworkers increase their knowledge by 30% after
participating hi the training. The data also show that fewer than a third of growers and
farmworkers in rural communities knew how to obtain pesticide safety training other than
through AFOP's program.
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Our Program's Experiences with the Worker Protection Standard
Now that you know a little about the structure of our program and why it's been so
successful in reaching farmworkers and growers, I'd like to discuss our AmeriCorps members'
experiences with the implementation and enforcement of the Worker Protection Standard.
Overall, we recommend that if any changes are made to the Worker Protection Standard,
they should strengthen rather than weaken the regulation. We have been concerned that EPA has
granted early-entry exemptions to several industries and that they may be considering additional
changes in the future. Considering the widespread presence of children and pregnant or nursing
women in the farm labor force, we urge EPA to not reduce restricted entry intervals but to
increase them to protect these special workers. EPA should also carefully field-test any proposed
changes in signage with farmworkers to ensure that any changes truly enhance worker safety.
Finally, we urge EPA to maintain consistency of WPS implementation among states to protect
agricultural workers as a whole, as other industries' workers are protected.
Through our work with the National Farmworker Environmental Education Program, we
have found that the Worker Protection Standard provides basic but vital pesticide safety
information to farmworkers. All too often farmworkers have been told or come to believe that
pesticides are "medicines" for the plants and that they are not harmful to humans. In other
instances, I think that farmworkers have not really considered the potential hazards that they
work with on a daily basis. Although the frequency and technical content of the WPS-mandated
training falls short of what is required for hazardous substance workers in other industries, I have
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hand how after receiving pesticide safety training, farmworkers make the connection between a
current skin, eye, or lung irritation and a past exposure to pesticides.
I have heard many heartbreaking stories on my visits to the field to see our AmeriCorps
members do training. A worker in California who asked if the sulfur he had been accidentally
been sprayed in the eyes with could be causing his current eye problems. Many others who told
of getting wet with pesticide drift, and not being allowed to leave the field they were working in.
Another who asked if his breathing problems might be related to his 20 years of work in the
fields. A story of a child who drank pesticides that were carried home in a Coke bottle. I have
i
also been shown many skin rashes and irritations that workers suspected may have been due to
pesticide exposures. Each of these sad stories could have been prevented had the workers had
been required to have our training years ago.
As you know, the fiipchart covers such basic information as where pesticides may be
found at work, how pesticides enter the body, possible effects and symptoms of pesticide
exposure, and how to protect one's self through proper handwashing, work clothing, and first aid
procedures. Each of the 11 points in the Worker Protection Standard must be maintained so that
workers can continue to get this important information.
While I am very proud of the work that our AmeriCorps program has done with
farmworkers in the last two years, we could be even more successful if we could have EPA's
assistance in overcoming several challenges that we have faced.
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The most prevalent problem our AmeriCorps members face is lack of enforcement of the
Worker Protection Standard. While staff at several state lead WPS agencies have been actively
supporting our pesticide safety training program (such as in Arkansas, Indiana, Maryland, Maine,
New Jersey, Utah, and Virginia), lack of enforcement of the WPS gives growers the message that
they do not have to train their workers. Some growers then disregard our members' attempts to
market their pesticide safety training services. In California in particular, we have learned that
some ag commissioners are even discouraging growers from training their workers this year
since the state is considering very small modifications to its own pesticide regulations on
signage. If growers got the clear, unqualified message that their workers had to be trained, most
of our AmeriCorps members could easily double the number of workers that they train.
EPA could help hi this area by establishing worker training as a top priority for state lead
WPS agencies and applying pressure to states that choose not to comply with WPS provisions.
While we also believe that EPA's current emphasis on evaluating the success is important, we
feel that it is a mistake to de-emphasize worker education efforts. There are still millions of
farmworkers in this country who have not been trained, despite the success of our own program
in some states. Given the current scarcity of federal resources to fund such education efforts,
EPA should consider establishing a fund that pesticide manufacturers contribute to, based on the
toxicity and the amount of the pesticide used, that could fund future farmworker pesticide safety
education programs. AFOP's AmeriCorps program could also serve as a model of an education
program that also incorporates extensive evaluation efforts.
Page 9
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Lack of enforcement also shows workers that EPA is not serious about anti-retaliation
protections. In most trainings I attend, at least one worker doubts that a grower will not fire him
if he refuses to work in a field freshly applied with pesticides and shares a story about how
someone was ordered to work through a pesticide drift or spraying. While our members explain
to workers that change is a slow process, and that most growers want to do the right thing for
their workers both for moral and financial reasons, workers are often skeptical that they will be
listened to if they complain. Strong enforcement is crucial to give workers the message that the
careless practices that caused the need for the WPS in the first place will no longer be tolerated.
Another challenge for a national program like AFOP's are the varying requirements for
trainer certification and training verification from state to state. While most states have
welcomed our program's trainers as the resource that they are and have been extremely helpful in
providing free or very low-cost trainer certification, some states have rigid policies in place that
make it difficult for our members to get the state trainer certification that they need. For example,
in California, we were recently not able to replace a trainer who left the program because the
state only offers train-the-trainer classes in the spring and fall. We had an excellent individual
identified who could have served in the program from June through its close in December, but
we could not take them on because they couldn't be certified until the fall, which means that a '
key agricultural area in will lack training services for farmworkers. In other states, the lead
agency tries to set unreasonable goals to get our trainers certified, such as requiring that they
become licensed pesticide applicators. Ohio has been discussing making this a requirement of
our trainers in 1997.
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In addition, states' varying approaches to training verification also makes it confusing for
our trainers and growers alike. Ohio and Pennsylvania, for example, have decided against issuing
EPA training verification cards, yet many of the growers that our members deal with in those
states still ask our trainers if they could offer their workers the card, since it has taken on a life of
its own as an easily recognizable compliance document. While the training verification cards
were never really pushed by farmworker advocates, since we hope that workers will get trained
over and over again rather than just once every five years, states should adopt a uniform policy
on training verification so that growers will not be confused and workers who migrate from state
to state will not face differing requirements. EPA could also designate organizations like AFOP
to issue EPA cards nationally.
Despite these problems, however, I want to stress how positive our experience has been
with this program. State lead agencies have on the whole provided useful and timely certification
training to our members and have been pleased with the extra manpower our program has
brought to their pesticide safety education efforts. Many growers have been extremely supportive
of our program, since it allows them to protect their workers and comply with the WPS without
having to spend any of their tune or money. The farmworkers of course have also benefited
greatly from our program, and we have documented knowledge gains and anecdotal evidence of
improved diagnosis and reporting of pesticide-related illness. And finally, our AmeriCorps
member benefits through the experience and training they receive, as well as their AmeriCorps
education award. We believe that our program offers a model of success that shows that worker
training does not have to be expensive or cumbersome for anyone involved.
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We welcome questions on our program and would be happy to provide you with any
additional information you might require. Thanks again for this opportunity to discuss our
program's experiences with the Worker Protection Standard.
Page 12
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Sirs:
ThanU you for this opportunity to comment on the Worker Protection
Standard.
I farm 1n Delaware with my brothers and father. We till
approximately 3,000 acres and do as much of our own crop protection
application as possible.
All too common 1n this day and age of regulations, well
Intentioned rules are enacted without any regard for the real world
practical application that the changes will cause. Consequently, the
Industry 1s strapped with costs and burdensome mlnutta that Is designed
to solve a perceived problem that may not have actually existed 1n the
real world.
An extensive study should be conducted to determine the costs and
the real benefits of such sweeping regulations that change the way
farming 1s practiced. Particularly bothersome are regulations and
labels that give states or regions competitive disadvantages as compared
to their competition.
The most worrisome times that I experience as a handler of
chemicals are the following: 1.) Jugs that glug and dribble. 2.)
struggling to get Into and out of PPE's. I would estimate that 90% of
the exposure that I have 1s a direct result of these two things.
Household laundry soap and motor oil come 1n containers that don't
glug or dribble, yet hazardous chemicals arrive 1n the same types of
jugs that have been used for generations -that do.
The PPE struggles are nearly all related to wearing layers of
clothing 1n summer heat. The coveralls and gloves are always sweat
soaked and stick Co your body. Also, the threat of heat related
problems 1s compounded by these layers. Heat warnings are posted to
Hm1t outdoor activities. I am forced to work outside all day 1n
coveralls over long shirts. This 1s a good time to challenge each of
you to send a day 1n the summer heat and humidity while wearing: "shoes
and socks, long-sleeved shirt and long pants, coveralls, and chenilcal-
reslstant gloves."
I think that the desired results could have been obtained from the
farm community with an educational program. If there 1s statistically
significant data to warrant these regs, shouldn't 1t have been published
repeatedly 1n trade magazines and talked about within the leading trade
organizations? Is there evidence that I have endangered my own, my
families, and my employees health? If this data does exist, who 1s
liable for this withholding of Information?
S1ncer1ly,
Robert L. Baker
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ORCH5BDS'
B.W. Bishop and Sons, Inc.
1355 Boston Post Road
Guilford, CT 06437
Phone:(203)453-2338
FAX: (203)458-7125
E-mail: j_bishop@ix. netcom.com
Jeanne Keying
Office of Pesticide Programs (75067C)
U.S. EPA
401 M Street, S.W. :
Washington, DC 20460
Dear Ms. Keying,
My name is Jonathan B. Bishop of B.W. Bishop and Sons, Inc. d.b.a. Bishop's Orchards. Our
farm is located in Guilford, Connecticut, where we have been growing a variety of fruits and
vegetables for 125 years. Although I will be unable to attend the EPA public meeting in my area
(Biglerville, PA) on June 26, I am appreciative of this opportunity to comment on the Worker
Protection Standard ( CFR, Title 40, Part 170 )
When the standard was proposed in 1992, 1 was disappointed that comments from individual
growers were not accepted. As then President of the Connecticut Pomological Society, I felt the
concerns of small diverse operations were being largely ignored. Further, as we became familiar
with the provisions of the Standard, it became clear that the authors had little understanding of
farm operations, and surprisingly little understanding of the principles of Integrated Pest
Management, an environmentally responsible approach to pesticide use. '"
i
I was also somewhat baffled by the need for such regulations, given that I couldn't recall a single
incidence of illness or death due to exposure to pesticides in a Connecticut orchard, certainly
there had been none on our farm in its 125 year history. If problems did exist in some types of
operations or agricultural regions, surely they could have been rectified with well crafted
measures designed to address the conditions in those specific situations. In many ways the WPS
typifies everything that is wrong with the "designed in Washington" approach to solving
problems.
Having made these general criticisms, I would like to offer more specific comments on the various
provisions of the standard.
1 . Safety Training for Workers and Handlers
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Initially I thought this would be the most difficult part of the WPS to implement. Fortunately this
has not been the case. We trained our full time staff as workers and handlers during the 1994
season. Our H2-A(Jamaican) workers came to us already trained, so there was very little
additional training effort required on our part.
During the 1995 season once again both Jamaican H2-A workers and referrals from Florida had
received training prior to working for us, and were carrying EPA approved cards issued by the
trainer. During both the 1994 and 1995 seasons we experienced very few walk-in job applicants.
This season (1996), some of our workers were not previously trained or had received training ,
but had not been issued cards, so we have had to trained them. Training workers is not too
difficult as long as it can be done in groups in scheduled sessions. All employees hired in a 5 day
period can receive training in one session, rather than needing to hold a training session every
time someone is hired. For this reason, I would be in favor of retaining the 5 day grace period for
giving new workers their full WPS training. In reality, this poses no threat to worker safety,
because new workers are never on their own. They are working in groups with other experienced
workers, or in the company of a manager who is imparting knowledge necessary to complete
work tasks.
2. Central Posting Information
In anticipation of this requirement, in 19941 began shopping for a computerized pesticide record
keeping program which would simplify the job of maintaining an application list which met all the
provisions of the standard. I have found such a program in Chemtrak by OCS software ($595.00).
Unfortunately, maintaining an up to date application list still consumes a huge amount of time, not
to mention paper.
The WPS calls for applications to be posted 24 hours in advance of the application. This is where
the authors of the Standard really show their ignorance of IPM(Integrated Pest Management)and
Mother Nature. It is impossible to know 24 hours in advance if weather conditions will be
acceptable for making a pesticide application. Often we will scout intensively in anticipation of a
pest event (for example 2nd generation Pear Psylla egg hatch, or timing a post infection Apple „
Scab spray based on data from an orchard weather station) so that a pesticide application can be
timed to do the most good. The WPS actually encourages calendar spraying (not very
environmentally responsible), as that is the only way a grower could possibly know 24 hours
ahead of time what and where he will be spraying.
Posting information in a timely fashion is also more difficult than I expected. The logistics of
getting completed worksheets from the pesticide applicator entered into the computer, and a list
printed can be extremely difficult. I am already spending a considerable amount of time trying to
comply. I am not sure that if my only job was to keep the applications list updated, that I would
be entirely successful.
Our farm is not that big that we can't communicate essential information verbally to work crews
or field supervisors. Additionally, all our sprayer operators, managers and field supervisors are in
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radio contact so up to date information is always accessible. The WPS is not flexible in
recognizing alternative methods of accomplishing the mission of the Standard. EPA should set
goals for what it is trying to accomplish, then allow employers to work with local and state
agencies to develop strategies which make sense for the agricultural conditions in their area.
3. Notice About Applications For Workers •'.
In Connecticut we have a posting requirement which predates the WPS, and is designed to notify
the public of applications of restricted use pesticides. Growers can choose to avoid posting by
using non-restricted use materials. The State publishes a list of restricted use materials so the
information is readily accessible to growers. I would prefer to use materials which do not require
posting under the WPS to avoid this time consuming chore.Unfortunately, The EPA has not
published such a list so there is no way of knowing ,in advance, which materials will require oral
AND posted notification short of obtaining labels for all pesticides from the manufacturers.
Surely someone at EPA must have a list of pesticides which contains all the pertinent
information, such as posting requirements, which could be made available to growers.
Alternatively, EPA could make pesticide labels and MSDS sheets available in electronic format
which could be downloaded and printed. Some pesticide manufacturers, such as E.I. DuPont are
already doing this for the materials they manufacture. While not all fanners are set up to access
the internet, a growing number have computers and/or FAX machines. The EPA is already
maintaining a site on the World Wide Web. It would be very easy to incorporate this kind of
information into the existing site, or make it available through an automated fax-back service.
Once again, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to comment on the WPS. Our goal is,
as it has always been, to provide a safe work environment for our workers. If you have any
comments or questions, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Jonathan B. Bishop
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NELSON CARASQUILLO
«^\.« A «.r\.»
Biglerville, PA Public Meeting
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WPS PUBLIC HEARINGS
JUNE 26,1996
BIGLERVILLE, PA
Good evening. My name is Nelson Cairasquillo. We are here tonight,
representing both the Farmworker Health and Safety Institute and CATA. I am the
director of CATA, The Farmworker Support Committee. We are based in New
Jersey, and also have offices in Puerto Rico and Kennett Square, PA - representing
thousands of farmworkers who travel along the eastern migrant stream. We are
glad to be here tonight and to speak on behalf of the farmworker - those men,
women and children who are most adversely affected by pesticides but whose
voices are seldom heard.
As a farmworker organization, we have struggled to get the Right-to-Know Act
passed in New Jersey and are pleased with, the creation of the WPS. While this
may represent progress in environmental justice for farmworkers, it is only the
beginning and much work still needs to be done. In Pennsylvania, the WPS has yet
to be fully implemented. The Farmworker Health and Safety Institute has
developed and implemented a unique WPS training for farmworkers. We have
been approved by EPA nationally, and by numerous State Lead Agencies. We are
appalled at the EPA's Puerto Rican office's unwillingness to certify the trainings
that we provide on the Island, and we are considering legal action. In particular, I
would like to comment about the flagrant violations committed by farmers, WPS
trainings and the lack of the enforcement of the WPS by both EPA and DEP
(Department of Environmental Protection).
(We have heard/I'm sure that we will hear), testimonies given by farmers on
how the WPS is complicated, there are too many pages to read in the WPS book,
some Re-entry Intervals (REI's) are too long and that it is costly, especially in
regards to decontamination sites. Their focus is a monetary one, not human.
We have received reports from farmworkers working in Southern NJ, that it is
common practice for pesticides to be sprayed in the same area where they are
working. THIS IS AGAINST THE LAW AND IT GOES ON NOT ONLY IN
NJ AND PA, BUT ALL OVER THE COUNTRY! Farmers are not complying
with their responsibilities as stated in the WPS: they are not providing
transportation for farmworkers who need medical care, farmworkers are handling
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pesticides without special training or clothing, and the workers are not aware of
the Re-entry Intervals (REI's). In those cases where the farmer is providing the
information and the workers understand it, most are afraid to complain for fear
of retaliation by the farmer. The 5 minute limit prevents me from citing
additional abuses committed by the farmers.
We are also concerned about who is training the farmworkers and the quality of
these trainings. The video seems to be the most popular method used by farmers
and state DBFs. They usually show this video to large groups of farmworkers
without monitoring the training or providing the additional information required by
EPA. In one case, the farmer told the workers that they needed to see this video,
put the video on the table (without hooking up the VCR or putting the video in the
VCR), left the room, returned, and gave the farmworkers their WPS cards without
them ever having seen the video. It seems to me that there is a conflict of interest
in allowing fanners to train farmworkers. What farmer do you know that will
inform his/her employees where and how to file a complaint if he/she is not
complying with the basic requirements? Even if the farmer is meeting the
minimum requirements by showing the video or handing out the booklets, the
quality of training is severely lacking. While I believe the card system is needed,
how is EPA/DEP monitoring that the workers with cards actually received the
training or understood the booklet or video?
Both EPA and DEP are not doing their jobs in insuring qualified trainers and
training that is culturally sensitive and effective. Last week at the pre-season
conference in Milleville, NJ, a train-the-trainer workshop was given by a the NJ
DEP. After only an hour and 15 minutes of instruction and seeing the video, those
present could be certified as trainers. This is not sufficient time to learn how to
train someone in something as complicated as the WPS. It appears that the
emphasis on this type of training and the excessive use of the video is to
demonstrate the quantity of the trainers being certified and the number of
farmworkers being trained rather than the quality of both. This undermines the
power of the WPS trainings. Is this the type of training that you all condone? EPA
and DEP, you all need to start monitoring the trainings and being more stringent in
your requirements in certifying trainers, so that farmworkers are not only receiving
the information but are understanding it. •
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In closing, I would like to challenge both EPA and DEP. You need to take a
stance and hold fanners accountable. This is your job and if you don't do it, who
will? We at CATA are involved in this ongoing struggle, but we can only do so
much. Despite the current political climate and budget cuts, we are asking you
both, to make a commitment to strengthen the WPS by enforcing it and by not
weakening the regulations (ie. don't lower the REI's). We are asking you to ensure
quality trainings and certify trainers who are concerned with the well-being of
farmworkers and not to certify trainers (FARMERS) who provide the training and
then go spray pesticides on their workers. If you don't do this, then what good is
the WPS? Thank you.
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FARMWORKER JUSTICE FUND, INC.
111119th Street, N.W., Suite 1000
Washington, D.C. 20036
Phone (202) 776-1757
August 21, 1996
Jeanne Keying
(7506C)
Environmental Protection Agency
401 M Street S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20460
Re: Worker Protection Standard
Dear Ms. Keying:
Please accept for filing the complete, written version of
the testimony we provided at the June 26, 1996 meeting in
Biglerville, Pennsylvania, on the Worker Protection Standard.
Your assistance with this request is much appreciated.
Sincerely,
Shelley Davis
Attorney at Law
Enc.
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FARMWORKER JUSTICE FUND, INC.
1111 19th Street, N.W., Suite 1000
Washington, D.C. 20036
Phone (202) 776-1757
COMMENTS OF THE FARMWORKER JUSTICE FUND, INC.
Presented at WPS Meeting, Biglerville, PA.
By Shelley Davis
Co-Director
The Farmworker Justice Fund, Inc. (FJF) is a national
organization that advocates for the rights of migrant and
seasonal farmworkers, including their right to a safe and healthy
workplace. FJF submits these comments on behalf of its clients,
who are farmworkers and farmworker organizations.
To put in context any discussion of the effectiveness of the
Worker Protection Standard, we would like to begin by describing
several pesticide poisoning incidents that occurred recently in
the states of the Eastern Stream, which illustrate the kinds of
problems which occur and their consequences.
Incident One; Farmworker Who Was Assisting Pesticide
Applicator Was Not Given Personal Protective Equipment. A few
short weeks ago, on June 13, 1996, a farmworker was assisting a
tractor driver who was applying the organophosphate insecticide
ORTHENE to shade tobacco in Massachusetts. The worker was
clearing debris and opening the enclosure for the tractor driver.
As such, during most of the day, the farmworker was working about
12 feet from the tractor. The tractor driver was given personal
protective equipment to wear, the farmworker was not. As could
be expected, however, the pesticide DRIFTED onto the farmworker.
That night the farmworker became very ill, with nausea and
vomiting. For several nights the symptoms were so severe he
couldn't sleep. And now, weeks later, his headaches persist.
Orthene is a Toxicity Category III insecticide. That means that
it is NOT the most highly toxic pesticide, but is a moderately
toxic product. Nonetheless, it can cause significant harm.
When the farmworker went to a migrant clinic on the day
following the incident, he reported to clinic personnel that he
believed that he had been poisoned by pesticides. The doctor on
duty that day was inexperienced and, notwithstanding the signs
and symptoms of organophosphate poisoning, failed to administer
any RBC or plasma cholinesterase test. Consequently, this is the
kind of incident which goes unreported and is never reflected in
the statistics on farmworker poisonings.
What occurred here: The grower mechanistically applied the
Worker Protection Standard (WPS), treating the tractor driver as
a pesticide handler, but ignoring the participatory role played
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by the farmworker in the application process. The farmworker's
direct involvement in the pesticide application process entitled
him to appropriate training, PPE and other related protections.
Since these protections were not provided, he was injured.
Because pesticides are used routinely, there is a sense of
familiarity with these products that leads employers to forget
that these products are dangerous. This is the attitude that
needs to change.
Incident Two; Employer Retaliation. In another incident
this summer, several farmworkers in New York State were sprayed
with pesticides while working. When one of the workers asked the
grower what pesticide was being used, the grower fired the three
workers, one of whom had been employed on that farm for 19 years.
This kind of retaliation, if not severely punished, will sound
the death knell to these regulations, because workers will never
assert their rights if they fear that doing so will cause them to
lose their jobs.
Incident Three: Pesticides Can Be Fatal. Some incidents
end in tragedy. One such case concerns Raymundo Hernandez.
Raymundo worked in a tobacco farm in North Carolina. On July 21,
1995, his first day on the job, he was sprayed with pesticides,
from a tractor, which was about 40 feet away, according to other
workers in the crew. Raymundo became dizzy, disoriented and
nauseous and began to vomit. The grower agreed to take him back
to the labor camp. On the way back, the grower stopped at his
house for a few minutes to do something. The employer claims
that when he came back to his truck, Raymundo was walking away
and wouldn't get back in the truck. The grower simply went back
to the field and continued his work. 2.5 months later,
Raymundo's body was found, near the growers' house, about 12 feet
off the road. His badly decomposed body could only be identified
by his sandals.
This is a terrible story, because this is a tragedy that
could have been prevented: First, the poisoning itself could have
been prevented by keeping workers out of fields when they are in
the line of fire for DRIFT. Second, when someone is very ill,
they must be taken directly to a medical provider — here a
hospital was only 15 minutes away. Third, the state department
of agriculture never fully investigated this incident. One of
the main things they failed to do was to interview the workers in
this crew. They were impeded in this effort by the fact that
they had no Spanish speaking personnel. The 2 crew members, who
eventually spoke to,the Sheriff's Dept to identify the body, were
extremely reluctant to do so for fear of losing their jobs.
Apparently, the grower told the state dept of agriculture that no
spraying occurred on that day and that was enough to end the
matter for the state. This is not the way the WPS should be
enforced.
WIDESPREAD LACK OF COMPLIANCE PERSISTS
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In the last few weeks, we have spoken with farmworkers and
their advocates from North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New
York, and Massachusetts. The experiences people are having are
remarkably similar throughout the region.
Training; The single provision with which there is the most
compliance is training. This is very good, because in many
respects training is the linchpin of the program. And getting
tens of thousands of farmworkers trained remains one of the most
daunting tasks imposed by these regulations.
!
Nonetheless, not all have been trained; This job is
underway, but more needs to be done. In different states, there
are many groups, including Americorp volunteers and grower
associations who are doing training. But many workers remain
untrained. This must still be a priority.
Trainings are conducted without translators for questions
and answers; Many workers are being trained through the use of
videos. This is an acceptable method, but it must also be
accompanied by the presence of someone who can answer the
workers' questions. All too often there is no one there who can
speak the language of the workers (and/or no time is set aside),
so that there is no opportunity for the workers to get their
questions answered.
The workers still feel vulnerable to employer retaliation;
One interesting affect of the training is that workers now KNOW
that pesticides can be dangerous, but they still feel unable to
do anything about it. Let me give an example: One worker
applying an herbicide in a Virginia tobacco field became so ill
he had to be hospitalized for several days in very serious
condition. He was too afraid of losing his job, however, to file
a complaint with the state pesticide agency. This is common.
Workers are dependent on the jobs they have and they believe that
they will lose this employment, if they file a workers
compensation claim or a complaint of pesticide poisoning.
Posting of warning signs; Posting of warning signs has led
to another curious phenomenon. In the Eastern Shore of Maryland
and elsewhere, growers are posting signs and then leaving them up
throughout the season, even though they continue to direct
workers to work in those fields. That really defeats the purpose
of the sign. The purpose of the sign is to inform workers of
when it is too dangerous to reenter a field. If the grower posts
a sign and then instructs the workers to work in that field, no
accurate information has been conveyed. The workers remain
COMPLETELY in the dark as to when it is safe and when it is
dangerous.
Posting of Chemical Lists; Throughout the region, workers
are reporting that they have NO ACCESS to workplace chemical
lists. Perhaps workers don't know where these lists are posted.
So I asked workers about this. As one Virginia tobacco worker
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put it, "all workplace notices that I know of are posted in the
labor camp. No chemical list is posted there. If one is posted
somewhere, no one ever told me where that is."
Decontamination water; Washing with soap and water
immediately after a pesticide exposure is one of the most
effective ways of preventing or minimizing illness or injury.
For that reason, the WPS has required growers to provide
decontamination water to their workers for the first 30 days
after application (or 7 days for so-called reduced risk
pesticides.) But NO WORKER or ADVOCATE that we contacted
reported that decontamination water was available.
INEFFECTIVE ENFORCEMENT REMAINS A PROBLEM
Enforcement of these regulations is critical, because it is
necessary to change behavior. When you think about how the use
of seat belts has increased over the last 20 years, it's obvious
that people can learn to take health and safety measures but it
takes a lot of repetition and reinforcement to get them to change
their behavior. Growers aren't going to take the WPS seriously
if they don't see any consequences from ignoring it.
One effective way of enforcing the regulation, would be for
agencies to make inspections, inform the grower of the areas of
noncompliance and then return 2 weeks later to determine whether
the employer has come into compliance. At that point, a grower
who is not in compliance should be fined. Purely informational
visits are insufficient, however, to convey a message.
Complaint Driven System; All too often, agencies operate
like the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and are only
going out in response to complaints. GUESS WHAT, IT WILL BE A
QUIET SUMMER. Workers will not complain. I can't say this too
often. They are too afraid. They have too much to lose — and
have seen too much retaliation. State agencies have to be
proactive to make the WPS more than a paper promise.
Lack of Appreciation of the Danger; Because of frequent use
of pesticides, there is far too little recognition by employers
of their potential for harm. Compliance with the WPS is spotty.
On one North Carolina farm, the grower provided the workers with
training, but then allowed them to be sprayed by drift from an
adjacent field. This shows that the employer still doesn't
realize the risks to which he's exposing his workers.
THE WORKER PROTECTION STANDARD ITSELF REMAINS FLAWED
The WPS was written with an ungenerous hand. It is
difficult to understand or enforce because every rule has
exceptions — and even the exceptions have exceptions. This is a
problem that should be corrected by EPA. Instead, the agency
appears willing to make it worse by continuing on the road of
creating ever more exceptions.
-------
Both the growers and the workers agree that the regulations
need to be simplified. But "simply" doesn't mean weak, it means
less complicated.
Many of the changes since 1992 have significantly increased
the risk of harm to workers. On May 3, 1995, the EPA issued five
changes in the Worker Protection •. Four of the five changes
seriously erode the fundamental protection afforded by the
restricted entry interval (REI). These provisions allow "early
entry" exceptions and exemptions and shorten the minimum re-entry
interval ("REI") from 12 to 4 hours for a large and growing
number of pesticides, even though some of these products cause
eye irritation and chronic health effects. At the same time, the
EPA reaffirmed the right of employers to expose untrained workers
to toxic pesticides before they receive pesticide safety
training. The EPA decided to permit growers a 5-day grace period
before workers must be trained, as long as workers are given
seven safety "tips" before they begin work. But this turns
occupational safety principles on their head. At a minimum, no
worker should be exposed to toxic chemicals without first being
taught safe work practices. The EPA also kept the retraining
interval at five years, even though annual retraining is needed.
More recently, in June, 1996 the EPA permitted a reduction
in the size of the sign posted to warn workers to stay out of
pesticide treated areas and significantly limited the time period
for which growers must provide decontamination water (which is
the most effective way to mitigate injury in case of accidental
exposure). Not only are these jchanges harmful, but they were
also promulgated in flawed and improper processes. For both
reasons, these changes should be rescinded.
By contrast, other initiatives to protect farmworker health
have languished. Most notably, EPA has violated its 1992
commitment to providing farmworkers with the same protection
under the WPS as other workers receive under OSHA's Hazard
Communication Standard. For although OSHA's Hazard Communication
Standard guarantees that workers receive chemical-specific
training and information about the products to Which they are
exposed, farmworkers do not receive these protections.
Similarly, although OSHA requires workers to be trained before
they come in contact with a chemical, the WPS allows untrained
workers to work in pesticide-treated fields for 5 days without
training. Nor has the EPA issued regulations to prevent
farmworkers from injury from pesticide drift, which remains one
of the most common ways in which workers are injured.
CONCLUSION
Compliance to date has been grudging. Some have followed
some provisions, few have done all that is required. This needs
to change.
For the memory of Raymundo Hernandez and the many others
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like him who work hard in order to a make a decent living for
themselves and their families, we owe them a safe place to work.
A whole lot more needs to be done to achieve that.
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FREDERICK COUNTY FRUIT GROWERS' ASSOCIATION, INC.
P.O. BOX 2735 - PHONE 667-1336
WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA 22601
HOME OF
SHENANDOAH APPLE BLOSSOM
June 25, 1996
-Jeanne Keying
Office of Pesticide Programs
(7506C), EPA
401 Main Street, SW
Washington, B.C. 20460
Dear Ms. Keying,
As Executive Secretary of the Frederick County Fruit
Growers' Association (FCFGA), I represent 37 growers of tree
fruits and vegetables in the Northern Shenandoah Valley. Also
present this evening are Tupper Dorsey, President of the Virginia
Horticultural Society, and Stan Bauserman, President of FCFGA.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on concerns and
experiences with Worker Protection Standards (WPS) Regulations.
I.
a. Harvest workers are well protected with the current
level of regulations. In 1995, our Association trained and
issued 424 cards for English, Creole, and Spanish speaking
workers. Some workers arrived for the harvest with cards
indicating training received in other states. However, most of
our growers re-trained their workers in order to feel more
secure.
Spraying is completed well ahead of the arrival of our
workers. All these materials have strict re-entry and pre-
harvest standards. Naphthalene Acidic Acid (NAA), a stop-drop,
which may be used during the harvest, is so innocuous, it has a
re-entry period based on drying time. Our workers are also
provided with hygiene and field sanitation material in their
native language, (attached) We sincerely believe harvest workers
are well protected by the current standard.
b. Applicators are also receiving extensive training in
their native language. The greatest problem from the grower
perspective is making the applicator wear the Personal Protective
Equipment. (PPE) As most spraying is done in the heat of summer,
wearing the extra equipment is difficult. Employers are
providing and requiring the workers wear appropriate clothing.
However, there needs to be some stated defense for employers when
workers refuse to use protective clothing.
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Page 2 - WPS comments....
This is especially frustrating for growers who are employing
more environmental friendly Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
systems. Instead of using the "shotgun" method, IPM targets
specific pests at specific times. Growers and applicators need
alternative options to resolve heat stress issues other than
simply stopping work.
"II. Consultants are critical to IPM management as well. These
folks are needed to collect accurate data used for the monitoring
of pests and diseases. Currently, consultants may enter areas
otherwise not permitted, without PPEs. We hope there are no
changes being considered in this part of the regulations.
III. The new standards for re-entry (12, 24, and 48 hours)
should be re-examined. For example, Stop-drop is used to keep
apples until they can be harvested. Having to wait 12 hours to
begin picking defeats the purpose of the application; especially
when the product is safe after drying. Scientific study has
confirmed re-entry times for each product. Re-entry should be
returned to those times.
IV. Integrated Fruit Production (IFF), currently is becoming the
standard in Europe. This "holistic" concept blends all
horticultural, worker, grower, environmental, and consumer market
concerns regarding the use of chemicals. Fruit and vegetables
grown using fewer sprays for pest and disease management, are
granted a-label that indicates to the buyer that the fruit was
grown with special management techniques. Perhaps the
Environmental Protection Agency could consider establishing
guidelines similar to the European model that would be helpful to
american growers, workers, and consumers.
Thank you again for the opportunity to provide these
comments.
Charles B. As'hby,
Executive Secretary
enclosure:
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SECEIVED
JO 1996
OPP PUBLIC DOCKET
Comments to EPA on Worker Protections Standard
Submitted by
Richard Pallman - Partner
Pallman Farms
1511 Summit Lake Road
Clarks Summit, Pa. 18411
My name is Richard Pallman. My brothers and I grow 3OO
acres of green tomatoes, S75 acres of wheat, 12 acres of
strawberries and maintain 3OO acres of hayland in our
rotation. We are also in the poultry business. I am here
today speaking as president of the Pennsylvania Vegetable
Association, as chairman of Pennsylvania Farm Bureau's Labor
Advisory Committee, and as a concerned farmer. I would like
to thank you for the opportunity to present my views on WPS
and how it has effected our farming operation. I continue to
be frustrated by regulations which are forced upon us by
governmental agencies which have no working experience in the
industry which they are trying to regulate. Apparently the
agricultural community is still regarded as an employer who
treats his employees with no respect or regard for the health
and safety of his workers. The workers are the backbone of
our business. Without them we do not exist. We therefore
want them to work in an environment which is safe and healthy
and that would cause the worker to want to return to our work
place.
New regulations usually mean additional expense. Other
industries usually can pass that additional expense on by
raising the price of the product that they sell. In the
agricultural industry we work on a supply and demand pricing
of our product. We do not have the luxury of saying that
because we had an increase cost of *5OOO.OO in implementing
WPS on our farm that I need 1O cents a box more for my
tomatoes. Unfortunately that ability to increase our selling
price is out of our control.
Most of the WPS we have been able to deal with in our
operation with little change in our operating procedures.
But several areas of the WPS have caused us some major
problems and I would like to discuss them.
The biggest problem is re-entry times which have been
assigned to chemicals with little if any scientific evidence
to support it. How can a chemical like benlate have a zero
days to harvest label for spraying and them have an REI of 84
hours ? Our biggest problem is with soil incorporated
herbicides which are used prior to our planting tomatoes.
Specifically if I incorporate Tillam into the soil, I must
-------
wait IS hours for my planting crew to enter that field
because 3 of the workers must walk on and occasionally touch
the treated soil. This system is fine as long as we are
dealing with dry weather and extended periods of dry weather.
We have a very small planting window for our tomato crop,
approximately May 15 to June 15. Days become very critical
to us. Our heavy soils do not dry out very quickly once they
become wet. A field which has been prepared for planting
will dry out much slower than a field which has been only
plowed. Therefore if I prepare a field for planting this
afternoon and it rains during the night, the soil could be to
wet to plant the next day and now I have no place to plant
that day and the workers have no place to work because now
even if I can work plowed ground I still have to wait IS
hours again to enter the new field. This all translates in
lost dollars for roe and my workers. I have to rework the
field that was rained on after it was prepared for pla'nting,
I loose a day planting, and the workers loose a days work.
First of all when these regulations were first proposed in
1974S soil incorporated herbicides were meant to be excluded.
Secondly, why after 3O years of use of Til lam according to
the label without any known health concerns, do we now have
to wait IS hours before someone can go in and touch the soil?
We are not dealing with a fumigants it is a herbicide,
My second problem area with WPS is with the central
posting of the time when a field is to be sprayed. I can
post the day when we will be spraying a particular farm or
field but we cannot post the time it will be sprayed until
after it happens. Breakdowns, weather, and road travel make
it impossible to be that specific in timing of a spray on a
field. Also the information that is required to be posted is
very similar to but not exactly the same as the United States
Department of Agriculture's Federal pesticide recordkeeping
requirements. Why can't we have better co-ordination of
regulation requirements between agencies so that we as the
one's being regulated have less duplication of what we have
to do. Both agencies are trying to do the same thing but
each wants it in a different form.
I hope that after hearing from farmers around this
country, that some changes can be made to the WPS that will
make our compliance easier to deal with without compromising
the health or safety of our farm workers.
Once again thank you for the opportunity to make these
comments.
Pa 1 1 man
R i chard Pa11man
Parts.ier ,
-------
Virginia Cooperative Extension
Tech
Accomack County Office
23201 Front St
P.O. Box 60
Accomac, Virginia 23301-0060
804/787-1361 FAX: 804/787-1044
August 1, 1996
Jeanne Keying
Office of Pesticide Programs (7506C)
EPA
401 M St., SW
Washington, DC 20460
Dear Jeanne:
The following are comments I have in regards to the Worker Protection Standards Regulations
that are currently open for public comment.
1. Trying to comply with the Worker Protection Standards guidelines as written and be
completely legal all the time is a legal nightmare. The regulations are still too complex and
are a major challenge to farmers who want to do things right. They also are very
discouraging to new potential farmers.
2. The responsibility situation is out of balance. All the responsibility is on the grower,
not on the migrant. At the most, responsibility should be shared 50/50.
3. Growers tell me trying to comply with the regulations is very time consuming. Most
farm managers and owners say that it consumes 10% to 25% of their time, thus making the
industry less efficient.
4. Emergency entry is still a problem. If the wind in a storm blows stakes over in a
tomato field, growers must
-------
Jeanne Keying
August 1, 1996
Page 2
I thank you for the opportunity to make these comments.
Sincerejy,
L&&m~*y
f^^ T "VT T^ 1 j. Tl
James N. Belote, HI
Extension Agent, Agriculture
cw
cc:
Kenny Annis
Don Delorme
Gary Young
Mike Weaver
Pat Hipkins
Fred Diem
Fred Custis
Lynn Gayle
Butch Nottingham
-------
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rl M f
Pfn
i • 11 iif i: i«i"iiJiii i IB i \vn
iiiiTi m « ip |" P F
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7. California
Public Meetings:
Fresno, CA
• July 23,1996, 7:00 p.m.
• 33 participants (33 registered), including 19 speakers
Salinas, CA
• July 25, 1996, 7:00 p.m.
• 56 participants (56 registered), including 19 speakers
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions:
Farmworkers, Fresno, CA
• July 22, 1996, 6:30 p.m.
• EPA staff met with farmworkers; Rudy Trevifio of Lideres Campesinas; Celia Prado; Luis
Magana; Gloria Hernandez.
Chandler Farms, Selma, CA
• July 23, 1996, 9:00 a.m.
• Visit to 500-acre farm, observation of harvest work in vineyards, orchards (peaches, plums).
• EPA and state staff met with owner Bill Chandler,
AmeriCorps & Sponsor Organizations, Fresno, CA
• July 23, 1996, 12:00 p.m. '
• EPA and state staff discussed training issues with AmeriCorps trainers from the California
Human Development Corporation and Proteus, Inc., and representatives from an insurance
company and the University of California Extension Service (Fresno).
Farm Labor Contractors and Agricultural Employers, Fresno, CA
• July 23, 1996, 1:30 p.m.
• EPA and state staff discussed training issues with farm labor contractors, growers, and the
Cooperative Extension Service. .
California 191
-------
Fordel, Inc., Mendota, CA
• July 24,1996, 9:00 a.m.
• Visit to 500-acre farm (cantaloupes) and observation of melon harvest.
• EPA and state staff met with owner John LeBoeuf and farmworkers.
Monterey County Office of the Agricultural Commissioner, Monterey, CA
• July 24,1996, 9:00 a.m.
• EPA and state staff met with Francis Pabrua, Robert Roach of the Monterey Agricultural
Commissioner's Office.
Matsui Nursery, Monterey, CA
• July 24,1996, 2:00 p.m.
• EPA and state staff toured the greenhouse, led by Tina Chapman and Jose Renteria, Matsui
Nursery.
Farmworkers and Labor Representatives, Salinas, CA
• July 24,1996, 8:00 p.m.
• EPA staff met with 15 farmworkers; representatives of Teamsters, United Farm Workers,
Independent Agricultural Workers Union, California Rural Legal Assistance.
Kohatsu Strawberry Farm, Salinas area, CA
• July 25,1996, 9:00 a.m.
• EPA and state staff visited this 120-acre strawberry farm and met with owner Paul Kohatsu.
Misionero Vegetables, Salinas, CA
• July 25,1996,11:00 a.m.
• EPA and state staff toured the in-house laboratory for pesticide testing and met with
laboratory scientists.
Clfnica de Salud, Salinas, CA
• July 25,1996,1:30 p.m.
• EPA and state staff visited this health care clinic and met with Dr. Maximiliano Cuevas and
Dr. Rafael Siqueros.
192 California
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Transcript of Public Meeting
Fresno, California
July 23,1996
Beatriz Rubio: Good evening, my name is
Beatriz Rubio and I will be the interpreter.
I'm going to explain how the interpretation
will be done. Those of you who need an
interpreter, and want to listen to everything in
Spanish, please sit down here where the
headphones are. Each one of you put on a
headphone and everything that is said in
English you will hear in Spanish. If any of you
want to talk to the people, you have to come
to the microphone and I will interpret from
here. Thank you.
Jim Wells: Good evening. My name is Jim
Wells. I'm the Director of the California
Department of Pesticide Regulation and I'm
here basically just to welcome you all to this
meeting on behalf of the State of California.
We've had the privilege and the pleasure, and
the task, I guess also, of working with EPA on
this rule going back clear to 1985 when we
started developing this rule through a
negotiated rule making process. We're still
very much involved working with Region 9 in
trying to blend the federal Worker Protection
Standards into the California regulations.
That process isn't quite complete—it will be
complete this year, so that you have the label
on the California regulations and they
incorporate everything you need to know
about Worker Protection Standards. So I'm
not going to get in the way of the people who
really came here to talk; I know a lot of you
have been waiting a long time. I'm going to
turn this right over to EPA; but we're certainly
happy to have you. This is a good turnout for
a hot July night during the Olympics and we
certainly appreciate your attention to this
program and we will appreciate your
comments. It will make our program, as well
as EPA's program, better. Thank you.
Bill Jordan: Thank you, and good evening
to everybody here. My name is Bill Jordan.
I'm from U.S. EPA in Washington and I'm
very glad to welcome all of you and join with
Jim Wells in thanking you very much for
coming to be here with us tonight.
You know, so often people in Washington
talk at you and to you and tell you rules and
laws and regulations. Tonight we want to turn
that around. We want to hear from you. We
want to talk particularly and hear from you
about the Worker Protection Standards that
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
put in place to try to provide some basic
protection for agricultural workers—both the
people who apply pesticides and the people
who work in the fields that have been treated
with pesticides.
We think this is a very important
regulation. There are over 3.5 million agricul-
California 193
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tural workers and pesticide handlers in the
United States. We have spent a lot of time
trying to figure out what rules need to be put
in place so that those people can use
pesticides and be around pesticide-treated
areas safely and, at the same time, have it work
for agriculture. We have an enormous
challenge trying to do that because agriculture
in the United States is quite different in
different parts of the country. There are small
businesses and big businesses. There are row
crops and tree crops and field crops. There
are people who work on the farm all year;
there are people who move from place to
place. There are people who speak many,
many different languages and we are trying to
find a way that will work well for everyone.
Fortunately, we in the U.S. EPA are not
alone. We have working with us the people in
all of the states and I want to introduce
tonight to you some of the people here in
California who are our partners in making the
WPS a success. You've already met Jim Wells,
who is the Director of the California
Department of Pesticide Regulation. Also
here with us at the front table are Maureen
Lydon who is with the U.S. EPA in the Office
of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance;
Pat Matter, who is with the University of
California Extension Program in UC-Davis;
Deanna Wieman, who is with EPA's San
Francisco office working on pesticides, and I'll
be talking in a moment a little bit more about
Kay Rudolph, who is also from the San
Francisco office and will be facilitating the
meeting.
There are other people from the state's
and federal government here in the room and
I'd like to take a moment to introduce them
and ask them to stand up. The reason to do
that is so that you can see that we don't all
wear ties and coats and dresses; they have had
the good sense to dress more casually. I'll
start with Bob Chavez (who has just taken off
his tie), who is with the California Department
of Pesticide Regulation. Also from California
DPR is Dan Lynch. From the Fresno
Agricultural Commissioner's Office, Doug
Edwards. And from the EPA, Cathy
Kronopolus in Washington whose group is
particularly responsible for writing the WPS
rules and policies. With her is Jeanne Keying.
We have Kathy Taylor from the San Francisco
office; Mary Grisier, also in the Pesticide
Section; and Jeanne Cevera. Finally, Delta
Figueroa; she is from the Office of
Environmental Justice in Washington, DC.
Jim reminds me that also Ruth McHenry is
here from the District Office, as well.
We've seen a lot of work to implement the
WPS. A lot of hard work by people in the
government; certainly, but, more importantly,
by the people who are affected by it. By the
growers and by the farmworker organizations
individuals who have spent an enormous
amount of time learning about a new
regulation, trying to put it into effect, trying to
make it work in their businesses and their daily
lives. We have heard, over the course of the
last two years, a number of things that have
not been as effective, as successful, as they
could be and we have tried to make changes.
I won't spend a lot of time talking about all of
the changes that we have made, but we
certainly recognize that there is always a way
to make it better. That's what we are here for
194 California
-------
tonight; to hear from you what has worked,
what you think is successful about the WPS,
and we'd also like to hear from you what you
think needs to be changed so that it can work
better—so that it can be more effective, that it
can cost less, that it can provide better
protection for farmworkers. I guess I think
we spend a lot of time talking—I'm going to
stop and let Kay talk about the ground rules
for this evening. But let me just say again very
much how we thank you and appreciate the
fact that you have come to spend time with us
this evening and to give us your thoughts.
They matter a lot to us and we look forward
to hearing them.
Kay Rudolph: Thank you, Bill. I'll be
your facilitator tonight and I want to let you
know we expect the meeting to run until
about 10:00; we'll be taking a break midway
through. Mr. Jordan will let us all know. We
are going to be calling speakers in the order
that they signed in and so you have a card
number. Just refer to that and we'll be calling
you out by name and number. Please face the
microphone when you speak. We'd like you
to keep your comments to five minutes. I will
be standing up at the four-minute mark so
that you can be reminded that you are four
minutes into your presentation. If you have
additional remarks, we ask you to please
provide written comments to us. We
welcome adding these comments to the public
record. Please leave a copy of your remarks,
if you have brought some, at the front desk
where you registered. You can also send
comments to us and we have a card from
Jeanne Keying, so please take a copy of that
card if you would like to send comments later.
If you decide at any time during the
meeting that you would like to register to
provide comments here tonight, please just go
to the front desk and let them know that you
would like to give comments. Likewise, if you
were signed on to give comments and decide
riot to, when we call your name, just let us
know.
The translator will be translating the
English comments simultaneously. The
Spanish comments, you will come to the
podium and she will do alternate translations.
Other things that you might be interested in:
the restrooms are just outside down the hall
on the right, smoking is outside the building,
and we do want to let you know that the
materials on the front desk are free, so we
hope that you will take those. Thank you.
Ephraim Camacho: Good evening. My
name is Ephraim Camacho. I've noticed that,
don't take any offense now, but could some of
that water be distributed back here? You are
thirsty back there, right? Some of that water
could be distributed back here. We would
appreciate that. You know farmworkers are
constantly with that problem—that they don't
have any water, enough drinking water in the
fields and this we should make a good
example being that US EPA is here.
I am employed with the California Rural
Legal Assistance Migrant Farmworkers Project
in Fresno. I've been in the office since 1980
working as a community worker. I personally
am also a farmworker and in the last three
years I went to work pruning trees by the
California 195
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hour for two weeks during my vacation,
believe it or not. And, to my surprise, what I
found out is that the toilets in the fields were
non-existent. It was not until one of the
workers themselves had to talk to the foreman
is when one was brought in. You .are not
going to believe what I'm going to tell you. At
lunchtime, the foreman started up a campfire
to warm up the lunches. He had a plastic
container with the wording "Roundup." He
used it to store gasoline which was used to
ignite the fire. This is just three years ago; you
say, well, three years ago the regulations were
not adopted yet. I'm just making this point
that sometimes even the foremen don't realize
the danger in using containers that were once
upon a time used for pesticides.
Our office on a daily basis receives many
telephone calls from farmworkers and other
interested parties. Some of those calls are
regarding pesticide exposures which are... I
have some examples and here's one. On May
23,1995, a crew of 22 women became ill after
entering a seed alfalfa field that had been
sprayed that evening, May 22, approximately
nine hours before. The crew did not see any
warning signs. The crew was sent home for
the day while some of the other workers were
sent to the company doctor. Several of them
were hospitalized. Some of the women have
never recovered from this exposure. The
employer was not cited because, according to
the King's County Ag final investigative
report, "Boswell Company had no way of
knowing that the field had been treated with
Monitor." I have one copy of the inves-
tigative report that I can present to the panel
if they wish so.
Another incident: April 16, 1996,
approximately six women entered a green-
house without any protective gear. They
complained about skin irritation. They were
taken to the company doctor for medical
treatment. Upon their return from the doctor
is when they were given the safety gear—two
things: the overalls and what they called
doctor gloves (thin white gloves) to protect
themselves.
Same site: on April 30, 1996, some of the
same crew members were again exposed to
pesticides. This time they were training
tomato plants in one of the greenhouses.
Only two of the three women were taken to
the company doctor and this is why—what the
forewoman told them— there's only appoint-
ments for two people that day. The women
were complaining of coughing and shortness
of breath. As soon as some of the other
workers found out that there were some
complaints in this particular greenhouse, other
workers started complaining. They, too, were
saying that they had been poisoned during the
tomato thinning season. The names of the
pesticides they were exposed to (and these are
the names they gave me) were Ridomil,
Orthene, Prime +, Maxim, [Inaudible]... and
Temik. Their symptoms were headaches, skin
irritation, irritated eyes, nausea, weakness, flu-
like symptoms, and loss of memory. The
Merced County Ag Commissioner's Office is
conducting an investigation on this matter.
This year in June our office received a
telephone call from some workers in Kern
County. They were working in the grapes
handling a chemical which they were
unfamiliar with. They were complaining about
198 California
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headaches, nausea, and vomiting. The clue, I
found out later after talking to the employer,
was that the workers were treating the grapes
with gerbrilic acid. It's not a pesticide, I know.
The employer then agreed to inform the
workers about the symptoms of the acid.
However, he stated that he wanted to wait to
provide the workers training until later in the
season when more workers were hired.
There are many other horror stories like
this. Farmworkers continue to suffer either
because of someone's honest mistake or they
just don't care about the health of migrant
seasonal farmworkers.
Kay Rudolph: Excuse me, Mr. Camacho,
I'm afraid that our time is up. If you could
give us your additional comments, we would
like to include them in the written record, if
that -would be possible.
Mr. Camacho: Thank you very much.
Leticia Maravilla [Speaking in Spanish with
English interpreter]: Good evening, my name
is Leticia Maravilla. I hope I can have the five
minutes.
Kay Rudolph: We'll have Ms. Rubio
translate and will not count the translation
time.
Leticia Maravilla: OK. I'm here to testify
concerning the pesticides. Because I am one
of the •workers there that has been affected by
these pesticides, along with my working
companions. Last Monday I went into a field
that had been sprayed a 4:00 that morning. I
started working at 5:30 and it seemed like
nothing had been done concerning that. I
have been working for 16 years in the fields in
the United States. My feet are rotten because
of pesticides, because I work in the lettuce and
the soil fall on my feet. I have never seen
those agencies that are supposed to protect us
against pesticides do anything. I have gone to
Washington to give these testimonies. In '96
I was poisoned at John Harris' and the
reactions I have—I'm not going to be
embarrassed, I will show you so you can see
that my testimony is real. I can't have steady
work because chemicals are killing me. Up
until now there has been no agency that has
done anything for the farmworkers excepting
for CRLA [California Rural Legal Assistance].
I have an appointment for Friday. They
have already found many chemicals in my
body. My eyesight is bad because of the
chemicals. And the ones responsible are the
state and the agencies. I only get five minutes,
but then after all one has to pay for all these
people sitting here. We do our duty to
government by paying our taxes but
government does not fulfill its duty to us, and
here is proof and I will bring more. Many of
my companions have children that are
deformed and this isn't just five minutes—it
means more than this. Would one of you like
to have a deformed child because of chemicals
and receive $500 a month and stay quiet and
take it? Excuse me, but we are paying a high
price to have you sitting there and speaking to
us. Thank you.
Lori Rottenberg: It's very difficult to
follow a moving testimony like that; but my
California 197
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name is Lori Rottenberg and I work with the
Association of Farmworker Opportunity
Programs. I came here today representing the
National Farmworker Environmental
Education Program. Our program helps
growers in 12 states across the country
maintain a safe, healthy, more productive
work force by providing farmworkers with
high-quality, bilingual, interactive pesticide
safety training free of charge. We are able to
do this through a unique partnership with the
AmeriCorps, which is a program which
provides college scholarships for people who
volunteer for a year of community service.
I've got a bunch of my AmeriCorps members
here with me today because our program has
such a heavy emphasis in California. Twenty-
five of our 68 Ameri-Corps members
nationwide are in California—stationed in
offices in northern California as well as central
California and in the area that we are in
tonight Over half of the 45,000 farmworkers
who we trained in pesticide safety in 1995
were in the State of California, so it's very
important to us to be here tonight.
What we've found through our experience
is that we've had the most success in areas of
California where ag commissioners and county
extension agents have actively supported our
program and passed the word along to the
growers that they serve and represent. In
areas where there has been less support,
growers have been slower to take on the
required training responsibilities that they have
under the WPS. But I'm going to let our
members speak for themselves and tell you
more about our program's experience with the
WPS.
Let me state at the outset that although we
were asked to share our problems with the
WPS and some of the things that we've seen
out in the field and the very real experiences
such as the one which was just described to
us, our program does prove that there can be
some kind of dialogue, some kind of solution,
to the very real issue of pesticide safety and
that there can be a win-win kind of a solution
for both growers and for farmworkers. Thank
you.
Lisa Aleman [Speaking in Spanish with
English interpreter]: Good afternoon. My
name is Lisa Aleman. I am a member of
AmeriCorps and I work in Proteus in Selma.
First of all, I want to thank you the organizing
committee, EPA, to provide these moments
for me so I can share my experiences with the
farmworkers as a volunteer worker and to tell
you what we are doing in Fresno, King's,
Tulane, and Kern counties. The training that
we provide is complete information because
we cover all 11 points of the WPS. My
experience with the farmworkers is very
positive because we encourage them to take
part in the training. We motivate them with
dynamics so that learning can be effective for
everyone. We keep in mind to keep these
dynamics simple and easy so that they can
learn and remember how to protect
themselves. We have hours at the
convenience of the ranchers or the
contractors. We can also provide lists or
copies with the names of these people who
have taken the training with numbers
corresponding to the EPA cards. Thank you,
and we're here to serve you.
198 California
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Mary Baurista: Good evening everyone.
I'm glad that we have a translator here today
because I think it's really important that all
farmworkers understand what we're here for.
Hello, my name is Mary Bautista and for the
last two years I have been providing pesticide
safety training to farmworkers for the
Proteus/AmeriCorps program in the Vasilla
area. During this time I have met
farmworkers of different ages, races, and
experiences. Even though I had worked as a
farmworker when I was younger, I -was very
lucky that I never suffered an illness related to
pesticide exposure. On the other hand, I have
spoke with farmworkers who have had bad
experiences with pesticides but have never
made a report because of the fear of being
fired or because of the language barrier.
For example, one man who walked into
our office for pesticide safety training told us
that he was never trained appropriately on
how to apply pesticides, since it was his boss
that trained him and neither one of them was
bilingual. So the worker could not ask his
boss any questions. Basically, his boss showed
him how to mix and apply but was unable to
explain the hazards of the job. One day the
worker was getting ready to apply the
pesticides and one of the pumps blew out of
place, spraying pesticides onto his body. He
immediately felt a burning sensation all over
his body and his work partner quickly took
him to get washed off and drove him to the
hospital where the doctor gave him a cream
and released him. That was one year ago, and
he asked me if I wanted to see some of his
burns and I responded by saying no. That
was because of the fear; I didn't want to see
his burn marks. But he insisted and he took
his shoes off, removed his socks, and showed
me his feet. I was truly shocked to see his feet
with burn marks and his skin was still peeling
off. I am not a medical expert but it seems to
me that this worker is still suffering from the
result of this pesticide injury. This accident
might not have happened had this worker
been trained in his own language and by a
person who had the expertise to train workers
in a correct and appropriate manner.
As a bilingual pesticide safety trainer, I
always make sure the workers can understand
the information and encourage them to ask
their employers questions when they don't
understand something. I feel that I am a good
resource, not only for the workers but also for
the growers and contractors in case that I can
assist them in having a safe and a healthy work
force. Thank you.
Javier Borboa: Good evening everybody.
My name is Javier Borboa and this is my
second year as an AmeriCorps member
providing pesticide safety training and working
in the West Fresno area. One of the biggest
problems that I see regarding the Worker
Protection Standard is the lack of bilingual
personnel available to enforce the regulations.
I would like to see someone checking the
fields where farmworkers are working to make
sure that they have received the proper
training before working in any areas that have
been sprayed with pesticides. Some workers
have complained to me that it has been
difficult for them to complain about abuses in
the fields because there is not bilingual staff
to take the workers' complaints. They also
California 199
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have told me that it is discouraging for them
to try to complain because usually they are
working between the hours of 8 to 5 when the
office is open for workers to file complaints.
I believe all the training should be given in
the farmworkers' native language and that
questions and concerns regarding safe working
practices should be addressed by bilingual
trainers who can understand the workers, not
by those who may only be able to guess what
they are trying to communicate. Another
issue is that there is no assistant to monitor
the quality of training sessions. Some workers
have told me that they were already trained
and that the training took place in half an
hour which, to me, is not enough to cover the
11 points of the WPS. In other words,
farmworkers are getting the training but the
training is not detailed enough in how to
protect themselves from pesticide residue.
Our training takes about an hour and we go
over very clearly all of the information in the
flip chart. We always use visuals and pass out
prizes as fun incentives for the workers to
answer the questions. We can train workers
day or night and we are always open to any
grower or contractor to visit one of our
training sessions before scheduling training
with us. Thank you.
Eduardo Barriga: Good evening to the
panel and people here. My name is Eduardo
Barriga and I'm very much concerned about
farmworkers' welfare. Therefore, I'm
convinced that the WPS is an essential and
effective way to bring awareness of pesticide
safety to the farmworker community. For
instance, an instructor's assistant at a Sutter
County preschool was trained in pesticide
safety. She then transmitted that information
to her husband, who is a farmworker in that
area. She emphasized to her husband the
importance of avoiding contact with their only
child after work because of the risk of
contaminating the child with pesticide residue
that might be present on his clothing. Before,
the farmworker husband would arrive home
from work and greet his spouse and child with
hugs and other family gestures and eventually
play with his child for a while and then,
afterwards, shower. Now, as a result, the
spouse reminds her husband to clean up
before any contact with their child or with
her.
As a second-year AmeriCorps member, I
have seen and heard how pesticide awareness
information can have a great impact on the
farmworker families, thus creating, eventually,
healthier living conditions for them and their
immediate family members. Thank you.
Jorge Beltran: Good evening. I'll just
keep this very brief. My name is Jorge Beltran
and I am here representing myself. I think the
need has already been stated very dramatically
and very graphically by the lady out here. So
what I really want to do is congratulate and
thank the EPA for the efforts in forming the
WPS as well as the California OPR for finally
ceasing their whining about, who should get
credit for what. However, I cannot help but
think that if all negotiations had been done
under 115-degree weather with miles already
behind their steps and unsanitary working
conditions, this would have been
accomplished long ago. I believe that there are
200 California
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those who have stopped seeing and treating
farmworkers as another commodity and
begun to see them as fellow humans with the
same needs and wants that all of us expect for
decent hard work. They are not the
disposable masses that we believe them to be.
I think that this is the least that we can do and
the least that they deserve.
Other things that we should do to see that
this gets done is to ensure that the level of
enforcement for noncompliance with the
regulations increases so that it may provide
results and that all this undertaking does not
stagnate in political circles. Thank you.
Carlos Lara: Good evening, ladies and
gentlemen of the panel. My names is Carlos
Lara. I am an AmeriCorps member with
Proteus serving in the King's County area
providing pesticide safety training to the
farmworkers. I believe that the new WPS are
a good idea and strongly feel that it should
continue to be mandatory for the
farmworkers to be trained prior to working
out in areas where they run the risk of coming
in contact with harmful residues and
pesticides.
My job for the last year and a half has
been to provide farmworkers with the worker
training required by the WPS and to make
sure that all the information is easily
understood by our trainees or the field
workers. Through our personal outreach and
close contact with the farmworkers, we have
learned first-hand how to effectively teach
low-literacy workers. We have found the best
way for the WPS training to be conducted is
by a live presentation; in other words, to have
a real person do the training and not just have
the workers see a video. This method, which
we use in our program, promotes two-way
communication involving questions and
answers. We use demonstrations and visuals
in addition to the EPA flip chart and, unlike
the video, the farmworkers can ask questions
on the spot and get their answers right then
and there.
One of the problems I see with using the
training videos is that many of the
farmworkers have told us that they can't
follow the information as fast as it is given
sometimes, so much of the information is
missed. I realize that the videos are easier to
administer, but the purpose of the WPS is
completely thrown out the window if the
workers can't understand or follow the videos
because they lack the effectiveness that only a
real person can provide. The bottom line is
that it is better to have workers trained by a
certified person than just throw a videotape in
the VCR and walk away thinking that it's the
worker's problem to make sure he
understands everything on the video. So we
at Proteus can also help growers save time and
energy by providing them with rosters of their
workers who were trained and issued the EPA
cards. We also help growers and contractors
by providing the workers with EPA
handbooks and at times we have donated
long-sleeved shirts for them to wear at work.
Thanks.
Randy Semple: Hi. I think some of you
have already spoken with me or are familiar
with my situation. I wish I could speak
Spanish so I could speak directly with some of
California 201
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the people who aren't English-speaking at this
time.
What I'd like to address is the absence of
good faith. None of the laws or none of the
programs or none of the government entities
are going to be able to regulate anything in
this society, including morality, laws, safety,
without good faith. You are going to have to
have a lot more enforcement than you have, a
lot more people in the field, without the good
faith of the people who are supposedly being
educated. I've run into the fact that the
educators are, themselves, lacking good faith.
I graduated from Fresno State University in
1981. I've been a crop technician since 1983.
I've been around pesticides for a long time.
I've trained people around pesticides.
But I've discovered in the absence of
actually following through with those safety
programs and laws that none of this means
anything. It's just too hard for all of you to
enforce this. I realize that. The bureaucratic
terminology that I've gotten over the last five
months is I allegedly dump chemicals. I
allegedly also had a seizure and was in the
hospital for four days with a grand mal
seizure. I attempted to handle everything in-
house. I tried to contact the school. The
school has a public safety office—occupational
health and safety—an obvious misnomer
because I tried to contact them for 18 days
after I got out of the hospital, with no
response. I wrote certified letters; no res-
ponse. The cover-up became the action. In
order to recognize my illness and my reaction
to the pesticides, they had to recognize their
responsibility and their complicity in the
actions taken and the attitudes were more
repulsive and more damaging that the actual
pesticides themselves. When you are injured
and you expect that your fellow worker or
your employer is going to take care of you
when you're unconscious or in this hospital
and when in fact they turn their backs on you
and try to cast the blame and disassociate with
you, it is more damaging than anything else.
And I just wish to tell everybody that if
you are going to be a whistle-blower, if you're
going to speak out and say, "I am injured" or
"This is not safe," be prepared to lose your
job, be prepared for retaliation because I have
called unlimited entities, government agencies,
private agencies, individuals that are working
for safety awareness, etc., and many of those
doors or many of those phones weren't
answered to me or disinterest was there. And
I found it really—I was really afraid for the
people that didn't have the tenacity or the
awareness to not take no for an answer, to
keep going. I eventually had to write a
certified letter and give them my nine-page
written statement regarding these incidents. I
sent it to the Chancellor's Office, Dan Bartell,
the Dean of Agriculture; Cy Bader; Gino
Fasagasto, the individual that had me spray
these pesticides. I sent it to Lt. King of Public
Safety at Fresno State. I sent certified on June
10th. After that I waited until June 27th
before I went public to the newspaper
because I figured five months was enough to
be ignored and have my situation ignored and
for no one to even respond to any of this. So
people have my deepest sympathies who have
' • to work in the fields every day and be more
afraid of losing their job than they are of
202 California
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having their families safe. Thank you.
[Applause]
Celia Prado: Good evening, my name is
Celia Prado and I work with the California
Institute fpr Rural Studies. Over a period of
four weeks I conducted an informal study
asking farmworkers whether they had been
trained. My first question to them was, "Do
you know anything about the EPA?" My
second question was, "What do you know
about the WPS?" My third question was
"Have you received the pesticide safety
training?" What I found out was that out of
115 farmworkers that I interviewed, only 37
had received the training. I could go on and
on telling you the facts that I found out but
you may see a copy of my report—I have a
copy for anyone who is interested. What I
would really like to say is that there needs to
be more coordination with Cal OSHA, Ag
Commissioner Office ...[Taping suspended
while tape was changed]
... Farmworkers continue to be abused,
farmworkers continue to be unprotected, and
the people who are supposed to be
representing us are not doing their job. I
could tell you horror stories of people who
have been in contact with pesticides, who
have been exposed to pesticides. For the last
two years I coordinated a health promoters
program. Twenty promoters came back every
week with stories such as Leticia Maravilla's
story and it's shocking. There is absolutely no
one who is willing to stand up for the
farmworker. There is no one who is willing to
help the farmworker. Insurance companies,
lawyers, no one will take their case. People are
dying. We are trying to get rid of pests with
the pesticides and people are dying like
animals and we're not doing anything about it.
That is my plea to you. I hope that the EPA's
efforts...This is great that you are taking the
time to listen to what people have to say, and
I really appreciate this and I'm with all my
brothers and sisters; I work for them and I
care a lot about them. And so we wish to ask
that you please, please look into this huge
problem in California. Thank you. [Applause]
Luis Magafia [Speaking in Spanish with
English interpreter]: Good afternoon. My
name is Luis Magana. I am representing a
migrating farmworker organization north of
San Joaquin Valley—a farm laborers'
organization. One person said one time how
fortunate Mexico is to have the United States
as a neighbor. I say now how fortunate the
farmers are to have this influx of migrant
workers who have no rights. As we have seen
in the last few years, the increment in millions
of pounds of pesticides in the fields of
California, farmworkers numbers have
increased in the same way. I'll give an
example of a worker named Raul—he was
infected by pesticides -while he was a foreman
for a crew in asparagus. Obviously, also the
workers, many of them undocumented
workers from Oaxaca and Guatemala, this
happened in San Joaquin County. A week ago
we went to the office of the Agriculture
Commissioner. No one spoke Spanish except
for. one of the secretaries, that did not speak it
right, Angela. They told us there was a price
for the records that would include the exact
place where the person was infected. He
California 203
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stayed because he has been working 30 years
in all kinds of farm work. The others—you
know where they are, and were also affected.
We called seven offices in the Central Valley.
Only one county had an inspector that spoke
Spanish, with the exception of one biologist
that is used like an interpreter, but he's from
another county. Here in Fresno they told us,
"That's classified information" and they could
not tell us anything. You proved this
yesterday with migrant farmworkers that these
offices are not known to the farmworkers. In
our organization it is a shame that we work
with the farmworkers that have been affected
as if we were in a fascist nation because we
protect the workers from retaliation.
The responsibility of educating, training
and informing the workers is that of the
agriculture or the farmer. Other groups are
doing good work—for example, the things that
we've heard here today. They are doing good
work. But let us not forget that the farmer is
the one who is responsible. And that is where
the norms for the protection of the
farmworker or WPS should be implemented
and the objective is that the farmer is the one
who is responsible. I have more information,
but I will share this with you later. Thank you.
Alicia Medina: Good evening, my name is
Alicia Medina and I am representing the
AmeriCorps program and I'm stationed with
Proteus in Delano. I graduated from Cal State
Bakersfield in Liberal Studies and I am
currently a certified pesticide safety trainer.
While working in the fields I was exposed to
pesticides. One of the symptoms I had was
dizziness and rashes. I do not know the cause
of those symptoms. After working for about
three weeks, I told my contractor and he not
only told me to go to the doctor, but asked
why I did not say anything earlier. At that
time I did not know those symptoms were
possible effects of pesticide exposures. If I
had been trained in the WPS, I might have
recognized those symptoms immediately as
being possibly pesticide-related and I could
have received medical attention a lot quicker.
Recently a farmworker in the Lament area
was told by a grower to come to work dressed
with two pairs of pants, two shirts, and five
handkerchiefs because she was going to be
working in a very ugly field full of weeds. She
went to work dressed this way and while
working she and a number of her coworkers
began to feel faint and their eyes were very
irritated and watery. Not until she attended
our pesticide safety class did she realize that
she was probably exposed to pesticides and
had been asked to work before the re-entry
date had expired. I am sure that the next time
she is asked to wear double clothing she will
refuse in order to protect her health. I feel
that the information that we provide the
workers regarding the safe usage of home
pesticides and the danger of allowing our
children to play in irrigation water is very
valuable for farmworkers to know. It also
helps the growers and contractors because we
know that they do not want their workers to
get sick either. Thank you.
Maria Romero: Good evening ladies and
gentlemen. My name is Maria Romero and I
represent AmeriCorps from Merced County.
I would like to share my experiences in
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have someone already trained to train their
field workers. I do not give up. I go out there
and I find out that the ones that the growers
have trained are the crew leaders, the foremen,
or the pesticide applicators. A lot of those
people, the farmworkers who are pesticide
applicators, only receive the pesticide training
that we give, it's not the extensive one. So, I
do not give up. I go to the farm labor camps,
to the migrant family housing and I train
farmworkers.
I found out another thing. Farmworkers
are reluctant—While training them and when
they ask questions and when I answer their
questions regarding pesticide safety, they do
not report any symptoms regarding pesticide
exposure because of the fear that they are
going to be laid off or fired from their jobs. I
have an example. There is a man who was
working one summer sorting chili peppers.
Those chili peppers contained some type of
pesticide that got on his arms and got on his
neck and he developed a really bad rash. He
went to the hospital because he more or less
knew what to do. He went to the hospital and
he said, "I got this rash from working out
there in the pesticide, sorting chili peppers."
When he went back to work, the grower (she's
the owner there), she said, "I'm sorry, Mr.
Joaquin, but I have replaced you with
someone else." And that is very sad. That
does not have to be. Farmworkers should not
fear that they should be laid off or fired from
their jobs, because without the farmworker we
will not have the fruit or the vegetables at our
tables. I see that it is not that hard—they pay
their workers' compensation. I mean, they
have a right to use it but people are out there
and they do not want to come forward and
say anything. I'm just out there as a pesticide
safety instructor and make sure that they are
aware—you know, that they dress properly for
work and that they take care of themselves,
that they wash their hands and I go through
the whole 11 points of the EPA flip chart and
I make sure that they understand, that they
aren't misinformed, that because of a lot of
situations that we face...I have something—a
very important letter in writing from our
Central Valley Opportunities Center there in
Merced County which is housing AmeriCorps
there. So I will give you this later. Thank you
very much for your attention. Thank you.
[Applause]
Kay Rudolph: Have all the people who
wish to speak had a chance to register? We
want to make sure that we do get a chance to
hear from everybody who has anything they
would like to say and, again, if people would
prefer to provide written comments, you can
leave it with us tonight. If you would like to
send it to us later, we have a card with an
address on it where you can send it. Thank
you.
Bill Jordan: There are people here, in
particular Senor Camacho, who did not get a
chance to finish his remarks. And if there are
others who have things they would like to say,
listening to what you have heard, we can... I
think we have the time to have more
conversation if people would like to speak.
Ephraim Camacho: Thank you very
much. My final comments were as follows. I
was going to say that the WPS laws must have
California 205
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Ephraim Camacho: Thank you very
much. My final comments were as follows. I
was going to say that the WPS laws must have
teeth in them in order to protect farmworkers
who many times put their lives on the line to
place food on our kitchen tables. We need
more monitoring by the local county
Agriculture Commissioner's office. During
the seasons (we have several seasons; as some
of you already know: the grape, the stone
fruit, lettuce, tomato, and other major crops
that we have in this area), that •would at least
help to hopefully alleviate some of the
problems that have been discussed this
evening as far as workers being exposed to
pesticides. We also believe that what
AmeriCorps is doing regarding the training of
farmworkers is an excellent work—not only
educating farmworkers but farm labor
contractors and growers. But I think that, just
like everybody else, we all need to be held
accountable to someone. And I think that's
pretty much the bottom line. EPA, growers,
and farm labor contractors all have to be
accountable for any mistakes that are done. If
EPA is not enforcing the laws then they
should be accountable for not performing
their jobs as required.
The CRLA Foundation staff prepared and
submitted formal written comments on the
proposed regulations of the WPS and that is
basically what my final comments were. I'd be
glad to answer any questions from the
audience or the EPA panel and I'd like to give
you my toll-free number, we have a toll-free
number where farmworkers can call us if you
have any questions regarding our legal services
office here in Fresno. My toll-free number is
1-800-242-2752 and our office does provide
free legal services to migrant and seasonal
farmworkers. Thank you very much.
Leticia Maravilla [Speaking in Spanish with
English interpreter]: We're talking about
pesticides and we notice that you're not
conscious of this: They said on TV that the
strawberries have poison on them. I ate some
strawberries; I had a stomach ache and I
threw up, dizziness. Watermelon also has
these poisons and I don't see anybody doing
anything concerning these chemicals. Randy
Jonshon is a rancher that grows chilies and
watermelons and he cut a watermelon and
gave us and made us sick and he offered it to
all the -workers and what was the reaction?
Where is the information that you brought in
Spanish, because I don't want to offend you,
but you all came to listen to my testimony.
Where is the information in Spanish? In the
fields there are no gringos, we are latinos.
And be conscious that the [Inaudible] ...what
we do is contaminated and go to your table
and you have no idea how poisoned it is.
Please consider, you are human beings just as
we aire. We are offended, that state is going to
pay a lot,- all the poisonings. We don't have
MedCal, we don't have insurance, the state will
have to pay. We are offended by what you are
doing to us. Thank you.
Domingo Zapata: My name's Domingo
Zapata. I work with three nonprofit
organizations that provide services for farm-
workers. I have been training farmworkers,
I'm trained through the EPA program using,
through Pat Matter, the IPM program to
206 California
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provide these trainings as well. I work for a
medical facility and constantly when I go out
and do the farm safety activities, we find that
a lot of farms are doing some types of
trainings.
One question I have for you is, one
speaker training 200 people for one hour—do
you consider that training? That's a question
that I just wanted to pose, because I've seen
that happen where one person is training over
200 people and you've got people in the back
who are talking and doing their own little
thing. I did a survey of 50 farmworkers and
asked them if they had been trained through
the WPS. One in 15 said they had. I was
shocked to see that many people were not
aware of this WPS or training. Those that
have been trained are telling me that it's a very
beneficial, very helpful program. They say
positive things about it. Those that haven't
been trained are indicating to me that they will
be fired if they do anything about it. Their
fear is reprisals, as we talked about earlier
today. . There's definitely a lot of positive in
providing these types of training, in my
opinion. The only thing is that not everybody
is providing the training. There are a lot of
good farms and farmworkers and labor
contractors that are doing the best they can.
But there's a great deal more that are not.
Thank you.
Speaker from Audience [Speaking in
Spanish with English interpreter]: Thank you
again. After hearing the comments from Mr.
Zapata, I remembered something that we do
in AmeriCorps. We are calling on contractors
and growers and we are asking that the groups
that we train should be from 20 to 25 people
because I know that the materials that we are
using have been approved by EPA. The book
that we use, I don't know the name of it, flip
chart, we make sure that they can see it and
they understand it. Thank you.
Luis Magana [Speaking in Spanish with
English interpreter]: There are two photos,
please look at the photos. Both photographs
show two farmworkers spraying herbicides.
First I will talk about the color photo. The
other one is black-and-white. In the color
photo the farmworkers are from the San
Joaquin County. They are spraying the grass
around the walnut orchard. They say that
they did not receive training to do this. All
they were shown how to do was how to run
the equipment, how to run the tractor, etc.
They were given gloves and masks but nobody
told them that they should wear it. Now this
shows that they are farmworkers without
documents and they make minimum wages of
$4.25 per hour. They commented that their
farmer doesn't have big farms and that they
know nothing about the protection through
EPA.
In the other photo—the black-and-white—
we see a worker that's •well-equipped and he's
doing the same kind of work in an almond
orchard in Fresno County. He says he did
receive training on how to use this clothing
and equipment to do this work. He works at
this ranch steady and he has been working
there for many years. He's not a migrant
worker; he's there permanent He says they
pay him more or less OK and he's happy. It's
California 207
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a large farm or farmer; I think it's Harris
Ranch. He knows about the protection rules.
In our organization we're doing a survey
and we've passed out some forms which we
will collect and present to you tomorrow. We
saw a great difference between farmworkers in
Lodi and the farmworkers that live at the
migrant camps in the state. What everybody
does agree on is that all these protections for
the farmworkers should be implemented. It's
easier for those that are here legally to get this
information but those that are here illegally,
it's very difficult for them to receive this
information. I regret to say that they stopped
funding to provide legal services to those
people with no documents. This is too bad
because part of the education or the
training—these people should also receive the
laws and how they can be affected by these
pesticides. And they should know their legal
rights. Thank you.
Salvador Sandoval: My name is Salvador
Sandoval and I'm a family practitioner in
Merced County and I've worked with migrant
farmworkers for about 16 years. I'm also a
member of the National Advisory Council on
Migrant Health. I'm glad to see you here. I'm
glad to see that after such a long delay there is
finally a national standardfor farmworkers that
deals with pesticides. I wanted to address
certain concerns that I have primarily on the
exceptions that are weakening the WPS. I just
noticed another one in this material that I had
gotten recently and this is, for example, about
not having to have soap, water, and paper
towels for certain chemicals that are
considered less toxic. I ask you, what does
that really mean? We're dealing with acute
toxicity but we know that are chemicals that
have longer-term effects and there are
chemicals that cause, for example, skin rashes.
They may not be considered as dangerous as
some of the organophosphates. It seems like
this is really a poor economic move, because
soap and water and paper towels really should
be available anywhere. As I understand it, the
sanitation standards require such measures so
I'm real confused about why this is being
presented as an exception.
I have just brief comments on other
exceptions to the rule. For example, there's a
5-day grace period before workers are trained.
I've found workers that have been poisoned
on the first day. One gentleman that was
crushing cans and didn't know what the
chemicals were became ill. I'm concerned
about the training interval being five years. As
a physician I have to be recertified every year
or every two years for certain standards to
keep up rny information. Workers that are
just getting one hour of information, I think
their recall is going to be very poor. I think it
should be more often—every year, preferably.
Thank you. I really didn't come prepared but
I wanted to deal with these exceptions which
I think weaken an otherwise good law.
Bertha Lopez: Good evening. My name
is Bertha Lopez. This is the first time I've
ever been to any of these kinds of meetings.
Just listening to this brings a lot of questions
to my mind. I want to leave you with this
question. What's going to happen if we don't
enforce these laws to give the training and the
education from the rancher, the supervisors,
208 California
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the contractors, that they need so that the
farmworkers can be protected? If we don't
protect them, what's going to happen when
they start disappearing, when they get sick,
when they can no longer do the picking of the
fields or do anything for us? Who's going to
do it? You and I? I don't think so. I have
asthma; I can't even stand the dust in my own
home. Could you imagine if I went out to a
field? And I feel for these people, because
they work hard. And these ranchers get rich
by what they are doing. If they don't go out
there and do it; who is going to do it? So they
need all this protection and I think that we
owe this to them, to at least protect them and
give them the right training and the education
everybody needs to protect the workers out
there in the fields. Thank you.
Joaquin Diaz [Speaking in Spanish with
English interpreter]: Good afternoon to
everyone. My name is Joaquin Diaz. I want
to make a comment. Well, it's somewhat
related with what is being said here. I have a
lot of questions concerning the job that I do,
myself. I think that I'm exposing myself on
my work, in my job, with asbestos. And I
would like to know or to be given information
if someone here... Is there someone here who
can give me information on this? Someone
that could tell me how dangerous this is?
Because I understand that it's very bad to
one's health. Up to now I have not found
anyone that can give me information on this.
This is what I'm asking.
And something else that does pertain to
what's being said here, I want to comment--
it's going to be brief—concerning the
pesticides. My comment is as follows: how
expensive is it to be ignorant? Are you saying
the people who work in the fields who are not
educated, is that being ignorant? How
expensive is that? I think, myself, that is
sometimes called ignorance and maybe
because one has no education, one works in
the fields. Is that a sin? Nobody wants to be
working this way and have these health
problems. And, again, what price are we
paying for working in the fields? Is it
ignorance? Thank you for listening to me.
[Applause]
Bill Jordan: Thank you all for your
comments. They have been very, very helpful.
Let me tell you a bit about what we will do.
We are having these meetings around the
country. We have had them in Florida, in
Washington State, in Texas, Mississippi,
Pennsylvania, we will be going to other parts
of the country still. We will take the stories
that you have told us, we will take the
information that you have collected and given
to us, we will take the letters that you have
written and we will study them carefully. We
will work with our partners in the states to try
to find answers to make the regulations
stronger and better, to make the enforcement
appropriate so that every farm, not just some
but every farm, is following the rules.
Tonight many of you have told stories for
yourself, for your brothers and sisters who
have been exposed to pesticides, who have
been hurt by them. We all know that
pesticides are dangerous if they are not used
carefully and properly. We also know that
training can make a very big difference in the
California 209
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way that pesticides are used. It can make the
difference between being safe and being dan-
gerous. It can make the difference between
being hurt or being well. Many, many of the
stories that were told tonight show how
important good training is. And the stories--
particularly of the AmeriCorps workers who
have been here in the Valley working with
growers, working with farmworkers in their
homes, in their camps, in the fields, teaching
them—have shown how you can be a success.
And that is what we want to find a way to
have happen, not just in a few places with a
few farms, but everywhere in the country.
We know there are many places that are
doing a good job. We also know that there
are places where a better job can be done and
we who work for you—whether it be in
Washington or in San Francisco or in Sacra-
mento or in Fresno or in Merced or around
the state or the country—want to try to be
accountable, to be responsible to do our job
so that you can all do your jobs safely.
Tonight we will stay here and talk with
you, listen to your stories, answer your
questions. We have materials outside that
help to explain how to use pesticides safely in
English and in Spanish and we hope you will
take them, we hope you will give them to your
friends to study and to learn so that they can
be as safe as possible.
We'll take a break now and be around to
answer your questions. Let me close by saying,
again, thank you very, very much.
[Meeting adjourned]
210 California
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Registered Participants in the Fresno Public Meeting
Lisa Aleman
AmeriCorps
Eduardo Barriga
AmeriCorps
Mary Bautista
AmeriCorps
Jorge Beltran
AmeriCorps
Javier Borboa
AmeriCorps-Proteus
Ephraim Camacho
California Rural Legal Assistance
Roy Castrillo
Western Growers
Silvia Ceja
AmeriCorps
Joaquin Diaz de Leon
Farmworker
Robert Enos
Western Farm Service
Jenny H. Estrada
AmeriCorps
Marco Figueroa
Western Farmers Insurance Co.
Dolores Flores
AmeriCorps
Agostino Cru2 Gutierrez
Farmworker
Alvin Humphrey
USDA-Agriculture Research Service
Scott M. Kenedy
Kingsburg, CA
Carlos Lara
AmeriCorps
Bertha D. Lopez
California Rural Legal Assistance
Luis Magana
Organizacion de Trabajadores Agricolas de
California
Leticia Maravilla
California Rural Legal Assistance
Ruth McHenry
Assemblyman Cruz Bustamente
Alicia Medina
AmeriCorps-Proteus
Celia H. Prado
California Institute for Rural Studies
California 211
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Humberto Rodas
Radio Bilingue
Salvador Romero
AmeriCorps/Central Valley Opportunity
Center (CVOC)
Maria Romero
AmeriCorps/CVOC
Lori Rottenberg
Association of Farmworker Opportunity
Programs
Leticia Sanchez
AmeriCorps/Proteus
Salvador Sandoval
National Advisory Council on Migrant
Health
Randy Semple
Cal State University, Fresno
Steve Smith
University of California
Paul Sweet
Western Farm Service
Domingo Zapata
United Health Center
212 California
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Transcript of Public Meeting
Salinas, California
July 25,1996
Dr. Lynn Goldman; We are going to get
started now with our public meeting on EPA's
pesticide Worker Protection Standard. To get
us going, I'm going to turn to Kay Rudolph.
She is "with the Environmental Protection
Agency in our Region 9 Office. She will be
our facilitator for the meeting tonight and she
will go through some of the logistics for the
meeting.
Kay Rudolph: Good evening. The first
thing I would like to do is to let you know that
we will have simultaneous interpreting of the
English comments into Spanish and I'd like to
introduce our interpreter for this evening,
Beatriz Rubio.
Beatriz Rubio: I am Beatriz Rubio. I am
the interpreter for those of you who wish to
hear the presentation interpreted from
English into Spanish or from Spanish into
English. Please sit here where the
audiophones are. You will be hearing
simultaneously what the speakers are saying
and if you wish to make any comments, you
will be heard in English as well. I will bring
you here to the front and I will interpret for
you into English. Thank you.
Kay Rudolph: I just want to give you a
few of the logistics of the evening tonight.
We'll be calling speakers in the order in which
they registered (the number on the little white
card you were given when you signed in). We
ask that you try to keep your comments to
about five minutes and I will stand up at five
minutes to let you know where we are. We
ask also that you speak towards the
microphone and, if you decide at any time in
the evening that you would like to speak and
you haven't registered, just go to the front
desk and let them know and they will add you
to the list. If you have additional comments
or if you have brought written comments and
you'd like to leave written comments with us—
leave those at the front desk. We also have
the address where you can send additional
comments afterwards and we have a card for
Jeannie Heying with her address. There is a
pay telephone downstairs to the right. The
rest rooms are out this door on this level to
the left, and there is a drinking water fountain
next to that. We also have some water and
cups at the back of the room. We'll be taking
a break approximately midway through the
meeting and we will announce that to you. I
'think that covers everything.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Good evening and
welcome. My name is Lynn Goldman and I
am at the EPA and I serve as Assistant
Administrator for the Office of Prevention,
California 213
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Pesticides and Toxic Substances at the EPA.
I'm here tonight, along with my colleagues
from various government agencies, to listen to
your experiences with the Worker Protection
Standard or WPS. Too often, we in
government are faceless people that you do
not have a chance to meet. Too often,
government passes regulations without
realistically evaluating the effects. The
purpose of this meeting is to have face-to-face
communication that lets us know the real
effects of our regulation. President Clinton
has told us to get out of Washington to listen
to people, to find the solutions to the
important problems that we face. The WPS
does address a very important problem and
that is the problem of providing basic
protections for agricultural workers by infor-
ming them about the hazards of pesticides,
lessening the exposure to pesticides, and
mitigating or treating the exposures when they
occur. It is a high priority for the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Our standard strengthens safeguards for
over 3.5 million agricultural workers and
pesticide handlers. We have made extensive
efforts to implement the Worker Protection
Standard, but we could not have done that
without our state partners. Together, we
produced and distributed large numbers of
training materials and conducted extensive
education of employers, pesticide handlers,
and agricultural workers.
Tonight is another phase in our collective
education. We know that the work is not
done, and we are here tonight to find out
what we need to do to finish that work.
During the process of implementation we
have had to respond to concerns that have
been raised by many—by farmworkers and by
agricultural employers alike. We found that
not every situation that occurs in agriculture is
exactly the same in every part of the country.
Inevitably, situations arose that needed
interpretation so that everybody could follow
the regulation. This has been a complex
process and one that has needed the
involvement of a lot of people.
Some of the changes that have been made
in 1995 include: we established five days as the
number of days of employment before
workers must be given safety training, but
then assured that there would be some
information given on the first day so that no
worker would go into the field without some
level of information. We exempted qualified
crop advisors from some requirements; we
allowed early entry into pesticide-treated areas
to perform certain limited contact and
irrigation activities; and we established criteria
that allow lower toxicity products to qualify
for four-hour restricted entry interval. More
recently, we issued an amendment to the
warning sign requirements so that in parts of
the country where farmworkers speak other
languages than Spanish that those languages
could be on the sign, and an amendment to
the decontamination requirement that reduces
the number of days that decontamination
supplies are required after a low-risk pesticide
with a restricted entry interval of four hours
or less, has been applied. Shortly we will issue
a proposed amendment to address issues of
glove requirements. We will continue to work
closely with you to identify and address your
concerns.
214 California
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Let me emphasize again that tonight is the
time, for those of you who have concerns, to
talk and for those of us who work for the
EPA and for the state, to listen. We want to
hear your thoughts about the Worker
Protection Standard—what is working and
what is not working. Before we begin the
public meeting, I want to express our
appreciation for the leadership of state
officials here in California, the county officials
here in Monterey County, the creativeness of
the State Extension Services, and the
commitment of local service and agricultural
organizations. I should also say that I
appreciate the turnout that I see here tonight
among growers and farmworkers alike. I
know that all of you are taking time from your
very busy days, from your families, to be here
with us and I want you to know that we
appreciate and value that time.
I want to close by saying that, under
President Clinton's leadership, we have made
a commitment to making this program work
in away that protects the health of the public
and lessens the risks to the workers while
providing the needed flexibility. I look
forward to hearing all of your comments and
I want to thank all of you for being here
tonight.
And now I'm going to turn the meeting
over to Kay—actually, before that, there are a
few people that I see here that I want to
recognize, to make sure you are all aware that
they are in the audience. If these folks could
stand up so that we could identify them (some
are up here): Karen Stahlman from the
Department of Pesticide Regulation; John
Donahue, who is going to give us a welcome
from the state; Bob Chavez from the
California Department of Pesticide
Regulation; Joe Karl from the Santa Barbara
Agricultural Commissioner's Office; Rick
Bergman from the Santa Cruz Agricultural
Commissioner's Office; from the University of
California at Davis, we have Pat Maurer and
Melanie Zavala; and from the Monterey
Agricultural Commissioner's Office, Francis
Pabrua, Dan Rochester, and Bob Roach.
Thank you all for being here and I think,
actually, John Donahue is next.
John Donahue: Thank you, Lynn. Here
in California we have had our Worker
Protection Standards in place for a number of
years and what we are going through now is a
process of amending our regulations to bring
certain aspects of them up to speed with the
federal Worker Protection Standard. We are
in that process now and possibly we should
have those in place completely for
implementation on January 1, 1997. We are
now going through the final phases of our
rule-making package. So, that's where we are
here in California. Thank you, Lynn.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: OK, I think we turn
things over to Kay at this point and begin
public comments.
Kay Rudolph: Our first speaker will be
Don Rochester, who is #1.
Don Rochester: Thank you. My name is
Don Rochester. I am the Assistant Agricul-
tural Commissioner with Monterey County.
I'll have a few general comments and then I'll
California 215
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leave it to you for the specifics of your
concerns.
Since the Agricultural Commissioner's
Office in this county—and the Com-
missioner's Offices in all counties—is the chief
enforcement office of these regulations, we
feel that we should make a few comments
relative to the effectiveness, some of the
problems that we see, and some of the
resolutions that we hope to see come down
the pike through meetings like this and people
getting together and working these things out
in a calm, rational way.
I was pleased to hear Dr. Goldman's
comments regarding her view of the
dissimilarity of the country's farming
communities. They definitely are. She got
into some of my remarks, but that's all right,
because that's a key—that we all understand
that it is not the same in one part of the
country as it is in another. The safety
requirements are essential in both areas, but
they are not the same as far as how you
achieve them. I'm sure that you folks from
Washington and I know that California has
the largest and most diverse agricultural
economy in the nation. Around $22 billion of
income was generated by agriculture in
California in 1995 and Monterey County
accounted for over $2 billion of this total, or
roughly 10% of the state total. We are one of
the top three producing counties in the state.
California has developed over the past 25
years a program of worker protection
standards that has been effective, fair, and
generally supported by those affected. This
program was developed taking into account
the vast array of agricultural crops and
commodities produced in California. Over
250 commodities are produced in this state, at
last count. It is difficult to argue that the
federal Worker Protection Standards were not
needed. They, indeed, were. The standards
needed in Kansas, however, might not fit the
same situation in Florida or California. The
imposition of an overall rule nationwide that
might work well in one area of the country
while causing severe problems in another was
not the way, I would hope, that the rule was
envisioned. The farming and harvest con-
ditions in California are as varied as the crops
we grow. Smaller growing areas, labor crews
that move rapidly from one field to another
performing various cultivation and harvesting
operations are normal. This scenario is far
different from large plantings of less labor-
intensive crops such as barley, wheat, or corn.
California growers are concerned about
worker protection. They make the effort to
comply with all existing regulations. There is
no advantage to anyone to have less than the
safest farming operation possible.
However, toward this end, these same
California growers are concerned about the
logistics involved in providing individual
notice of pesticide applications to the
multitude of labor contractors, harvest
companies, pest control advisors, and others
that might now be required to be notified.
Nursery operators are concerned about the
restrictive re-entry requirement now coming
into place that makes it difficult for them to
harvest their crops. I'm sure these and other
specifics will be addressed by some of the
growers and farmworkers and others of you
that speak tonight.
216 California
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The farming and harvest conditions in
California are as varied as the crops we grow.
Smaller growing areas, labor crews that move
rapidly from one field to another, providing
harvest operations—these are the norm. What
we need is to realize, and I think that we are
well on that track, that regulations that fit the
work site are the ones that will be applied and
used effectively and will get the desired result:
that is, safety for the •worker and the crop
harvested, treated, and grown in a safe and
effective manner. The work site in this
country is not one large work site but
hundreds and thousands of various ones. So,
again, thank you for letting me speak, and I'm
sure that there will be others here who will
speak to the specifics, and more, that I have
brought up this evening. Thank you very
much.
Alan Mitchell: Hello there, my name is
Alan Mitchell. I'm a co-owner of California
Pajarosa. California Pajarosa is a rose-growing
operation which my partner and myself
started in 1979. At this time we have 50
employees and some of these people have
been working with us since we started the
operation. When we first started this business,
it used to be a very profitable business. We
gave raises to our employees every year; up
until last year, we gave them bonuses; we have
a health program for employees. Since we
have been •working with them for so long, it's
more like a big family operation, and we try to
treat it like that. If we are making money, our
employees are making money. My kids have
also worked in this same atmosphere since
they were able to walk. Now we are starting
to have problems with countries like Colum-
bia and Ecuador that are sending cheap
flowers and making it a real threat for a lot of
us to stay in business. In fact, some of us
have already closed our doors.
The next thing that has happened, we got
our state regulations for pesticides, which we
all followed. We did a lot of the things that
the new EPA is having the whole country do
how. We were willing to do that, we had no
problem with it, we want to do something to
keep our employees safe and ourselves safe.
But some of the new things that are in this
new federal EPA—these new re-entry or
something—that may put the final nail in the
coffin for any rose grower. We cut our roses
two times, some varieties three times, a day.
And that's every day of the year except for
Christmas and New Year's, which we cut just
one time a day. Without doing that, we have
to throw away the product. We are running
such a tight line right now that if we were to
do that, we would be out of business. So,
potentially, these new re-entry standards are
something that could put an end to rose
growing in the United States. So this is a very
serious thing for ourselves and the 50 people
who are •working with us. We are probably
the largest rose-growing area in the United
States, between Salinas and Watsonville. We
want to follow the regulations, we want to be
legal, and we have other problems not even
being legal. We have a problem that if some-
body gets sick, we have litigation problems.
We can have somebody come back on us and
make claims of illness or sickness due to what
we've been making them do. So this is a
threat. I've been in business since '79. I've yet
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to have one sickness or illness due to
pesticide-related causes and I think that maybe
the county man could agree to that. I think
that there are many other rose growers that
can say the same thing.
We need to have some type of an
exemption, some way that we can go in and
cut these flowers after we've sprayed with
pesticides. Some of our feelings are that the
state programs have worked great in this area
and we have really found very little to prove
that there has been any type of a problem. I
fear more for my mother, who lives in San
Jose, with the smog problem; I fear more for
my sister, who smokes cigarettes, than I ever
will be concerned about my workers or my
kids or myself working in my greenhouses.
We need something or otherwise I think rose
growing in this area is going to come to an
end or you are going to have a bunch of
outlaws here. Either they don't follow the
regulations, or they get an exemption, or they
close their doors. Thank you.
Juanita Martinez [Speaking in Spanish with
English interpreter]: My name is Juanita
Martinez and I come from the Employment
Development Department (EDD) in
Watsonville. I am the migrant seasonal
farmworker (MSFW) outreach worker. What
justifies an EDD office to have an MSFW
outreach worker like myself is that 10% of the
work applications in the job service section are
farmworkers. My duties as outreach worker
are to inform the farmworker about services
offered by EDD. I explain deductions that
employers make from their checks. Many
workers do not know what those deductions
represent. I also give them information on
the list of agencies offered in the community,
such as ESL training. I also inform them
about complaint procedures—complaint
procedures against EDD staff and problems
in the work place. I feel that this is fair for the
employer that is complying with the rules and
regulations as against the employer that is not
complying with regulations. I also give them
information on the Africanized honey bee,
which is already in the San Diego area; give
them information on pesticide safely; changes
that are being implemented in EDD at this
time such as, in the future for this area we will
have telephone claim filing for unemployment
insurance. Telephone claim filing is going on
in other parts of the state.
Just out of curiosity: how many
employers do we have here? How many
farmworkers are here? Two farmworkers?
Three? How many of the three farmworkers
are foremen? OK. How many employers
notified their workers about this meeting?
One, two? OK, that's all I have to say.
: Salvador Carillo: Good evening. My
names is Salvador Carillo. I'm a business
agent for Teamsters Union Local 890. And I
have also worked as a field worker for several
years. This local union is based here in
Salinas, California, and we represent about
12,000 members; around 7,000 of those are
field workers and around 4,000 or more work
in agricultural-related occupations. They all
come into contact, at one point or another,
during the performance of their duties, with
pesticides and/or residues. Let me thank the
Department for holding this public hearing
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here in Salinas and for the opportunity it
provides to express our opinions on these
matters.
You will be listening to all kinds of
complaints against the use and abuse of
pesticides. And if we might sound bitter or
disappointed against die Agricultural
Commissioner, your agencies, the growers, the
system in general, it is because we are. There
is something wrong with a system that seems
to work on behalf only of the growers or the
companies, not on behalf of the field workers.
Some people might want to cease the use of
pesticides altogether. Some are working to
gradually phase out chemicals like methyl
bromide, mainly for strawberries. We hope
that through future research, viable
alternatives to the use of pesticides will be
found soon. But in the meantime we think
that it is a moral obligation for the Agency, for
the state, to improve safety for the workers—
both handlers of pesticides and field workers
in general. But you are not going to attain
that by weakening the existing regulations.
We strongly oppose your proposal to
change the clarity of employers' [respon-
sibilities] strictly by adding the words "assure"
and "ensure" to the regulations. Hazard
pesticide information must be posted on a
prominent place on the employees' work site,
be it at the entry to a field or on a plant
bulletin board. But not filed away in a file
cabinet in an office away from the immediate
work site, accessible to employees only during
office hours. This is preposterous. Field
workers start very early in the morning and
sometimes work until late in the afternoon
with no time to go to an office besides.
Relevant information needs to be posted in
the fields because many people not only work
in those fields, but people pass by or remove
equipment from treated field to field like
irrigators that need to be included under the
definition of hand labor.
We also strongly oppose the addition of
Section 61 SOB that provides fines against the
worker for failure to follow guidelines. Most
of the problem with pesticides is lack of
training by the employer and/or the lack of
protection or protective equipment that must
be provided by the employer to the
employees. How can you possibly justify
fining an employee for not using protective
equipment when none was given to him? Is it
the employee's fault that he did not get
appropriate training from the employer who
is responsible for getting it first and then
providing it to the employee?
Change areas and appropriate
decontamination facilities for materials must
be provided for pesticide handlers of all
toxicity levels to reduce work-site and take-
home exposure to other pesticides being
handled by other workers. Safety equipment
like coveralls and respirators must continue to
be provided as often as necessary for the
protection of all their employees from being
sprayed while working on the field. That must
not be deleted from the regulations, Section
6762A, since it is one of the most important
provisions protecting the safety and health of
the field workers.
Adequate ventilation for greenhouses after
an application should be done by exhaust
ventilation with a minimum of 10 exchanges
per hour, or more exchanges in more time for
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less powerful systems, because 24 hours with
no ventilation is unacceptable. If no
ventilation is done, the greenhouses will be
extremely hot upon re-entry and employees
will tend to use less protective clothing, and
the danger of dermal absorption will
dramatically increase.
The re-entry wearing periods must be
strictly observed. No early entry should be
allowed to fields recently sprayed, particularly
for irrigators, and the skull-and-crossbones
signs must not be removed from treated areas.
On the contrary, information contained
should be expanded to provide more
information.
In closing, under no circumstances should
regulations be weakened. Employers and big
corporations do not really need your
protection. Farmworkers do. Enforcement
should be stepped up to provide as much
security and safety as possible for the people
that work the ground and put food on this
nation's tables. We deserve it. Thank you.
Joe Karl: I'm Joe Karl. I'm with the
Agricultural Commissioner's Office in Santa
Barbara County, where I supervise the
Pesticide Enforcement Program. I would like
to run through three scenarios that appear to
be problems in either enforcement or for the
ability of employers to be in compliance and
I did provide it in writing, so you've got it to
review at your leisure.
The first suggestion I have has to do with
modifying the quarter-mile notification
requirement. The suggestion I would make is
to modify the requirement to allow employers
to adopt a strict policy of prohibiting entry for
their employees so their employees are clearly
notified that they should not enter any field
other than the fields that they are specifically
directed to work in. The reason I would make
that suggestion is that, at least in many
agricultural situations, a grower may be
farming a number of different fields and may
be spread out over a large area, and pesticide
applications may be required to take place in
any of those fields at any given time. The
notification process for field workers, or any
workers who may pass within a quarter-mile
of that employer's own fields, misses the fields
of other employers. Those workers won't
ever know about those fields which may have
been treated. It also is a major burden as far
as a large operation being able to actually get
clear information to all the workers who
should be receiving it. The suggestion I made
where a grower gives clear direction that his
employees should enter only the fields that
they are assigned to work in could be
enforceable under the discretionary policy that
California already has in place. It could be an
enforceable situation and it would also be
clearer—we would just get better compliance.
Another issue that I would like to mention
has to do with providing field workers with
clear communication. There is a situation
where, if a pesticide is injected below the soil
surface (for instance, Disulfoton is used prior
to the planting of several crops). If that
material is injected below the soil surface
where workers would not be expected and
would not come in contact with it, -workers
can, under federal regulation, enter that field
to place irrigation pipe. At the same time, that
field is required to be posted with signs
220 California
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warning workers to stay out. My concern is
we are developing a situation where workers
are given conflicting information. They are
allowed to enter the field because they are not
going to come in contact with the pesticide
but at the same time there are signs up that
give them warning about the pesticide
application that took place. My suggestion
would be that there be an exemption for
posting for that field because, while it is
reasonable to expect that the workers could
enter it safely, that sign at the edge of the field
can result in confusion to the workers that are
entering and also other •workers who may see
the irrigators in that field.
The last suggestion I have has to do with
the method in which records are required to
be made available to the workers. The
requirements, under the federal standard, are
that workers must have unimpeded access to
the records and I see a problem with that.
The records, in many vegetable production
situations and other farming situations, can be
complex and, just due to the complexity, to
expect a field worker, or to expect anyone to
be able to go to the records, a file cabinet for
instance, open that file cabinet and find the
record that refers to the field that they were
concerned about and the date they are
concerned about is expecting, I believe, too
much. In a large farming operation, there can
literally be thousands of records. The ability
to find the right record and take that record to
their physician and say, "This is the pesticide
application that I'm concerned about," "These
are the materials that I'm concerned about,"
and for the physician to base some diagnosis
or decision on that, record—I just think we
should have a clearer process by which those
records can be given to the worker so that we
know that the worker gets the record that is
the correct one.
Another area where I see problems is that
workers may go through those records and
take out the files that interest them because
they need them for their own use, at which
point those records are no longer accurate, the
files are no longer accurate. Another situation
is where they look at the records they need
and they put them back, but they are misfiled
and we've all had to deal with a...if a record is
misfiled, it might as well not exist.
Those are the areas that I wanted to
discuss. As I say, there's...
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I'd like to say a
couple of things because some of the things
that I just heard, I think there may be some
misunderstandings about, at least, what the
federal standard requires. I'd like to make a
couple of clarifying comments. One is that
the notification requirement is a requirement
for posting in a central area information about
pesticide applications. There is no require-
ment that anybody, other than the farmer, be
allowed to go through the farmer's records.
And so I think that is very important—that the
standard does not allow any other individuals
to go through the farmer's record. And so, I
don't think there needs to be a concern about
people accessing files, getting files out of
order—that simply is not a requirement of the
standard and, from what you said, we
probably shouldn't require it in the future
either. So your comments are appreciated on
that.
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Another area where it sounded like there
may be a little bit of—and it may have
something to do with the way the California
standard works versus the federal standard—is
the issue of irrigation. Just to say that, in
terms of the federal standard, that we do have
an irrigation exemption but it is for entry
druing a restricted entry interval in order to do
irrigation-related work. It does require some
protective equipment and it does require that
it be urgently necessary to do the work at that
time rather than waiting until after the end of
the REI. And so there may be a little bit of
confusion about that. And I know that in the
past that California's regulation was different
in the way that it treated irrigation work. But
I think maybe a part of what I'm hearing is a
need to iron out some of these differences.
John Donahue: There was another
comment made from the representative of the
Teamsters Union about fining the employee.
That is strictly a provision that California had
put into the reg package; that is not an EPA
requirement. I just want to clear up the
confusion on that. In fact, in the final reg
package, some fine guidelines have been
pulled so that we can work on them further,
but there is still provision to fine licensees
versus employees, and that's the way the regs
read. We had gotten numerous comments
from you on our reg packages and other labor
representatives on that. So that the issue,
under 6130, of fining the employee, that's a
California provision and I just don't want you
to get that confused with the federal
requirements.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: To restate that:
under the federal standard, the employee is
not liable, so would not be fined.
Joe Karl: Two things that you've brought
up: one is the re-entry into the field (and I've
done it so many times). If you follow the
federal guidelines for compliance, if you
follow that for no-contact activities, and it
specifically identifies pesticides that have been
injected below the soil surface as a no-contact
activity, workers can re-enter the field and the
signs are still required to be up, so I think it's
a real confusing situation.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: OK, fair enough.
Joe Karl: The other one: the availability of
these records. I guess I'm mistaken but I
thought use records had to be available for
workers and their...
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Not under the
federal standard. Is there a California state
standard that requires...?
Joe Karl: That was an example of how
someone would comply and how people
would access records, that was thrown out as
an example—in other words, they didn't have
to be posted but they had to be available.
With the condition of unimpeded access it
would be like a grower would have his records
for himself and a duplicate set for people to
look at. I think that was thrown out as an
example of how people could comply with
that in our discussions over the years with
EPA. It's one of the ways of complying with
222 California
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it. It could happen but I would think that it
would not be the growers' only records. It
might force them to keep two sets of records
to comply with this provision, though. One
for people to look at and one for them to
keep for their own records, but still just
duplicate records.
Kay Rudolph: Thank you. We appreciate
your patience as we try to respond to some of
the questions that were raised. Our next
speaker is Joseph Prandini.
Joseph Prandini: Good evening. I'm Joe
Prandini with Betteravia Farms in Santa Maria,
California. First, I'd like to say that we
wholeheartedly believe in the protection of
the workers from any hazards, and we believe
in a lot of the parts of the WPS. And that's
why I am concerned with the one-quarter mile
notification. There have been people from
EPA that have come to our ranch, and some
at this table, who I've showed our operation
to and asked them a simple question: How
could we do it? On all the acres that we farm
and all the plots that we farm, -we have over
450 plots with 200 or 300 roads, with over 700
employees that change fields during the day
that go to all those. If I gave them a list of
everything that they might do, they would be
so confused that it would be useless and it
would actually hurt our operation. If you
explain to the people, "This is the field you
are going to work in today, that's the one you
can go in," and if you tell the people in charge,
"If any of those workers go in those fields and
you're in charge, you'll lose your job"-- that
seems to me to be a much more workable way
to do this than to hand them a sheet of paper
that, first of all, they may not understand and,
second of all, it would be confusing to me if I
saw a piece of paper that had a hundred
different plots on it that I might come within
a quarter of a mile of in a working day in an
area in the Santa Maria Valley.
Second of all, I don't believe I quite
understood your explanation on the record
keeping. The first time a person from EPA
came to our operation they said, "Well, it's
really simple; you take a little clipboard and
you hang it on the wall and you put up the
report for the day and when all the employees
come in for their lunch, they sit down and can
look through it and see what it is." We've got
5,000 acres with 700 people that work at least
12 hours a day scattered all over the Santa
Maria Valley. They don't come and all sit
down together and have...[Taping suspended
while tape was changed]...and if you can tell
me that, if I can put some posters up, that
would be fine.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: The requirement, as
it's written, is that it be posted and available
and there are a lot of different ways that
farmers can meet that requirement. One way
that we don't require is that people actually
have access to your files, can go into your files
themselves and pull things out of the files.
That's all I was trying to say. But what is
important, in order to meet the standard, is
that the information is available in a central
location however you can best do that,.
whether you need to do it in several locations
or in one place. In some instances, people are
putting the information near the toilets,
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whatever toilet facilities there are; that being a
central location that many people have to visit
in the course of a day. We want you to use
common sense, but the standard would say "a
central location" and it would say "posted."'
Joseph Prandini: But, realistically, if it's
going to be usable for people, does it make
any sense to have a board with a hundred
pieces of paper on it that someone who may
not read English, or who may not even read at
all in any language, can walk up to and say,
"What do I do with this?" rather than walking
to some place and say, "I worked five days ago
Ranch 7, Plot 14, and I'd like to know what
was used there." That's just a comment.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I've just a comment
back. If you can have a person there to help
explain it, so much the better. I mean, that
goes beyond what we require but that's even
better, if there is someone there who can
explain the information.
Joseph Prandini: Then we can do that?
That's all right? Because we were told that we
couldn't, that we had to leave them alone and
they could look through and do whatever they
wanted. So we can have someone there to
help them?
Dr. Lynn Goldman; Yes. I mean, I think
what the issue is, that it needs to be there and
available in a central location. And we say in
the standard "posted" and I guess that's the
minimum. That's the minimum. If you want
to go beyond that and have somebody there
who can explain it, that's fine. If you want to
give people access to your files, that's fine—but
we don't require those things.
Joseph Prandini: Then could you make
that a little more clear in the regulations in
saying that you can have someone at the
central location to explain to people what is
there rather than having them dig through the
files?
Dr. Lynn Goldman: But that would be in
addition to posting it.
Joseph Prandini: I want to comment.
Since the quarter-mile provision seems to be
such a sticky one, I believe that you must have
done a lot of research to come up with the
fact that we need that. I'd like to have some
of that information available. Like, for
instance, how many people in the Santa
Barbara and San Luis Obispo County were
exposed to pesticides from early re-entry? Do
you have that, Doctor?
Dr. Lynn Goldman: What I can provide
to you is the record that the Agency used
when it issued the rule in 1992. I will say that
the EPA spent a long time putting together
the rule. I will also say it was before my time.
I do not know what that record was, but we
can certainly get that to you, if you'd like to
see it.
Joseph Prandini:
Thank you.
Could you please?
224 California
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Dr. Lynn Goldman: I would be quite
doubtful that they would have specific data for
Santa Barbara County, but you never know.
JosephPrandini: One last comment. In
your notice, you say that 3.5 million
farmworkers are exposed to pesticides. Does
that mean that 3.5 million people were
poisoned by pesticides?
Dr. Lynn Goldman: No, exposed does
not mean poisoned.
Joseph Prandini: What does it mean?
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Exposed means that
in their daily work they are in contact with
pesticides and, certainly, may be at risk for
being poisoned, but have some level of
exposure.
Joseph Prandini: And "contact" meaning,
you mean that some of those were entering
fields before they were supposed to? Or is it
just that they might work in the area where
pesticides have been used, are used?
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Exactly. These are
the people for whom the Worker Protection
Standard applies.
Joseph Prandini: And I agree it should be.
But if it were stated a little more clearly, I
think it wouldn't look like that people in
agriculture are poisoning 3.5 million people a
year.
Ron Cisney: I'm Ron Cisney and I'm with
Olocco Ag Services, a full-service crop
protection company in Santa Maria Valley.
California's Worker Safety Regulations and the
compliance of those regulations over many
years have served the entire ag community,
farmworkers included, and the public at large
extremely well. EPA WPS has enhanced
those regulations in some cases. I'm sorry I
can't agree that it enhances the regulations and
the compliance of those regulations in every
case.
A little bit redundant, but I must make
comment myself on the quarter-mile issue and
the notification. The way it's written and the
way it's interpreted in the federal regulations is
going to be extremely confusing in the
vegetable producing areas on the coast of
California. I think it is perhaps going to work
reasonably well in other production areas but
it is extremely difficult. I think that Joe Karl
probably has the best example of how to
address that and I would urge you—please!
(exclamation point on that). Thank you very
much. Unless you have questions.
Guillermina Garnica [Speaking in Spanish
with English interpreter]: My name is
Guillermina Garnica and I am a farmworker
or an agricultural employee and at the same
time I also -work in packing pesticides for two
employers in my working area. One of the
things that I hear today from my union
concerns the re-entry period in the working
area, which means we are risking more our
lives. Because everything depends on that. We
came here to make sure that the regulations
don't go down. The re-entry period for us is
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very important. When we read the labels and
those packages that we are using, sometimes
they say 24-hour re-entry period or 48-hour
re-entry period. And sometimes we spray in
the afternoon and they say, first thing in the
morning we need to go inside of this area to
continue doing our job, and that is risking us
more.
One of the things that I hear is that the
growers produce a lot of millions of dollars.
That's good for everybody, it means that you
are doing a very nice job. But you forget that
we are the ones who do the job. The growers,
they give us the orders~"Do this, do that"—
and that's it. The ones that are doing the
whole thing is us. It's not the same thing to
do the job than to order you to do it.
Mr. Alan [Mitchell] said earlier that he is
concerned about the re-entry period because
of his roses and that he thinks of his workers
as family. If he really thinks like that, why
didn't he bring one of his workers so he can
explain how the job is doing in his own area?
Mr. Joseph [Prandini] from Betteravia
Farm said there's a lot of people in his area
that do not know how to read. If he's really
concerned about his employees, one
supervisor, one foreman can take a few
minutes every single day to read something so
these people know a little bit more about the
job that they are doing. This year and last year
I read in the newspaper that full crews were
taken to the Memorial Hospital to be taken
care of because they were working in those
fields—pesticides. I had an injury 10 years ago.
It was nothing, just a scratch on one of my
legs, but the fertilizer went into my blood and
I was laid up for two weeks; workman's
compensation right away. And it was nothing,
just a small cut with a little bit of blood. So if
the fertilizer can do that to me, what can
pesticides do? It is very risky.
When we start into training, people say,
"No, it's too much for me." Just to read, at
the beginning, you know, when you're starting
to take those examples when they are training
you to do pesticides, they said, "No, I won't
do that." Why? Because if you don't follow
those rules, if you don't use the right
equipment, if you don't feel comfortable, you
could die or you could kill another person if
you spray more.
Those labels are hard for us to understand
because they are talking about so many acres,
so many gallons sprayed, maybe 100, 200
gallon of that chemical. So we need a label
that we really can understand. Plus, most of
the labels are in English and the agricultural
employees in this area are mostly Spanish-
speaking only. It is really the growers' concern
about us to give us a little bit more of your
time. Personally, I have nothing to say about
my company because we have very good
training and that's why I learn more. I see
people spray on the strawberry without any
safety gear. Does this mean that you really
care about the employee? No, I don't think
so. And you can drive by in the afternoons,
after 3:00 p.m., they are doing it almost once,
twice a week. Because I drive this area almost
every single day.
The re-entry period is important for us in
the same way that it is important for you. But
I believe that each one of you have one
[Inaudible]...to follow and you need to fit at
what time is best time to spray your
226 California
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Pnaudible]... I have a question for you. If one
grower is spraying on a single crop, like
broccoli, cauliflower, maybe lettuce, on
Monday, and then goes to the same field and
picks it maybe by Thursday, is there enough
time for sending it to the customers? Because
we are eating that product and I believe there
are still some small amounts of residues in it.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I can tell you that
not only do we have the re-entry interval, the
time after the spraying before the worker can
come in, but we have another regulation that
is the pre-harvest interval, that is the time in
between the spraying and when it can be
harvested and go to market. And sometimes
those times are different. They're both on the
label and one takes into account the risk for
the workers and the other one the risk for the
consumers. So -we look at both of those
things.
Guillermina Garnica: OK. One of the
other things is, in the working area once a year
one person from the Agriculture Commission
stops by and reviews those files. You know,
in the last 10 years I've never seen any one of
those people come and ask us how we feel to
do the spraying, is the company taking good
care of you, did he really see our
equipment...In 10 years I don't see anybody
speak with one of the employees. Thank you.
I wish to say more but a lot of people are
waiting too and everyone deserves to say
something. Thank you.
Don Howell: My name is Don Howell.
I'm a grower with the Pajaro Valley
Greenhouses. I'm an employee, also a mixer
and a handler. We have about 850,000 square
feet of greenhouses with over 40 greenhouse
workers. Roses are our main crop. We've
been working with Worker Protection
Standards for over two years. We've tried very
hard to be ahead of the regulatory process in
adopting new procedures as we become aware
of them. In general we have found the
regulations to be of benefit to the agricultural
worker. It has encouraged employee and
management awareness and I'm sure it's
helped in the development of safer pesticides.
At the Pajaro Valley Greenhouse we've
been using the exception since it was granted
in June of 1994 and we are pleased to say that
we've had no pesticide illness problems. Our
employees have all been trained using the
EPA-approved floricultural alliance training
video, our areas are all posted, we use the
proper postings on our employment bulletin
boards, and proper personnel personal
protective equipment are supplied.
The biggest problem facing the rose cut
industry is having the ability to cut our roses
twice, or in some cases, certain varieties
require that they be cut three times a day. As
an earlier speaker said, we do that every day of
the year, except for Christmas and New Year's
which is only once. Roses must be cut that
often for us to be able to supply and ship, in
some cases, to the East Coast and other parts
of the United States, the cosmetically perfect
bloom that our customers demand.
Otherwise, if they are not cut at that stage,
then we end up throwing it away. We
estimate that if we were unable to cut those
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roses twice on any particular day that we could
lose 20% to 30% of our production.
We are moving as fast as possible to have
materials that have lower REIs and we
incorporate them into our programs whenever
possible. However, certain situations arise
where it is necessary for us to use materials
that have 24- or 48-hour re-entries. Without
the exception, we are forced to decide upon
losing tremendous amounts of product or
asking our employees to break the law and cut
the flowers before the REI has been met.
Unfortunately, with the industry being
attacked as it is by offshore production, in fact
it leaves us with very little decisions at all. We
are, in many cases, dealing with a number of
diseases and pests such as whitefly, mildew,
thrips, to name just a few. It is often
necessary to spray a particular area three or
four times per week. In those cases it is
impossible to manage a program without the
early re-entry exception. Also, by relying only
on 12-hour REIs, we face the potential of
resistance to those materials. It is of utmost
importance that we rotate the categories of
pesticides we use in our control preventative
spray programs.
As new materials become available,
especially ones that are safer, not as hot (or, as
we like to call them, biological), it is important
that we make them as easy as possible to use.
Materials such as Margosan, Azatin, and M-
Pede, which fall into the biological category,
all have 12-hour REIs. We are not making
them easier to use when we put an REI of 12
hours on those. It's also hard for us to get
across to the workers that those materials are
natural products. Some of them come from
juices and fruits of trees. And when they see
the 12-hour REI on that, that confuses them
as to the potential because they see pesticides
and they categori2e them all together.
Workers need to have the confidence to
know that, as an industry, chemical producers,
suppliers, and users are all moving in the same
direction with the same goals. As these
biological materials become available, it's to
everyone's best interest to use them. But we
must find a way to encourage their use
through lower REIs and not treat them the
same as every other material that is now on
the market.
In closing, I would like to reiterate that
this is imperative for us that we have the
exception extended. As I have stated before,
it has worked well for us in the past and we
have had no illnesses whatsoever. We are
professionals, our staff is well trained, and we
have supported the changes but we must
remain profitable to stay in business. Thank
you.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: One question for
you. Could you list again the three pesticides
that you said were—that have 12-hour REIs?
Don Howell: Yeah. I listed Margosan
and Azatin and M-Pede (which is an
agricultural soap).
Dr. Lynn Goldman: OK. That's
something we'll need to look into. I know
that there are a number of them that we
lowered the REIs for, but then I also think
that perhaps a product that was still in
commerce may still have the longer REIs on
228 California
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the label. We'll need to look at that and get
back to you about those specific pesticides.
Don Howell: Yeah, there's a lot of
materials like that that are coming down the
pipe in the marketplace. And we are very
encouraged by those. But I think it's in the
best interest to make them as available and as
easy to use as possible.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: And our philosophy
is that if a 4-hour REI is sufficient for a very
safe product, then we would like to do that.
But these may already be on the list that we
created 4-hour REIs. That's one of the things
I want to look at.
Grady S. Van Cleve: Hi. My name is
Grady Van Cleve. I work for Western Farm
Service as a pest control advisor. I have
worked for Western Farm for approximately
12 to 13 years. When I originally started with
the company I actually did pesticide
applications for about three years. So I
actually applied a lot of the things that I advise
on at this time. I will say that in 1994 that the
impetus of trying to develop a Worker
Protection Standard was a good one. I felt
that it was something that was going to push
us forward into the future. However—and I
work with a lot of these flower groups—I
specialize in floriculture and mushrooms.
That is intensive agriculture and I am not
going to reiterate what some of the earlier
gentlemen had already said.
One of my frustrations as a PCA [pest
control advisor] is that it does not seem like
some of the safer materials that are coming on
the market now are expedited more quickly
than something that would be, say, a
carbamate or a chorinated hydrocarbon or an
organo-phosphate. You're still forced to go
through the same steps, the same processes.
And, furthermore, a lot of these companies
that are on the cutting edge of developing
some of the safer products are very small
companies. They are not the Miles, the
Bayers, the Valents. What I'm trying to say is
that they don't have the big bucks that the
government can soak (and that's the way we
look at it—it can soak) to do all these extra
additional studies. Furthermore, they are
gambling by saying, "OK, we think this is
safe," and you guys say, "We need this test,
this test; this test, this test," and it's $3 million.
So they invest $3 million and they don't know
that they are going to get a return on that
investment. So, in minor crops like I deal
with, floriculture and mushrooms, there is no
motivation for these people. The market is so
small by comparison to corn and soybean and
•wheat. That's a big frustration for myself and
for my growers. '
We do implement integrated pest
management whenever possible. I'll tell you—
a big motivation for that is financial. Some of
the stuff that I see these guys use is upward of
$800 a gallon. You cannot tell me that there
is a farmer in this group that wants to apply a
pesticide. It is just not the case. If these guys
could grow a product without having to use it,
they absolutely would. OK? And that goes
for the farmworkers, too. I solemnly believe
in most of my clients that I deal with have
their employees' best interests at heart. Of
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course, there is always a rogue guy here and
there—we could say that about any industry.
Going back to what Mr. Howell indicated
with the Safer Soap (it's now called M-Pede),
part of my job is to work with the
manufacturers in the county and the state in
order to try to get the REIs lowered. But the
process and the politics involved in it is just
ridiculous. For it to filter down from a
national to a state level is very frustrating.
And this doesn't really apply to the WPS,
but it's a statement I'd like to make. We've
removed—or the government or the state has
removed—a number of "hard pesticides" over
the years. And I would like to make a
statement that I feel that that alone (even
though maybe you feel that it's in the best
interests of everybody) has increased the
pesticide use by growers because we have less-
-we have to use more of a lesser potent—I
don't know, maybe the terminology is not
correct. In other words, we are using softer
pesticides but we're spraying a lot more to get
the same job done. In other words, if I had
something that was stronger that was more
efficacious...OK, let's set aside that it's not
endangering the human population. A lot of
the owners that I work with cut roses along
with the growers, so they are endangering
themselves by your standards. It's just a
situation that is...it just doesn't make any
sense. An example that Mr. Howell gave in
terms of working with workers—and here
we've got an REI of 12 hours for one thing
that is obviously an organophosphate, if it's
microencapsulated it is a 12-hour re-entry, and
then I spray soap which is a long-chain fatty
acid, it's a 12-hour re-entry. If there was some
way we could expedite the lowering of those
REIs, we could go ahead and do our work.
Because I can guarantee you that every grower
in this room, if he didn't have to use another
pesticide for the rest of his life, he would do
it. It is not something that we want to do. It
is something that we have to do to produce
the food to feed our people. Thank you.
Howard Hofmann: Hi, I'm Howard
Hofmann with Campbell's Fresh; manager,
and I grow mushrooms. I've been doing it for
13 years and I'm proud of the safety record
that we've got. It's due to the great work of all
the people at our facility and the state, federal
government. We use the largest-use pesticide,
probably in the world. And that's chlorine.
It's got a 12-hour REI for swimming pool
chlorine (HTH) and I don't see warning signs
up at the health spa or the town pool and they
use far greater amounts than we're talking
about. I don't know how they arrive at an
REI like that and I'd like some scientific
background or let's use some science to get
these REIs nailed down. Thank you for your
time.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Great question. This
is the first I've heard about it and I can't
answer the question either. It's a great
comment—thank you.
Laura Caballero [Speaking in Spanish with
English interpreter]: I will speak in Spanish
because my English is limited. I've been
working 22 years. I've heard everybody's
comments and opinions. I am surprised to
see that there are so few agricultural workers
230 California
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here. It seems like we need to know more
about the problems the workers have—the
workers who work in all industry. And I hear
you say about the Commissioner of
Regulations, laws and rights of the workers
and the chemicals that exist. Everything is on
a piece of paper. In reality, it's not a lot, in my
opinion. Twenty-two years that I have been
working in the fields, I've seen more illnesses,
more children being born ill, more families
that miss work because every day they have
more problems, headaches. Sometimes their
children are sick and they have to miss work.
And this has been holding us back. We live in
a depression. We don't know if it's because of
the chemicals.
In 22 years I don't know one name of a
pesticide being used in each product. I have
worked in Washington, California, Central
Valley, on many products—cherries, broccoli,
apple. I don't know the names of these
products, and I don't know the damage they
can do, in short or long-time periods or
whether it produces harm instantly. The
regulations are in English. Companies receive
instructions that they should use [Inaudible]..;
their workers. But they...do it in their own
way, because they're trying to protect
themselves. Our side is that we should tell
...they should train us...We should have
seminars—they should have seminars for us,
the workers, directly. Not give it to the
ranchers or the buyers of the product. And
then they give their opinions second
hand—When one goes to the doctor, we also
see a nurse but we complain to the doctor,
and the doctor is the one who prescribes.
Right? Because if the doctor gives the
prescription to the nurse then everything
could turn out wrong. The posters out in the
field just say, "Do Not Enter-Danger." It
doesn't say the date or the time that this was
applied nor the consequences that they could
produce in a short time or long time. It's true,
chemicals cannot be reduced from one day to
the next because daily we are
experimenting...They're not saying this is done
to have healthy food at the market. It's more
to produce business and earnings and also to
produce work. But what is the problem? We
don't have insurance. People are under social
programs. And then, they blame the poor
people because they are poor and do not have
money to pay for illnesses and don't know
what has caused them. The poor don't eat
well, they drink too much... this is the message
that they receive. Chemicals are harming us
socially, nationally, worldwide—the children
and also our grandchildren and generations to
come. Thank you.
Luis Magaiia [Speaking in Spanish with
English interpreter]: Good evening, my name
is Luis Magana. We have had an opportunity
to gather with other workers that have given
their testimony and I don't want to repeat but
something came to my attention. I want to
review something.
When an agricultural worker told me that
he was affected or injured, one of many, that's
normal, and I could not find out •what
pesticide it was, I told him that there is an
office in the county, in this county to which
you have contributed economically, and your
taxes should be worth something. And that's
the office of the Agricultural Commissioner.
California 231
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What we found was that nobody spoke
Spanish. They brought a secretary from some
corner (that was in San Joaquin County). This
happened the 13th of this month. They told
us, "You have to pay 20-some dollars and the
cost of the copies and give us the exact place
where you were affected." He took photos,
and he said, "Well, I need to ask permission of
the farmer to go in there."
We said, how many officers at the
Commission of Agriculture are familiar with
the worker, not only with the farmer? In the
Central Valley, we made seven calls. Only one
of tihem spoke Spanish. And it was someone
else—a biologist—who said that he could speak
Spanish. Fresno—they said "No, that's
classified information." This is a new... My
father, who is here, when he got home one
day from pruning almonds, he said the boots
are ruined because the chemical destroyed
them. Nobody knew what it was.
Fortunately, nothing happened to them. So
then I tell myself, "We, ourselves, need to do
something." I represent an organization of
migrant workers. When I found out about
these hearings, I thought, it's for our
protection. We need to invite all the workers
to come here. I made posters, I made fliers.
I talked in Fresno on Radio Bilingue; people
who had been injured called, some ladies,
somebody from Selma spoke on how the
farmer would remove the labels from
pesticides. But where are the workers? It's
sad. There's an important question about the
agriculture. If the farmers would invite their
workers, I assure you that there would not be
enough space here in this room. The
testimony—I don't know if it would be in
favor of the farmer.
To conclude, 317 workers were asked
what the rules were and how they were
enforced. These are the responses. Each one
had five questions. The first one is, "Do you
know how dangerous pesticides are when you
work in the fields? And these are the results-
Number 2: "Do you know EPA's protection
rules for the worker?" And we have the
response... Number 3: "Have you received
information and training from the farmer or
your boss?" And the response is right here...
Number 4: "Do you know that it is your
boss's responsibility to give you information
according to these laws?" And the answer is
here.' The last one: "Should EPA's laws be
enforced?" The response is here. Number 2
and 3, we see the results. Many of the wor-
kers that were asked that question responded
more positive because they received more
information because they work in a large
cannery or in a large place. Out of the 300
workers, 100 live in migrant camps and are
helped by government money. So each year
they come back to work in agriculture. The
rest of them, the majority are undocumented
and we see the answer. We know the lack of
enforcement of this law and many others...
Yesterday [there] was an article in the
Fresno Bee where it talked about farmers. It
said that in this state they all comply with the
law. At the meeting I had yesterday with
some farmworkers, they did not believe this.
They just laughed. I wish that they had
weapons that they could give the workers and
their organizations to enforce these laws. We
232 California
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really need for these laws to be enforced.
Thank you.
Tina Chapman: Good evening. My name
is Tina Chapman. I work for Matsui Nursery.
Our primary crop is roses, but we also grow
other specialty crops like gerbers,
snapdragons, iris, etc. We employ about 160
people on a year-round basis. This is our slow
season. Today we bunched about 3,000
bunches of roses and 2,000 bunches of
specially cut flowers. At Valentine's Day we
will cut well over a million stems of roses.
Last year, U.S. consumers purchased over 2
billion roses, but only 35% were grown in the
United States. We are under considerable
pressure from foreign competition. We are
working very hard at improving our cultural
and handling practices so that we can offer
our market a quality product at a competitive
price. In the cost analysis done regarding the
economic impact that the EPA regulations
would cause under the section titled "Impact
on Jobs in California" (it's Title 3 and 26), I
quote: "This action is not expected to result in
the creation or elimination of any jobs or
businesses in the state. Neither is this action
likely to result in the expansion or reduction in
size of any business in the state." I guess they
didn't talk to any rose growers.
What is our main problem with the
implementation of the WPS? The re-entry
intervals and the prohibition of harvesting
under any circumstances during the REI. We
must cut roses twice a day. In order to insure
our customers a quality product, we must cut
the rose while it is still fairly tight. If we don't
do a second cut, we stand to lose at least 20%
of that day's production. Someone asked me
if we couldn't sell cracked roses as seconds.
Our market for that quality of rose would
pretty well be limited to the local area. With
so many rose growers in this area, how many
seconds do you think we could sell on the
local market? At any price?
It has also been suggested we do our
pesticide applications at the end of the work
day after the second cut. The problem with
that scenario is that on a good many days, the
greenhouses are too hot. The greenhouses are
generally 10 to 15 degrees warmer than
outdoors. And that's with our nice wind that
we have here in Salinas. Our applicators
wouldn't like working in this conditions and
the chemicals are generally not effective at
those high temperatures. Not to mention the
damage that would be done to the roses—it
would probably cause much more damage
than we would eliminate.
Besides losing the 20%—or I think
someone else mentioned 30%—of our
production by not being able to do the second
cut; I also would like to point out that we also
would incur the additional expense of having
to pay for labor to clean those roses that we
weren't able to cut. We cannot simply leave
them on the plant. Roses are in continuous
production. Flowers are generally given as
gifts and used for special occasions such as
weddings. The customer demands a perfect
flower and perfect foliage. We need to
constantly care for the crop.
I am also concerned with the potential
loss that may result from delaying a pesticide
spray because of our need to keep cutting. At
Valentine's Day we cut nearly a million stems
California 233
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of roses. We can't do that all in one day.
Powdery mildew can get out of control in a
very short time, given the right opportunity.
You heard a lot from rose growers, but there
are also other flower growers that will be hurt
by this. Because I know that iris and tulips
and other specially cut flowers also have the
need to be cut twice a day. Rose growers
won't be the only pnes adversely affected.
And if the rose growers go under, how long
do think other flower growers will stay in
business? Would there be enough shipping
for the trucking companies and the other
support companies to stay in operation? I
don't think so.
We do not want to put our employees at
unnecessary risk. Help us to find solutions to
this dilemma. There are probably more
chemicals that could be applied using
automated foggers, etc., at night, but they are
not labelled for that use. Perhaps there are
other criteria that we could use to judge the
safety of a treated area other than merely the
passage of time. We want to keep our
employees safe. But we need to stay
economically viable in order to keep our
employees' jobs. Thank you.
Rosendo Franco: Good evening. My
name is Rosendo Franco. I am a worker in
Baja California, back sprayer in STC Salinas
Transplants. It is a greenhouse where we
grow celery and cauliflower. So I am working
in there for 10 years, maybe more, and before
we were very upset because we weren't
receiving any training in there. I am talking
about four or five years ago. But now, we are
getting the right training and and everything in
there and now we are working better than
before. But the workers are very scared about
the pesticides and every one of the workers in
there works with lots of pesticides and is
scared. I think the best thing for the
Commissioner or for the people who are in
charge of that thing is to give more education
to the workers. Because even some of the
workers can read and speak English. I think
this is the best thing to do—get more
information about pesticides, the sickness, the
illness to us, to the workers. That's all I can
say. Thank you.
William Young: My name is William
Young. I'm a rose grower in Watsonville.
Before I was a rose grower, as I was growing
up I also was a farmworker. I worked for my
family farm. I handled and sprayed pesticides
at the farm. In fact, I was the main person
who was doing all the spraying on the farm.
I understand the concern of the farmworker.
I understand how important it is to have a
safety program. But I also understand the
economics of the business of growing flowers.
We are impacted by imports. It's a worldwide
market now; it's not just a California market.
The economic strain on our business and
various regulations is impacting our industry.
I'm not going to talk very long tonight
because many of the other growers and
managers have already pointed out the major
points. But, in our nursery, I just want to
point out there are other growers who are
trying to implement an integrated pest
management program (by that I mean that
they are using less toxic chemicals or using
predators for the control of spider mites). We
234 California
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are also doing a lot of monitoring. With our
farm extension people we are working for an
integrated pest management program which
will be safe for our industry and also for our
farmworkers. I ask EPA to look into various
alternative methods that we are using and try
to set up a shorter REI interval on some of
the safer materials that we are using and
experimenting with the farm extension agents.
This industry involves all of us. We need
to work together—government agencies,
grower, and farmworker. We need all, as one
unit. This is not pros or cons. This is needing
to work as a unit. I think that if we put our
heads together we can come up with a suitable
program. Thank you.
James Nagamine: Good evening. My
name is James Nagamine and I am employed
by Nagamine Nursery in Watsonville. We are
rose growers and I am also this year President
of the California Floral Council which is a
statewide organization of about 132 nursery
operations. This is a voluntary position that I
take.
If I can indulge a little bit, I'd like to give
you a little background on myself and our
operation. My parents came over from Japan
in the mid-'50s as immigrants, worked as field
workers, lived their American dream, saved up
enough money, and started a little nursery
operation in Watsonville in the early '60s.
And if you look at most of the nursery
operations across the state, this is not an
isolated story. The majority of the people are
family-operated nurseries and they are owner-
operators. They are not absentee owners. If
you look at the majority of the nurseries, they
are small operations, with everybody in the
family working alongside with the workers.
We've been in operation since 1963. I don't
want to take up too much time because I
know it's getting late and a lot of us have to
get up early to go to work and I appreciate the
time.
You've been hearing a lot of opinions
tonight. I'd like to take a look at a third party
—someone that's not in agriculture or in a
government regulatory situation. I called an
insurance company that provides most of the
worker's compensation for the nurseries in
this area and I asked them, "What's our safety
record?" They said well, if you look at
worker's compensation, they have what is
called a loss ratio with the amount of money
they take in and the amount of money they
expect to pay out on not just pesticide-related
claims, but on all claims—lifting claims; walking
into an operation, slipping on a floor; all
claims, not just spray-related claims—and they
were saying that the average is about 65% for
all industries. All industries. And I said, "That
sounds kind of high. What is it for nursery
operations?" They said, "It's around 30% or
less, and the last ten years it's been below
30%."
I don't want to go over a lot of points that
a lot of people have made, which I think are
good points. But I just want to bring up that
our industry is not one—we're not a dirty
industry; we've been clean given our history
and looking at our track record—not just
coming from us but coming from an
insurance company whose business it is to
make money and to insure people who are
sick. That's all I have to say. Thank you.
California 235
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Kay Rudolph: Before we close, I would
just like to check and see if there are any
others, perhaps things that you've heard
tonight, you would now like to make a
comment. The floor is open if there are any
others who would like to make a brief
comment. If not, what I'd like to do... oh, yes,
there is somebody. That's OK, you can make
an additional comment.
Speaker from Audience: The only thing I
wanted to say, if you keep a record of every
single worker who works with pesticides in
this area or in all the State of California, it will
be more easy for us to know about those
meetings instead of waiting for a company to
go and tell us. It would be a meeting over
here and you can go find new information and
apply something to your own protection. I
appreciate that more. It would be easy for
you to call the news, the radio, information in
the newspaper—for you guys, everything free.
For us, we pay for everything. And the
growers, they are supposed to have more
communication with employees, especially the
ones who work with pesticides and make sure
they are using the right equipment to apply
pesticides because there is a lot of different
stuff to use. And you need to buy the one
that is appropriate for that specific employee.
That's it.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: In closing, I want to
once again thank all of you for coming here
tonight. And I will tell you that this is the
third of these meetings that I have personally
attended and, I think, the seventh one now
for the program. We did hear things that
were very unique in terms of the situation here
in this area. Certainly, a lot of concerns with
the roses and cut flowers industry and the
nurseries and how we can make the
standardworkable. And I will tell you that we
have been working with the cut flowers
industry and I think we need to continue to
do so. I agree with the comment that the last
gentleman made that this is something that we
can work out if we all work together. I think
that that was absolutely right and in the spirit
of why we're here tonight.
I also heard today some concerns about
the one-quarter-mile notification. Although
this is a national requirement, I will say that
this is the first of these meetings where I've
really heard about problems that are arising.
And so I think that this is something that we
are really going to need to. work on. We'll
need to work with the State of California on
that issue and work with all of you. It's an
interesting issue and, as I said, one that is new
to us tonight.
Other issues that we've heard about, I will
say, are quite consistent with some of the
things that we've heard in other parts of the
country in that there seem to be issues with
what's the right way to comply with the
posting requirements, get the information
available, and there still seems to be a need for
training and education of all of those involved
in the process. One thing I'm going to take
back with me is a commitment to find the
resources to make sure that we can continue
those efforts because I think that it is apparent
that we need that.
Last, and not least, were the concerns that
we heard about the compliance with the
236 California
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standards and that there is more work that is
needed there, as well. That's another area
where we will work with the state. I'm
encouraged by the fact that the state is
developing the new regulations to bring the
California standards and the federal standards
together. I think that will help and I think
that that's going to require cooperation by the
region, the state, the counties, to make that
happen. Obviously, just having the regula-
tions on paper is not the point of the
regulations. The regulations have to work.
They have to be implemented. And that's
why we're here tonight.
Again, thank you so much. I realize that
this has been a difficult issue for many of you.
It's also a very important one and it's
important to us to make to work right Thank
you so much.
[Meeting adjourned]
California 237
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Registered Participants in the Salinas Public Meeting
Juan Aguirre
Teamsters Union 890
Laurel Bell
California Rural Legal Assistance
Donald G. Bennett
AgSafe
Rick Bergman
Santa Cruz County Agricultural
Commissioner's Office
Yvette Black
SoilServ Inc.
Tim Brown
Pajaro Valley Greenhouse
Laura Caballero
Campesinos
Jose Luis Carreno
Dole
Salvador Carrillo
Teamsters Union 890
Tina Chapman
Matsui Nursery
Bob Chavez
Dept. of Pesticide Regulation CAL-EPA
Ron Cisney
Olocco A6 Services
Leonard R. Cordova
Barlocker Insurance
Max Curiel
Farm Employers Labor Service
Louie Curtis
Green Valley Floral
John Donahue
Dept. of Pesticide Regulation CAL-EPA
Rosendo R. Franco
Salinas Transplant Inc.-Bud of California
Guillermina Garnica
Teamsters Union Local 890
Denise E. Graab
National Radio Project
Howard Hofmann
Campbell's Fresh
Don Howell
Pajaro Valley Greenhouses
Elaine Hunt
Agricultural Personnel Management
Association
238 California
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Tonyjohnsen
Johnsen Nurseries Inc.
Joe Karl
Santa Barbara County Agriculture
Commissioners Office
Akira Kawihira
Asahi Greenhouse
Rick Kyutoky
Kyutoky Nursery Inc.
Robert Lievanos
Safety Consult
Luis Magana
Organization de Trabajadores Agricolas de
California
Juanita Martinez
S.D.D.
Jack Olsen
San Mateo County Farm Bureau
Dr. Ana Maria Osorio
Occupational Health Branch California
Department of Health Services
; Frances Pabrua
Monterey County Agricultural
Commissioner's Office
Joseph Prandini
Betteravia Farms
Ronald Pummer
San Mateo County Dept. of Agriculture
Jose Renteria
Matsui Nursery
Tobias Ris Marquez
Dole
Pete Mercado
Pemer Packing Co.
Mike Meuto
California Rural League Association
Alan Mitchell
California Pajarosa
Tash Miyashita
Miyashita Nursery, Inc.
James Nagamine
California Floral Council/Nagamine Nursery
Robert A. Roach
Monterey County Agricultural
Commissioner's Office
Don Rochester
Monterey County Agriculture
Commissioners Office
Carlos Ruiz-Martinez
California Public Health Foundation
Roy Sakae
Roy Sakae Roses
California 239
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Sam Sakamero
Saq Nursety
John P. Sestito
CDC-NIOSH
Bodie Taylor
Top Quality Farms
Barbara Todd
California Dept. of Food & Agriculture
Grady S. Van Cleve
Western Farm Service
C. Watte
California Farm Bureau Federation
Jennifer Weber
University of California at Davis— IPM
Education and Publications
Mark Yamaguchi
Yamaguchi Greenhouse, Inc.
Kenji Yonemitsu
Central Coast Greenhouse
William Young
Aspen Nursery
Melanie Zavala
University of California at Davis
IPM Education and Publications
240 California
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Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Farmworkers, Fresno, CA
• July 22,1996, 6:30 p.m.
• EPA staff met with Rudy Trevino of Lideres Campesinas and a group of farmworkers at the
Mosqueda Community Center in Fresno, with Luis Magafta, Celia Prado, and Gloria
Hernandez. Workers represented both field workers and packers.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Meeting participants highlighted the particular concerns of women farmworkers and
Mixtec workers.
— Reports of incidents of pesticide exposure and concerns about health effects
(miscarriages, nausea, rashes). Participants stated that workers are afraid to report,
and when they do, doctors are unable or unwilling to diagnose pesticide poisoning.
— Concerns that appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) is not being
distributed, or is distributed but not used due to heat stress.
— Workers reported that application records and warning signs are not being posted,
and it is difficult to obtain records from the foreman or from the Agricultural
Commissioner's office.
— Participants also noted a lack of •washing/decontamination facilities, bathrooms, and
clean water for drinking.
— The group felt that English-speaking workers •were given information orally before
others. Posters are difficult to read or workers have no time to read them.
— Workers are not sure where to go with complaints, do not feel comfortable
contacting the Agricultural Commissioner's Office, and lack a network of support.
— According to participants, training may be given to foremen but is not passed down
to workers (prior to WPS, California law required foremen to be trained). Farm
labor contractors do not want to train workers and seem to think that workers do
not care about their health.
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Chandler Farms, Selma, CA
• July 23,1996, 9:00 sum.
• EPA and state staff visited a 500-acre vineyard and orchard (peaches, plums) and observed
harvest work. A total of 95 workers were on the payroll last year. The farm has a labor
camp for 13 persons in three units; other workers live off-site. Five certified applicators/
employees of the farm apply pesticide sprays.
• EPA and state staff met with owner Bill Chandler.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Owner expressed interest in closer alignment of pre-harvest and restricted entry
intervals.
— Owner received permission from the state to have all pesticide application records in
a binder hanging from the washing/decontamination site. As a result, he believes the
information is more accessible and more easily managed.
AmeriCorps & Sponsor Organizations, Fresno, CA
• July 23,1996,12:00 p.m.
• EPA and state staff discussed training issues with AmeriCorps trainers from the California
Human Development Corporation and Proteus, Inc., and representatives from an insurance
company and the University of California Extension Service (Fresno).
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— According to AmeriCorps workers, the Agricultural Commissioner's office is not
telling growers about free training from AmeriCorps because they consider it
inappropriate to promote one organization when private organizations also offer
training. It was suggested that the Agricultural Commissioner release a list of
qualified trainers with a description of each organization.
— Need for more quality control of training and testing following the training.
AmeriCorps trainers do not use videos; they give a presentation followed by
dialogue.
— Continuing reports of growers hiring only workers who already have WPS safety
training verification cards. AmeriCorps trainers and their sponsors would like to see
these training verification cards made mandatory.
— Concerns expressed that the WPS is not enforceable yet.
242 California
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— The insurance company represented at the meeting offers free worker training for its
clients, but this may change in the future. The company uses a video and hand-outs,
explains why workers are being trained, and summarizes information.
Farm Labor Contractors and Agricultural Employers, Fresno, CA
• July 23,1996,1:30 p.m.
• EPA and state staff discussed training issues with farm labor contractors, growers, and the
Cooperative Extension Service.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Logistical difficulties of providing training. Need to make it easier for small
establishments (80 to 120 acres) that try to provide training in-house.
— Participants noted the need for a training hand-out that any grower can distribute,
then follow up to see if workers understood the training.
— High turnover of farm labor contractors; need more train-the-trainer classes for
contractors.
— Cost of training is justified; fewer workers are taking pesticide containers home, etc.
If growers took greater precautions jobs (e.g., not leaving pesticide containers out,
posting fields), there would be no need for training. Some employees stated that
their workers are primarily concerned with getting their pay, not other issues.
— Concern of growers about liability with regard to workers whom they have trained
and given WPS safety training verification cards to.
— Difficulties with training verification cards: workers lose them or forget they have
them. Sometimes workers cannot read or write. Having a training verification card is
no proof that worker has been trained adequately.
— Participants expressed the need for more EPA-approved training materials. Videos
developed by agricultural chemical companies do not fulfill the needs of seasonal
workers.
— Participants expressed the need for more knowledgeable inspectors familiar with
agricultural production. Growers need to do both WPS and OSHA training at the
same time in order to save time, money.
California 243
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— Suggestion that EPA create an employer/labor advisory committee to come up with
simple ways to comply.
Fordel, Inc., Mendota, CA
• July 24,1996, 9:00 a.m.
• EPA and state staff visited this 500-acre farm (cantaloupes) and observation of melon
harvest. Fordel has 500 employees; with turnover, averages 1,200 workers/year.
• Discussion with owner John LeBoeuf.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Fordel has created database of training records and a binder that has safety
information, application records, etc. Application records are also put in office
window.
— Fordel started using biological controls six years ago. Fordel is participating with
USDA and National Academy of Sciences in writing a book on precision agriculture
and lower application rates.
Monterey County Office of the Agricultural Commissioner
• July 24,1996, 9:00a.m.
• EPA and state staff met with Francis Pabrua and Robert Roach, Monterey Agricultural
Commissioner's Office.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— In 1980, Monterey was the first county to have an ordinance to post treated fields.
There are about 38,000 farmworkers in the county. Lettuce alone has about 200
crews working per day, with 40-50 harvesters in a crew.
— Office has 30 inspectors doing lettuce quality inspections. By contrast, 10 inspectors
are dedicated to pesticide use activities, including WPS.
— Inspectors conduct about 200 investigations annually. Each inspector is assigned a
section of the county and gets to know the growers. The office emphasizes a
philosophy of improving compliance through education.
— Misunderstanding that notification must be given to every person who lives within a
quarter mile of the area, not just workers who come within a quarter mile of a treated
area on the establishment.
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Matsui Nursery, Monterey, CA
• July 24,1996, 2:00 p.m.
• EPA and state staff met with Tina Chapman and Jose Renteria, who led a tour of the
greenhouse. Built in the 1960s, the nursery produces 2 million square feet of roses and
500,000 square feet of other flowers.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Costs have gone up to comply with regulations, including the WPS. It takes several
weeks to train each of Matsui's 160 to 180 employees to meet all regulatory
requirements, according to operators.
— Cut flower production requires a lot of hand labor. Workers may work 16-hour days.
The plant needs to be perfect or is thrown out. Roses are cut at least twice a day
(morning and afternoon), beginning with two hours of harvesting at 7 a.m. Each
plant flowers 10 times per year.
— Matsui uses hot water treatments on cut flowers as an alternative to pesticides.
University of California (Davis) and pesticide companies come to Matsui to do
research trials.
Farmworkers and Labor Representatives, Salinas, CA
• July 24,1996, 8:00 p.m.
• EPA staff met with 15 farmworkers; representatives of Teamsters, United Farm Workers,
Independent Agricultural Workers Union, California Rural Legal Assistance.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Some participants advocated the elimination of pesticide use. Participants stated
that violations and incidents still occur; the problem belongs to the community; not
just to the grower, chemical company, or EPA.
— Reports continue of pesticide exposure incidents, symptoms of pesticide poisoning
not recognized by doctors, lack of washing/decontamination facilities.
— Workers expressed a need for more information about the chemicals they are dealing
with. They asked: How can workers know if they have been exposed to chemicals in
a nearby field? How will a worker know if an exposure from years ago caused an
illness today? Participants asserted that neither farm labor contractors nor
applicators know much about laws or pesticides.
California 245
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— Participants expressed concerns about the toxicity of methyl bromide and questioned
the need for its use. They stated that only 10% of farmers currently use it.
— Participants stated that workers need to see that enforcement works and that they
won't be fired, in order to be encouraged to report incidents/violations. Violations
should result in large fines, according to attendees.
— Participants felt that Agricultural Commissioner's offices see their job as protecting
growers, and therefore advocated giving WPS enforcement responsibility to another
entity.
— Participants recommended improving systems for reporting violations. Workers do
not know whom to call and they lack trust in the Agricultural Commissioner's
offices. They stated that current office hours and their limited access to telephones
were problematic. Information on the process for reporting violations should be
disseminated through radio, television, etc., in workers' languages.
— Participants gave avorable responses to EPA's suggestion of appointing an adjunct,
community-based person selected by the community to improve reporting and assist
in enforcement efforts.
Kohatsu Strawberry Farm, Salinas area, CA
• July 25,1996, 9:00 a.m.
• EPA and state staff visited a 120-acre strawberry farm and met with Paul Kohatsu, a third
generation strawberry grower. Kohatsu farms 120 acres of strawberries, owns over 900 acres,
and contracts over 5,000 acres throughout California.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Owner uses little migrant labor and relies on a stable, non-union workforce. The
owner stated he does his own training and has a three-day harvest rotation to allow
for spraying and re-entry periods.
— Minor use for specialty crops is a huge issue because the grower cannot pass the cost
of pesticides onto the consumer. In the last 20 years, they have been working more
with integrated pest management (IPM).
— The grower uses methyl bromide and believes that nothing else works as well.
246 California
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— The Monterey Agricultural Commissioner's office has been working with the
University of California (Berkeley) and the California Department of Pesticide
Regulation for the past four years trying to breed resistant strains of berries. Methyl
bromide is used to control root diseases that can go down 10-30 feet or more below
the surface.
— The owner reported that virtually all spraying in the area is done under the advice of
a pest control advisor. :
Misionero Vegetables, Salinas, CA
• July 25,1996,11:00 a.m.
• EPA and state staff toured an in-house laboratory for pesticide residue testing and met with
laboratory scientists. Misionero set up its own in-house, state-accredited lab in 1990 in order
to obtain same-day results from testing of samples for pesticide residues during harvest
season.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Very little aerial application is done on the establishment because of the expense,
high wind conditions in the area, and small plot size. The company tries to find
alternatives to chemical use.
— Pest control advisor has a 20-year working relationship, is paid by salary, not
commission, so he has no incentive to use more chemicals. California is adding a
new IPM category for pest control advisor licensees.
— To meet sometimes more stringent Canadian tolerance levels, the company has to
wait several days to harvest to let the pesticide degrade sufficiently.
— Misionero's primary labor contractor has gone through the state-accredited pesticide
safety trainer course in California and Arizona. Workers are updated on pesticide
safety practices every three months..
— Misionero is still determining where to place the central posting. Every morning, the
primary labor contractor informs all of the farm labor contractors where applications
have been made so that they can give oral notification. They prefer the California
skull & cross-bones warning sign because the workers are used to it.
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Clfnica de Salud, Salinas, CA
• July 25,1996,1:30 p.m.
• EPA and state staff visited a health care clinic and met with Dr. Maximiliano Cuevas and Dr.
Rafael Siqueros about reporting of pesticide incidents.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
• — California's Health & Safety Code requires that doctors report any suspected
pesticide cases within 72 hours. According to a state official, a dramatic, unexplained
decline in investigations into reported pesticide incidents occurred between 1995
(107 investigations) and 1996 (16 investigations).
— The doctors observed that continuing under-reporting of pesticide incidents may be
due to: ignorance of reporting requirement or reluctance on the part of physician
assistants and nurse practitioners to initiate reporting process, high turnover of
workers, reluctance of illegal aliens to seek timely treatment; racial and class-based
discrimination, and lack of public attention to pesticides.
— Suggestions for making other physicians aware of the reporting requirement and of
symptoms of pesticide poisoning included: newspaper and journal advertising, use of
800 numbers with adequate staffing; offering a class as part of an overall primary
conference that physicians are likely to attend, and person-to-person delivery to
clinics of information that is user-friendly.
248 California
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Transcripts of Site Visits
Meeting with Farmworkers,
Fresno, CA, July 22,1996
Kay Rudolph pPA Facilitator]: The
purpose of this meeting is to help you get a
better understanding of pesticides issues and
the role of the Worker Protection Standard to
help farmworkers to help themselves. So we
are here for you to ask us questions and to
give us an opportunity to ask you questions.
Who's starting now?
Luis Magana [Speaking in Spanish with
English interpreter]: I am Luis Magana. For
two years and a half I have worked and
personally taught the community of
farmworkers. In this entire area, from
Antigua to the north of Sacramento,
California, I have discovered many possibilities
that under federal and state laws concern
farmworkers.
You said earlier that you wanted to start
this meeting with some recent information.
Well, I have been sick for three weeks and
remembered a fellow country man named Jose
Martinez. He was picking grapes one day and
it was raining. From that day forward he
began to feel sick. That day I noticed that he
had lots of leaves adhered to his head and
today I see his case is serious. The rain and
the effects of leaves adhered to his head might
have caused brain damage. I'm sure he is not
here today for distance and financial reasons.
The company says the spray has nothing to do
with his problems and Jose says he is
convinced that his problems are caused by
pesticides because they had been spraying the
farm that day and the farmers don't comply
with the federal law on pesticide control.
... I wanted to start the meeting with this
specific example because it is the most recent
one that has occurred.
Kay Rudolph: Has he said that Mr.
Martinez has taken his case to an attorney?
Luis Magana: The lawyer also says that
there is nothing wrong with Mr. Martinez. He
is looking for another lawyer.
Kay Rudolph: And how did all this
happen? Where were you picking?
Luis Magana: En Federal North... The
problem is that Mr. Martinez took three weeks
before he reported the accident.
Kay Rudolph: Three weeks?
Luis Magana: One, two, three weeks, I
don't know for sure. [Inaudible]...
Kay Rudolph: Can you repeat the name
of the sick man?
Luis Magana: His name is Jose Martinez.
I have his permission to speak on his behalf at
this meeting because he is too far away. I
asked him, he told me I could speak for him.
California 249
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Kay Rudolph: Has any investigation been
conducted?
Luis Magana: I don't know at what phase
the case is now. He says he doesn't know
what is going on now because he never had a
case like this before. I wanted to start the
meeting with a specific example because this
incident can happen to any male or female
worker in the farm. I also want the law to say
that if any human life is contaminated with
pesticides, that farmer must give the worker
and his family all kinds of urban protection.
[Inaudible]...
I was driving once on Route 50 and I saw
a worker spraying on almond trees. He had
no gloves or any type of impermeable
[protection]. I asked him why he was not
wearing protective clothing, right? Because it
is very harmful to his health if he doesn't wear
it. He said, "It's too hot." This means that
when workers are spraying, it is not mandated
by the farmer to wear protective clothing.
[Inaudible]...
I'm not saying that's how all the workers
are, but in most cases, the farmer can't care
less about the worker's health. They only care
about going on with the work and the rest is
of no interest to them.
A lot of the camps are horrible. Many of
them don't have soap to bathe or -water in the
bathrooms to wash your hands before eating.
What I know through many of my
connections with workers who pick tomatoes
is that these tomatoes have been sprayed with
chemicals and if the workers don't wash their
hands before eating it would be harmful to
their health. [Inaudible]...
I know that there have been experts from
the government whose assistance to the
workers and the information they provide
about chemicals is very helpful. It has been
instructive in helping workers learn about
chemicals. [Inaudible]...
I only wanted to share this information
with you. This has been a great experience.
With regards to knowledge and reading, I have
a general education and I have spoken in the
language that I know, in my own way.
Another issue is that many of the contractors
who some are Mexicans, say in a degrading
way, "These people do not deserve all of these
federal laws. They don't educate us because
they consider us lower than them. They want
to keep us ignorant so that we don't get to
know the federal law."
[Inaudible]... She would like to take your
photo to take it to Washington as evidence
that they spoke with you personally.
Kay Rudolph: Has the state inspector
been here to conduct an investigation?
Luis Magana: No.
Kay Rudolph: Have you seen any official
or inspector from the government?
Luis Magana: No. Gloria, the female
foreman, said: "We already spoke with the
inspector, but you didn't see them. I have
already spoken with them."
Kay Rudolph: Did they say, "You haven't
seen them?"
250 California
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Luis Magana: Yes, they said, "I have
spoken with them, they checked everything
and all is well." But I know they haven't been
here, if they came it had to be on Saturdays.
I say, "No, everything is not well," and they
get mad at me because sometimes there is no
soap to wash your hands nor towels to dry
your hands. Sometimes I tell things to the
foremen and they respond, "It is best not to
have an" inspector here because the farmer
already spoke with the inspectors and all is all
right."
On the 19th of this month I met a worker
who was ill because of pesticides. He had
been foreman for two years in the asparagus
fields and he wasn't the only,one infected.
Because he had not registered with the
California State Department of Agriculture he
thought he did not have any rights. He had
been living and working in California for 30
years and he didn't know that the state
maintains records of farmworkers and that the
office even existed. I took him on the 19th to
the Office of Agriculture and they gave us a
detailed map and he was told that the copy of
his records would cost $20, plus additional
costs for preparing the records. None of the
inspectors spoke English. Only a secretary,
named Angela, spoke some Spanish. I forgot
her last name; she told us that the workers
who left for Mexico were mojaditos [the wet
ones], a demeaning way to call them.
Kay Rudolph: Have the workers asked
what the rules associated with pesticides are?
Luis Magana: There is a line of authority.
The worker must start talking with the
foreman, who later interviews the worker.
Then he contacts the farmer. However, the
communication stops between the worker and
the farmer. The first thing the foreman says
is, "What are you doing, are you acting as a
politician?"
Kay Rudolph: Has the foreman told you
that there is a specific place in the farm where
the worker can look at a list of all the
pesticides that had been used in the last three
days and that they have the right to obtain
that information?
Luis Magana: To know about pesticides is
a personal experience for me. The workers
don't even know what the pesticides are.
Maybe he knows that the field gets sprayed,
but he doesn't know where he should step
because he doesn't know how dangerous the
spray is. The man who •works in the office
doesn't know. Maybe the supervisor knows,
but not the worker. When the worker calls
the office and he is asked which pesticide he
came in contact with, they say, "I don't know,
I only know they sprayed insecticide."
Workers: What they are really saying is, "I
cannot pronounce that word," or "I cannot
pronounce this pesticide, I have a mental
block." My personal opinion is that what the
office workers are really saying is, "You don't
know how to read or write in English or
Spanish. Even if the signs -were written you
wouldn't understand them." There are big
posters out there, this big, all those posters,
they can't read them! Secondly, even if they
could read they wouldn't understand them.
California 251
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Kay Rudolph: Let's get her testimony.
Worker; I work in the tomato packing
plant What happens is there are hot tomatoes
and cold tomatoes. Sometimes we are working
and we feel our noses, eyes and throat itching
and we feel nauseated. Some years ago some
pregnant women lost their babies. They don't
give us protection. They treat us like animals.
Sylvia, you had some information to share.
Worker: I was doing cleaning work at the
plant one Thursday. It had been raining hard
and the wind was blowing strong. The doors
of the plant were closed. There was a woman
there who began getting very sick. The
(female) foreman asked her, "What's wrong
with you, woman? What have you all done?
I can't open the doors because of the wind."
Some women started vomiting every five
minutes. The supervisor was called. He came
in and saw what was going on and he stopped
the working line because this was not the first
time this incident had occurred, it had
occurred many other times. It would be 10
years now, but I was there the first time it
happened.
Kay Rudolph: Did they send you home
this time?
Workers: No, they sent us immediately, in
the rain, to another packing plant They didn't
care whether we got wet or not.
When we got there they said, all of you
who are throwing up, go over there, those
with headaches, over there, those with
stomach aches, over there, etc. We all had
headaches. The farmer came and he said to
the foreman, why didn't she wait until later in
the day to have that work done. We said
something had to be done about this. They
asked the five of us who were sick to stay
there for four hours with a mask on. We
asked the supervisor that even though we had
only worked four hours that day, we wanted
to be paid for the entire day because what
happened was not our fault. He said that he
could only pay them four hours because he
didn't know what was going on there. By any
chance he didn't know that they had been
killing us in there? In addition, we had been
required to stay there another four hours with
that mask on.
Kay Rudolph: Are the packing houses
located inside of the farm?
Workers: Yes.
Kay Rudolph: Luis was talking earlier
about a man who had been working in the
farms for 30 years and he didn't know that the
offices of the Department of Agriculture
officials existed. My question is: Do you all
know if these offices exist?
Worker: My opinion is that the workers
think that the labor offices claim on wages.
Unidentified Speaker: There is a difference
between the two labor agencies. Let me give
you an example. A couple of years ago I got
a case on wages. I was trying to change the
law of overtime for irrigators. Farmers don't
want to pay them overtime, but irrigators are
252 California
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required to be on the board irrigating 24 four
hours a day. These three brothers came to me
and they had perfectly recorded all their
overtime. They worked on the citrus and the
citrus required sprinkle irrigation and the only
time they would have to deal with the
sprinklers is if the sprinklers stopped going
around and they would make them go around
again. They took real good notes. The reason
why I bring this to you is because these guys
are real smart. They documented all their
overtime and they were able to surprise "bust"
the foreman I don't know how many times.
We have Alejandra Medina, an intern in
my office. The women attending this meeting
represent her internship project. Alejandra
Medina is the daughter of a fellow worker.
One of her projects was to interview women
at the farms who had not had the opportunity
to speak to anyone about their situations. We
asked her to review the interviews and give
you a small presentation about what they
found because it was very important for this
to be shared. We are asking for 10 minutes to
speak about this.
Kay Rudolph: Can this information be
shared with EPA?
Speaker: We have to talk to the workers
because the ones that we interviewed wanted
to give us the information, but wanted to
make sure that their names would not be
disclosed because they already had problems
at work. The release of information form that
they signed indicates that information can be
released but not their names.
Alejandra Medina: My name is Alejandra
Medina. I have conducted these interviews
with farmworker women. The whole view of
these women is that there is a lot of
discrimination in the fields. One lady told me
that there are a couple of Anglos working in
the fields and before they spray they come to
tell them first so they can get out of the field.
She says after they spray they don't come to
work for two days because they can't stand the
smell and they don't want to get headaches.
Some of the workers are very sensitive to
chemicals and they get rashes. Others never
go to the hospital for examinations because
they are afraid of the results. This lady said
that some chemical fell in her hand and she
has had a rash for a long time. They are not
allowed to wear gloves. Also, they get very
hot in them. Having chemicals in their hands,
the sweat makes the rashes in their hands
worse. Others said bathrooms are not
provided and when they are provided they are
located far away.
I also interviewed a man who told me
that he got infected with pesticides. This man
did go to the doctor and the doctor told him
that if he would go with him to the
commissioner, he would tell the com-
missioner what this man's problem was.
Another lady told me that at the packing
plants when the tomatoes fall to the ground
they don't get picked up and they stay there
smashed up and smelly. When it gets very hot
there, the smell of the smashed tomatoes
together with the pesticides and the messy
workplace gives them headaches.
California 253
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Worker My name is Nicolas. I work in a
company where they plant sweet potatoes
with a plow tractor. They keep the water to
water the plants in a tank of water behind his
tractor. They mix the water with the
"medicine" (pesticide).
Worker [Wife of the previous speaker]: He
calls the pesticide "medicine." He comes in
contact with the pesticide when he plows and
the dirt is pulled up against his hands and face.
Oneway or another he comes in contact with
the poison.
Kay Rudolph: Has the farmer or any
other group given the workers any training
about protection against pesticides?
Workers: My husband takes this class, but
they don't give it in a way that they
understand. What he makes is not worth it.
They don't bring them water. They don't
provide toilets. The workers have to go to the
fields for their personal needs and to the
canals to wash their hands before they eat so
they don't have to swallow "poison" too.
Unidentified Speaker: I had a case in High
Point a few years ago. My client reported that
there were no sanitary facilities for
farmworkers in that ranch. That night I sent
a fax to Caleche informing him about the case
and indicating the exact location of the ranch
by means of a map. We "busted" the guy, the
same contractor that we had "busted" on
Thanksgiving Day. Later we sent a letter to
Caleche and he called us saying that there were
toilets on the ranch, but the space was used to
store pesticides. Then we went back to the
ranch to continue the investigation. They
don't want us to go back this year. There is
no coordination between Caleche and
[Inaudible]. This year we sent another fax to
Caleche on the same contractor and they were
busted again. Another time they said that they
had bathrooms but now the bathrooms have
pesticides. We faxed Caleche again. Caleche
gave them a "ticket" for storing pesticides in
a place 'where they are not supposed to be
kept. In other words, I pressured the guy, but
his license was never revoked. I called the
Commissioner of Labor, but he said, "This is
ridiculous." His excuse was that the five
tickets he got were not for violations at the
same ranch. They have to be on the same
ranch for his license to be revoked.
Kay Rudolph: Let's continue with the
introductions.
Worker: My name is Francisco Gomez.
I was a member of [Inaudible]. This organi-
zation [Inaudible]... I worked three years ago
as an irrigator. I have always worked as an
irrigator. I worked there by Los Angeles
South in a place called Prieta. I used to
irrigate the fields. They never told me that
that water was already contaminated with
chemicals. They kept the water in tanks of 50
to 100 pounds. They used to tell us that what
they put in there was the medicine for the
plants. Those plants had to be irrigated with
hoses. Sometimes the hoses would get stuck
and because of the pressure the water would
get on my face and clothes. Soon my eyes
began to itch and from that day forward my
254 California
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eyes remained red. Sometime later the fore-
man started to say to me, you're going to kill
your eyes. Then they gave me a job killing
animals. They gave me like a sack to kill them,
but they didn't tell me how to kill them so I
used to kill them with my hands. Although I
•would •wash my hands, they would stay like
painted blue or purple. I would eat with my
hands like that because in the beginning I
didn't know what it was, but about three
months later I began to feel headaches and
dizziness. I didn't know why. The foreman
asked me if I was a smoker because of the
color of my hands.
In those days there were no toilets in the
camps. There were many workers, normally
from 20 to 30 persons, but they put two or
three workers in different places. However,
there were no bathrooms in those camps.
Although there was water far away they didn't
want us to go there because they didn't want
us to waste time. I remained in that camp for
a while and then I moved to the North
because I was told there were more protec-
tion laws here. They say that, but I think
there's nothing here. What they want is that
the work gets done and that's it, period. I
have worked here with many farmers in the
tomatoes, apricots, oranges, lemons, etc. All
those plants have chemicals. When I spray
they don't tell us how long should we stay
away until we return to work. The first thing
they say is, "There are the posters," but they
don't explain when can we return to work.
What they want is that we do the work.
That's all.
Kay Rudolph: Has anyone seen the poster
that says, "Keep out, this place has been
sprayed with pesticides?"
Unidentified Speaker: There is another
poster that presents a skull to indicate danger.
Worker: It is not to their advantage to
post that skull here.
Worker: I have seen a poster like this on
television, but I have never seen one like this
out here.
Kay Rudolph: We are making presen-
tations, what area are you from?
Worker: I am [Inaudible]. I work in the
fields, with almonds. I don't know what they
put in those almonds to preserve them. We
don't have bathrooms there. About two years
ago I started getting sick and I told the
foreman, you know I am starting to get sick.
Friday I went home, I took a shower, and I
started itching that night On Saturday, I went
to the doctor but he wasn't in. I thought if I
would put alcohol on it that it would stop
itching. That was wrong. I went to the
hospital on Sunday. The doctor asked me
what do I do at work. He gave me three
injections right then and there. I asked my
daughter to ask the doctor what was wrong
with me and he said, "Oh, just straighten up
the bill at work, they are responsible for what
happened."
The shots gave me immediate relief. I
asked the doctor what do I tell them at work
and he said, "Just go to work. Tell the
California 255
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foreman, the foreman will tell the supervisor
and the supervisor will tell the secretary and so
on." Although I paid him $20, he didn't give
me any receipts or anything. I went back
home. The following day I went to buy the
two prescriptions. At work, they wanted to
know exactly what happened, what I was
eating, etc. They said that I didn't want to
work and so on. Two weeks later another
woman began to feel sick. She didn't go to
the doctor. She went to [Inaudible]... and the
only thing they gave her was a lotion.
Worker: I spoke with [Inaudible]...
Worker Another problem at camps here
is that there is no water and the bathrooms
are not clean. [Inaudible]... Discrimination is
also rampant.
Worker. My name is Celia Garcia. I have
not worked for two years because where I
used to work I hurt my hip. It still hurts
because I haven't received any treatment. I
went to the doctor on my own and I asked
him to send me to a chiropractor. He didn't
send me. Instead he took X-rays. I told him
that my bones were broken, because I didn't
want to say that my nerves were inflamed and
the only thing he told me was that my bones
were not broken, that they were shrinking.
This statement made me believe that what he
really meant was that my nerves were
inflamed.
Worker: My name is Nydia Lopez and I
live in the area of Madeira. I work in a
packing house packing fruit: peaches,
mandarin, and apricots. Right now there is a
problem at the packing house. The farmer
only cares for the fruit to get ripe fast. He
puts a chemical on them. When we go to
work early in the morning, he wants us to put
the fruit in these ovens where they would put
the chemicals on them. We are absorbing all
these chemicals. Soon after that, we begin
feeling sick with dizziness and headaches.
When I tell the foreman she says, "No, you
are going to work like this. Wait an hour and
the discomfort will go away by itself."
What the farmer only wants is for the fruit
to get ripe to get them out of the packing
plant. He says that the pesticide will go away
with the fresh air. I don't know what pesticide
that is.
Rudy Trevino: I am Rudy Trevino. I am
the coordinator for Lideres Campesinas
Project. As I said before, the reason why it is
very important for us to have this meeting to
talk to you is because we care for your
situation. The women know that there's more
information that they wish they had more
time to explain. What they're saying right now
is something that has been happening for
years and years. What I'm concerned about as
part of Lideres Campesinas is that workers can
know or can find out what is the law, what are
the rules that companies have to go by, what
are the different things that they could do.
The problem is that they don't have anyone to
support them when they want to file a
complaint. They feel like if they complain,
what would happen is that either the
supervisor or the person responsible will tell
them not to worry about it., it's nothing, it's
256 California
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not going to hurt you when they know the
truth is that it is hurting them.
In terms of myself, I also was a counselor
for 10 years, but before that I was a
community organizer and the situation that
the women are talking about now, that men
are talking about now, that situation happened
to me. I was affected in a long term basis. I
always have problems, I cannot say anything
that hasn't already been said. My relatives are
still -working in the fields. They are having the
same kind of problems. People come •with
runny noses watery eyes, having complaints of
headaches and not being able to sleep at night
because of the problem they are going
through for several months while they are
working. They have dry skin. Ever since I
•worked in the fields I have dry skin and I take
vitamin E or whatever. There's many, many
situations that are going on in the fields.
What we want to make sure is that EPA
takes back the problems that are going on
right now, which have been happening for
years and years. Rules are fine, but
implementation is another thing. Imple-
mentation is something that doesn't happen.
Workers can complain, workers go the
Commissioner of Agriculture. The Com-
missioner maybe is not supportive enough.
Workers can know about the law, but if
there's no support from the various agencies,
it doesn't matter how hard the worker tries to
help himself.
Worker: My name is Ed Castro. I live
here in Fresno. Everybody knows me here.
I was invited to this meeting tonight by Luis
Saldana, because this is an important meeting.
One of the things I want to say is that the
cases that you have there are pesticide cases.
Many times in those cases the ranchers have
insurance to protect the workers. The
problem is that many workers don't want to
complain because if they work for a
contractor, he is afraid the contractor will
report him to Immigration. They don't want
workers to complain against their insurance.
That's why the insurance to cover the workers
in the farm doesn't work well.
Another important thing is some time ago
I used to work at a health clinic and I noticed
that the doctors were not very knowledgeable
about pesticides and they did not report many
of the cases and the treatments were not very
appropriate for many cases.
Worker: They have no respect for
•workers.
Worker: My name is Catalino Pyrokolos.
It's Greek. I -wish I could speak in Spanish
but I don't speak it •well. I work everyday in
the regulation that is supposed to provide
protection to farmworkers and people who
apply pesticides and handle pesticides. There
are two things I would like to convey to you.
One is very brief. Thank you for making your
trip to talk to us. Your time and your
candor...
Worker: I would like to make a
parenthesis here to tell you that the laws that
exist in this country are unfair. We are in a
country where the worker is abused, but on
the other hand we see that there are
regulations that safeguard the worker. I -would
California 257
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like to communicate to EPA that there should
be enforcement on these regulations. We
hope that we can see a change in our situation.
What we all wish is that the different agencies
would coordinate their efforts.
Kay Rudolph: I am very pleased to have
met you. We hope to see you Friday.
Catalino Pyrokolos: I just basically wanted
to say thank you for taking your time... And
we will be checking all this information. Hold
us to it One year from now we'll see where
we are at
Kay
are from.
Rudolph: Please say what area you
i.
Worker: My name is Julia Regina and I
come from Merced, California. I am a
member of the Association or "Campesina"
Women. What I want to share is that
pesticides are not very necessary in the fields.
In my home my husband and I made a
tomato and squash garden, and he took care
of the insects with salt instead of pesticides.
We had mosquitos and he did not spray with
pesticides, he just used salt and water. He took
care of the insects and the garden looks good.
The tomatoes are big like this, and the squash
are this long. That's all.
Worker: My name is Teresa Franco. I am
also from Merced. I am Julia Regina's
neighbor. We have the same problems. I work
at a place where there are pesticides also.
Right now we have a problem. They take time
out of our day for the time we go to the
bathroom.
Kay Rudolph: For the men also?
Teresa Franco: Yes, to everybody. We
have to write our names and numbers and the
time we leave to the time we came back. They
were doing this before the peach harvest, but
now they can't do it because of the large
number of workers for the peach harvest.
Kay Rudolph: Do they take the time from
your pay?
Teresa Franco: I'm not sure, I don't
know. That's all.
Worker: My name is [Inaudible]...
Kay Rudolph: And what is your job?
Worker. Right now I am the Chairperson
pnaudible]... What I would like to share is that
I truly don't know how it feels to be working
in the fields or to have experience in pesticide
problems but I do say that it's tough
[Inaudible]... Not long ago, when I was young
I would accompany my parents to the fields,
but I don't remember that.
Kay Rudolph [summarizing workers]: In
terms of taking a child to the fields, sometimes
parents have to leave the kids resting inside
the car or if the parents are working under the
trees, the kids sit down near them under a
tree. The parents work from sundown to
sunset-
California
-------
Workers: My name is Yolanda Hernandez
and I have worked for 16 years in a canning
plant and I have the same problem of my
coworkers that every time we go to the
bathroom we have to account from the time
we go down to the time we come back.
Sometimes we have problems because the
ammonia pipes explode then workers start
running. But the woman in the bathroom
faints and she just stays there until they come
to get her out, but they never call the
ambulance. They don't want to get reported.
Another case was that the pot where they
make the curry for the carrots exploded and
the lady supervisor was the first one to run.
Kay Rudolph: This fellow worker works in
Washington at EPA and also works in the
enforcement of these standards. He writes
and works for the Department of Education
in Washington. He also gives classes
Pnaudible]...
Celia Prado: I am Celia Prado. I work in
the Institute of California for Rural Studies
and I interviewed 137 persons in the county.
I asked them three questions:
1. Do you know anything about the Office
for Environmental Protection?
2. Do you know anything about the
Worker Protection Standard?
3. Have you received training on pesticide
safety?
Only 37 out of 137 workers interviewed
had been trained. They don't know what is
going on. When I hear these problems, it
seems that I have been listening to them for
many years. I was saying the same thing to
my sisters here, that the stories I hear today
are the same stories that I heard for years and
years. I am going to continue in English
because I express myself better in English.
Worker: Can I say something?
Kay Rudolph: Yes.
Worker: A few minutes ago you were
saying you are also working with the
environment. You have to consider that
when you deal with something as unnatural as
pesticides, it is affecting the earth, the water,
workers and all the people that eat the food,
and then the air, everything, everything is
contaminated.
Unidentified Speaker: Can I say
something? The women, the workers, the
teachers here in the valley, I was shocked that
here they go around spraying like that. The
grapes, here they put pesticides on the grapes
with injections and in other places they spray
them. This is the first place in California to
do that. Here they require the workers to
taste the grapes because the heat lowers down
sugar as you know and workers, before they
can even cut the branch, they have to taste the
grapes. So, it's not like once every hour, it's
constantly and believe me, I have talked to
them having stomach aches, having headaches
and now I understand why when I was there
I wasn't hungry during my lunch break. There
is a study that was done by Child Valley and
California 259
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the Farmers for Women that talks about
pesticides because the situations that happen
before are still going on.
Some of them say they give training but in
some cases we busted a couple of contractors.
Some of the women have complained but
that's something they are not used to because
it is not part of their culture to be that self
confident The other thing is that most of the
training sessions that I am aware of are done
for the foremen and never filter down to the
workers. I had workers using disposable
aprons. I had cases where the toilet would be
a hole in the ground. That's a violation of civil
rights. I had people coming to me lots of
times because I had the resources in my office
to help. I think what my fellow worker
Agustino is saving is if you go to the Labor
Commissioner and you try to get the records
as to when, where, date of the spray and all
that you have to expect a lot of difficulty
getting that information. Another thing is
that the education is being done but it's not
being done by a grassroots program. It's
being done by sophisticated trainers. Back in
'81 I went out to the California Highway
Patrol and I told them I was investigating the
fields. Everywhere they told me there were no
toilets. I asked them how I could enforce
that. They created what we call courage.
They publicized farmworker issues. Obviously
problems did not stop, but we saw an
improvement in the situation.
Celia Prado: One other thing that we
want to add is we trained "campesina" [female
farmworkers] leaders last year together and
this is a model that we must start to use
everywhere. In terms of the different projects
that we have, we are not only involved in
trying to provide a training in terms of the
Worker Protection Standard, but we also
believe that it should also include domestic
violence. The kind of work we put together
was that last spring we trained 36 women on
a weekend and brought professionals that are
experts in working with bilingual-bicultural
immigrant women. At the same time, the
women themselves, before they left, put
together a plan which consisted of going back,
working with their local communities and
finding out ways to communicate that would
open up dialogue to disseminate this
information, and to be heard. It also helped
that women victims of domestic violence
could hear that they are not alone and that
they can do something to help themselves.
Well, last year we put together 11
conferences in four months for different
groups of women. At the end of that training
not only sharing the information, they put
together skits and a play on pesticides to be
added to all sorts of health issues in order to
bring women to the conference because they
couldn't say it was on domestic violence.
What ended up happening was that the
women shared all their experiences and then
they went out and they started opening up a
dialogue. This was just like an epidemic,
spreading the word. They were able to reach
more than 15,000 between March and
October last year. Of course, we were
recognized nationally for the kind of work we
did. Do you think we would have received
this turnout if we had spoken only on
pesticides? This is only one way to educate
260 California
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women. The women themselves know that
when they go back to their communities the
other women are going to say yes these are
the things that we know are happening. If
they complain they know they are not going
to get the support. After two years of
domestic violence education, they know that
now they have to work with agencies, why?
Because it is not enough to provide the
information, you have to provide the access.
You have to provide the services, you have to
make sure that there is follow through with
the workers so they can get the support. If
there is an agency out there for you to
complain to, they'll take you, but you cannot
just provide education. You have to make
sure that they feel protected, they are going to
need that support and it worked last year and
we know that this year it's going to work.
Each year you have to keep working with
those four groups, because it is not enough to
just give the information. There has to be a
network established with workers so they can
feel confident and empowered to be able to
go and complain because they will not
complain if they know they're going to lose
their jobs. We want to keep in touch with you
to ask questions. It's really a whole community
of people who are involved with pesticides;
people who use it, who are around it, and who
are exposed to it. We need to educate all of
them about pesticide safety so we really want
to be in touch with you to find out what we
can do.
Worker: You know, that would create a
problem for my [Inaudible]... What can you
ask about an asbestos problem and you call
the Labor Commissioner for information and
the answer is no. How can you trust
somebody if you don't trust the answers they
give you? This thing about doctors not
phoning, not recognizing what's wrong.
Something has to be done. With the anti-
immigrant position coming back in California
we see that a lot of our clients are treated
worse. I've done community education, I can
make a lot statements for two or three days
and the people understand. But here you call
an agency that's so, so far away from reality.
To me EPA is there to save the rivers. The
connection with farmworkers and pesticides
seems so far removed from the EPA that I
wouldn't even know that EPA is involved.
Unidentified Speaker: In the first place
your wife should be able to call the
Commissioner of Agriculture and that's
something he wants to know that we can do.
Worker: My name is Richard [Inaudible].
Tomorrow I am going to be at various places
and I am going to be at the Salinas meeting.
Worker [Leaving the meeting]: It's been a
pleasure and we welcome the guests from
Washington.
California 261
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Meeting with Farm Labor
Contractors and Agricultural
Employers, Fresno, CA,
July 23,1996
(Beginning of meeting missing from tape]
Speaker I have a comment and a
concern that's been ongoing regarding
training. In the beginning you didn't have
classes to train our trainers. In our
organization alone we've hired a minimum of
100 trainers. We finally certified all of our
trainers, but for a long time we didn't meet
the full requirements, so we elected to give up
all the EPA assistance. Are you going to have
more classes for work trainers? I know that
there's going to be only one train-the-trainer
session.
Speaker: I think this is a question for the
Commissioners and their staff because EPA
is authorized to determine who and what
programs in that state could qualify people as
trainers. In California [Inaudible]... so we
really are not knowledgeable about the
different types of training programs. So the
Commissioner of Agriculture should probably
be the best source for information.
[Inaudible]...
See, our problem is when Ag comes to
check our crews, if we as employers were not
progressive and push and push to get this
done, then there will be areas that we would
be out of compliance, granted. They are all
very courteous, extremely helpful. In our
organization we have been fortunate when we
got these six [Inaudible]... they are happy, but
it's an ongoing situation with crew bosses. If
you are a grower you are in the same
situation. Say there is a crew coming in. I'm
going to give them training. We got Steve,
he has a book with two or three parts.
Unfortunately, in our organization we have
about 60-65 certified trainers plus we have
QAL's on staff. We are probably at best 1%
of the agriculture employers that are set up
like this. There's very few that if they are
progressive and stay in compliance we can
give our classes, and we're getting there. But
if the program is put into effect you really
have to do it well. I believe in improvement.
I believe it is great. I'm all for it. I also ran
through a situation with private applicators.
They are authorized to train these folks.
They don't have the slightest idea how to
train them. Why do I have to send 70 or 80
of my people to a 4-hour class? I'm paying
those people per class. They give the eight
hours worth of class, I believe that. I believe
that's what it should be but they don't know
how to train them. But then there's a private
applicator that is allowed to give this class.
These are the areas that I think are not equal,
not equal at all, and I think it should be on an
even level. Sometimes I run into growers and
they say, "I don't care, I don't send them." I
think it should be on a more equal basis.
We have three trainers for safety records.
John is one of them and they are all qualified.
They never stop training. Field represen-
atives have to be trained also, but they don't.
Today they have 25 people in their crew and
10 more people will be bringing their crews
tomorrow. It is very difficult for my three
trainers to handle all this training. We've
262 California
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done it, but it hasn't been easy. I want to get
more trainers. [In response to inaudible
question]: Absolutely, by all means, I think
this is one of the problems, the regulation is...
[Inaudible]...
Let's say that I'm training you folks here
and I don't want to give you the blue card,
but all of you signed. Well, in the agricultural
business, five days later you may be working
for someone else, and you go there and the
guy asks, "Have you been trained?" "Oh yes,
I have been with a whole bunch of crews." I
think it should be that the worker receives at
least a decent half hour training. I know
several people who disagree with me because
they are taking up some liabilities and so on.
I train you and you go to someone else and
you do something wrong, you say, well, you
don't want to train me, you should be going.
If that person has a blue card, that person has
gone through training, whether it be a limited
amount of training or full scale training. John
wants an hour. I think an hour is too long for
a field training, but if that's what John wants
to do, then that's what I think he should do.
He feels comfortable, so be it. One of our
directors, he can do that training in 20
minutes. At any rate, they have the training
by a certified trainer. Steve has trained many
of our instructors.
Speaker: [Inaudible]
Steve: Sometimes you're talking like they
are labor machines. You bring them for at
least a half hour prior to work. That's not the
law but it makes better relations for us.
Sometimes our people have to do training
every day if they have the time. It's not easy,
but it's possible. I don't like to train three full
time [Inaudible]... it's possible, extremely
possible, I think morally not a good feel.
And then these folks that work in the fields
and elsewhere too, I think we have been
indirectly saving a lot of medical costs and
•workers comp costs because we make sure
that they are familiar with the posters. We
make sure every field has a poster so they can
find out about re-entry time. In the past,
workers were taking pesticide containers
home and they would wash them and use
them for water. That kind of training
stopped. I think the cost for all of us is very
justifiable.
Speaker: I think we come from a
different environment. The pesticide con-
tainers shouldn't be left out. I feel a little bit
differently about this program. If the
pesticide containers were handled properly in
the first place, they shouldn't be left around.
Secondly, it is very expensive for us to train
the people and myself, especially growing
vegetables. We are farmers also and we do
our own farming and our own applications.
If you have proper training in the safety
program, you're covering all your re-entries
anyway. We post every field. On our sign we
add where we sprayed, the time we sprayed,
the day we sprayed, the re-entry and the time.
For us this is another extra step that we are
repeating ourselves already.
Now the card deal. We haven't got in
the card deal, we are in the sign-out deal. We
hire a photo ID card that must be present at
the job site before they go to work. The blue
California 263
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card is confusing to these people. If they lose
these things that mean that much to them, I
don't care who you have train them. Yes, they
understand, yes, that this brings their
understanding level up. We get a lot of
people from Oaxaca who seem to be very
hard-headed and they don't seem to
be..maybe it is a lack on our part, but we
don't seem to be getting through to them.
There's only one grower that I know of in our
valley that is giving the actual blue card. He
says he goes through a 15 minute program.
We have steady employment. So we really
don't have a high turnover.
Speaker. What happens in this area is that
posting is real power. We have to do posting
for three days to cover re-entry laws. Pest
control can be awesome. We have QAL's on
staff. My QAL's are always studying and they
only have to do 20 hours every two years in
order to renew their licenses. However, a
grower can come in and he gives a 15-minute
class where you spend 40 minutes studying
for it. And he is qualified to give the field
workers training, if he is qualified to spray
pesticides and he or she is qualified to train
mixers and handlers. We can't do that, we
have to go all over the program. We are
giving quality stuff here. We don't mind
doing it, but we do find containers scattered
around. I don't think that's as common as it
used to be, but you do go into a big expense
and it's very time consuming and I don't have
any other answers other than why, because it's
the law. There are ways to speed up the
process of giving these folks training. There
are agencies around that would train your field
workers. I tried it. I have had 92 to 96 crews
running, from Bakersville to Tracy. But they
scared me out. You have all these people in
one place under a fig tree, as if it's no big
deal, I knew this wouldn't work. Then you
train this crew today and tomorrow they have
new people there that come back to train
again. You keep training these folks. The
logistics of it is that it looks good on paper.
Speaker: I have heard that if you go to a
2-hour class each year, you don't have to take
the test.
Speaker: It depends on the growers.
Growers that have been in the business for a
long time, they have the experience. They
are the first coming into the spraying
business. He may not have the experience
but the grower knows when a spraying job is
well done. I will have to defend them, I'm a
grower too. Experience with a contractor in
California alone doesn't qualify you as a
trainer. You have to be trained.
Don: What he has to listen to is what
deception is going on with the large
contractor or the large grower. Let me give
you what's going on with the small growers.
I'm speaking about a grower much smaller
than myself because those are the ones that I
represent. He has seen the workers twice a
year. What we have to think of, and this goes
for the large contractors and growers also, of
something that's comparable for all people,
something that is easier to be in compliance
with, that's not so difficult for somebody to
do. Most times you get the 88-year-old
264 California
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grower. I'm only 40. He's going to try and
try to be in compliance and he'll never be able
to, especially at 88. So, I think there should
be some type of program that a grower can
say, when a worker comes to work, a grower
can give this worker certain information—
whether it has to do with pictures, writing in
more than one language—and that, in 24
hours he can come back to the foreman or
come to the farmer and within five days he
answers short questions. The grower knows
he's read it, he knows he's in tune with what
the regulations have prescribed for the
seasonal workers. Those are some of the
things that have to be solved, people, or you
going to run the small farmer out of business.
If you want to run the small farmer out of
business you're doing a good job of that, at
the state levels especially.
Speaker: Don, the worker's standard is
set up where a new worker who comes on site
doesn't have to be trained by that grower until
he spends a few days there. There's an
instruction booklet available on that.
Speaker from Audience: I understand
that in the California law you can wait and
give WPS training later.
Don: But on the state level, he has to be
trained before he goes to work. As far as the
WPS training is concerned, yes, you can wait.
But on other types of training you have to do
it as the worker comes in. But you can't give
one day and bring them back a couple of days
later. If you going to do that, you might as
well do the WPS training in the beginning
too.
Speaker from Audience: There's a 30-
minute videotape that's standardized
nationwide and you have to show your
[Inaudible]... standard videotape, that's it.
There's no other big work. As long as you
show that video, in the language the person
understands, it's done.
Don: And that's a good idea. You put it
in the optimum language in whatever ranch
you are at and he must come view that video
within a 24-hour period or whatever rule that
farm has, but it has to be simplified because
the people are killing us. They are killing us
in the field, and it's killing us at the office
because all that has to be transformed. You
can use a laptop and you can use all these
things but all it does is [Inaudible]... It's the
same at school, you have a student that wants
to learn, it doesn't take much time to learn in
that classroom. But if he doesn't want to
learn then there's got to be a special program,
spelling out very clearly what has to be
included, not for [Inaudible]... perception of
it but the organization's perception of it. It's
got to be spelled out. [Inaudible]...
Speaker from Audience: That would
really standardize it.
Speaker from Audience: The videotape is
nice, but I think there has to be some
interactivity between the worker and the
trainer to be effective.
California 265
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Speaker from Audience: But remember, it
doesn't take very long for a foreman to know
if this worker is qualified, five or six questions,
that's all it will take.
Speaker from Audience: The one quiz
page that went at the end of video might do
that.
Speaker from Audience: It's got to be
something standard that everybody agrees on.
It's the same thing. It doesn't matter how
large you are or how small you are, everybody
is on an equal thing here.
Speaker from Audience: George, believe
it or not; there's something different in SP-
198 and the state regs for very large business.
Speaker from Audience; It is precisely
SP-198 that needs to get expanded.
Speaker from Audience: I think standard-
izing it also simplifies it and this could be
done on a trial basis.
Speaker: We are doing that already, but
you still have to provide for interaction. It
could be done in a way that works for
everyone.
EPA Speaker: I hear what you're saying
and I guess that I have heard that we only get
people that are different and it doesn't fit
every situation. We need to be able to
provide for some people who do not have
TVs or videos and maybe they have to work
with a flip-chart. Some people don't feel
comfortable answering questions
[Inaudible]... some folks think that some
workers might not be able to pick up what's
on the video. Other people say that our
choices are too few, that we should provide
more choices, so I guess I think we've done
the options that you are talking about. We
do have a video and that is a way of beating
the training requirement. I am not sure if I
am quite on track with what is the advantage
in making that the only choice.
Speaker from Audience: Do you put out
your own video or is that done by the usual
contractor?
EPA: Yes.
Speaker: OK. If you are sitting with a
group of employees and every time they go
home they are watching how to suit
somebody, that's not the kind of videos that
we want to show the employee. These
people are working all day out in the field and
they go home and this guy is saying, let's sue
your employer if you used a small pesticide
today, well, you are sick. And it's on there all
the time, this stuff. What I'm saying is, if the
training is on TV and the commercial is the
same thing, what do you think is in the minds
of these people? All day long they are
hounded by these attorneys. They also come
in the Spanish radio stations. If the video
doesn't have the proper education, I would
think you are not accomplishing what you
need to.
266 California
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Speaker from Audience: This is a video I
ran into.
Speaker. I don't know if that meets all the
requirements, but that's the one we found and
that we use along with other chapters. This is
something that explains in Spanish and
reaches people at a level that they understand.
A Spanish-speaking man is under a [Inaudible]
...and it doesn't say, "You're going to die
when you smell this stuff," or anything like
that.
Speaker from Audience: I got a video that
was put out by a chemical company and it
doesn't get down to the seasonal worker and
it doesn't fulfill the need of the seasonal
worker. That's not derogatory, that's simple
ABC. They always have the advertisement at
this level, when it is supposed to be down
here, this is what you do, this is what you look
for and this has to include it.. This doesn't
explain that.
Speaker: [Inaudible]
Speaker from Audience: One of the
biggest problems with this is not posting the
chemicals in certain sections such as near the
workers at workers' sites according to all the
state and federal posting laws and regulations.
Speaker: You have been talking about
posting, but you haven't talked about
pesticides. You need to talk about the gamut
of it^ because you need some pesticide posting
right near where you have the PS-198. We
got the feds and the state to go along with the
chart. This is the truth, I have yet to see a
worker get to see that chart. We don't have
a lot of workers, we have 125 out in the
fields. At the office site, we have a glassed-in
case that I have made. That has no relevance
to legality because that doesn't count, but I
see people because they have to congregate at
certain areas to get their checks and that is at
our office. I see people reading it every time
they come to pick up their checks. The state
will not allow that because the posting has to
be near the workers' site. There has to be
some kind of compromise on this issue if
compliance is to be readily obtained.
And one other thing is, on any ranch that
there be one place where the workers come
in, like where they park their cars or have to
go through, where one large poster is good
enough and they don't have to have the ones
out there in the fields. That's what I'm
talking about. Making it easy to comply. I
saw one, not long ago, that didn't have the
specifications that I would want. It didn't
meet this thing fairly and that is, where the
people have to drive in to park. It's got to be
a board, like a window, 4x8, all the posting is
right there. Workers are not reading. We
want workers to look at that and read those
things and try to comply with it.
Speaker from Audience: We have signs by
all the agencies. Do you have space in a 6x4
window?
Speaker: It would still fit in a 4x8.
Speaker: We have a flexibility there with
a grower where he had 100 employees, all in
California 267
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one place. There could be some flexibility
and I think this should be warranted that it
would be at one pkce where they congregate.
Speaker from Audience: I'm sorry, that's
already part of the law, as long as it is in a
place where they all frequent.
Speaker from Audience: What do you
mean, "where they all frequent." It was
announced that it has to be in a place where
they go to work, that's where it's got to be,
because as you enter any ranch there's got to
be a place where they can see it.
Speaker: All the posting...Let's say that
you have to pick up your check every Friday
at the office. If it's posted in the office,
outside the office, and it is the central point
where they go to—if they all meet at this barn
every morning before they get this passed out,
there is one set of workers up there—that is
legal. But if they don't frequent...like for us,
our check is delivered directly to each crew,
the ranch spreads out 13 miles in different
areas, you rarely report to a single spot, we
have to have those posters in the field.
Speaker: I hope you have the impression
that there is a lot of posting as far as
pesticides are concerned and that you have
access to them.
Speaker from Audience: And let me tell
you: We have 117 usable whiskers that are
working and each board, if used properly, is
going to cost you $160. Then you need
another container for the A-9 series. This is
costly. I met a couple of years ago with
Howe. The pesticide records have to be
posted on site, on the field, whether pesticide
records are kept or not. We have 106
different locations. How are we going to
post that board? We have it in a book and it
is in every restroom. Each book costs us $10.
This is part of the posting, its has to be on
site. Also, one agency comes out and says,
this is fine, and another agency comes and
says, I don't like this. So, we have to overkill
to cover all bases.
[Inaudible]
Speaker from Audience: I think most
growers want to comply with the law, but
some of them feel very frustrated by the bias
and that's what we have to prevent.
Speaker: Absolutely. As you say, the
bottom line is that the worker refer to us as
[Inaudible]... but all of us would like for that
worker to work in a safe environment. If we
make the posting so confusing for them, the
worker says, "You know what? He doesn't
want me to understand," and some of the
growers are going to say, "Forget this, they're
not going to learn anything." Then we have
lost what really and truly the law was set up
for us to have—protection and knowledge in
pesticides.
Speaker [Government Rep]: You guys are
the ones to do the job to try to follow
through the rules.
Speaker from Audience: We were bitter
at first, there are teeth in these laws now.
268 California
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Before the laws were on the books we ran the
show. The agencies now are enforcing these
laws. So, I'm not as bitter now. I see that
more and more employers are coming in
compliance. And for us it's been a big turn
around, we are seeing more and more people
in compliance. In the labor business, I'm not
talking about the growers now, I'm speaking
strictly about labor contractors, more and
more are losing their license, being fined and
if they don't meet the compliance they are out
of business. So it is possible that they don't
have as many fly-by-nights, not as many
fraudulent contractors. I'm not speaking for
growers ...
Speaker: [Inaudible]
Speaker: I think these guys are losing
their licenses one day and they turn around
and get their license again or they put their
license under their wife and children.
Speaker: That has happened for a lot of
years, but they are closing that gap faster.
Speaker from Audience: When I go to
labor meetings and I meet a lot of people
from all over the United States, the California
laws are far beyond any other in the United
States.
Speaker: We have a manual which actually
differentiates California... [End of taping]
Misionero Vegetables, Salinas, CA,
July 25,1996
Speaker: This is Kurt Johnson and he
runs our lab and he will take you through the
whole testing procedures on what we do. So
I will turn it over to Kurt.
Johnson: I am going to walk you through
this. Are you lab people?
Government Rep: For the most part, no.
Johnson: I just need to know that so I
don't talk over you or under you. I don't
want to bore or blow you away. What we'll
do is that we will start in here and we will
work our way into it. If you have any
questions, I will stop. I am not quite sure to
the extent of what Anthony has talked with
you about, but I may overlap a little bit.
What we are is a state accredited lab for the
state of California through the Department
of Health Services and we are monitored by
the Department of Food and Agriculture.
We get our test samples from Food and
Agriculture. We use these bulk chemical
screens for a wide variety of pesticides. We
do this on every sample for every field before
we harvest it.
What we did is originally set up the lab
with the idea that we had to get same-day
analysis so that we could sample as close to
harvest as possible, but yet get our results
back before we cut it. We could just not do
that with an outside lab. It was next to
impossible to do that; day in and day out. So
we felt that if we were going to do a program
California 269
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at all, we would have to have same-day results.
So the only way to do that was to do it
ourselves. So we started out with some
empty rooms, we put in our labs, we got them
accredited, and we have been running them
for about six years.
Government Rep: So you run [Inaudible]?
Johnson: Yes, and again you test
everything. This is some type of kale— I don't
know anyone who eats flowered kale, but we
tested it Whatever goes in Misionero's box,
it comes from our fields, we test it. What we
do is we have a guy walk out in the field in a
Z or X pattern and try to randomly sample
on that pattern as best as possible. We can
argue all day long on whether a random
sample is or isn't, we try to just cover the
whole field. Another thing that we do is that
sometimes if one is out in the field, you will
notice a row of pump stands or telephone
poles kind of located in odd spots. You can
tell where a truck sprayer may have to back-
up or go over a section twice so that we will
sample those areas where we feel they may
have doubled up on. That is rare but there
are fields that are really weird shaped and have
to go over them twice.
We do very little aerial applications, but
ifs getting so expensive that it's getting to the
pobt that the majority of it is done by tractor.
The fields are so small, it's not like we are
spraying 200 hundred acres of corn or 1,000
acres of wheat. Ifs only 10 acres of one crop
and 20 of another, especially in this valley.
What we do, just to give you an idea, is that
each sample is ground up in this giant Hobart
restaurant food chopper. These are some
samples from this morning. This will get
processed through the lab. One of them will
go in a freezer. We keep them on archive for
a year. We are required by the state to keep
an archive. No one really wants to commit
to a time length, so we just keep it for a year.
Most people keep fresh vegetables for about
six months. In case anybody has any
questions about the results, we could send
them out to another lab or we could analyze
them ourselves. It's there all year-round.
Right now we are rotating put last July.
Right now we have a quick explanation of
extractions. We use 50 grams of this material
here and 100 grams of either acetone or
compound cidonitrate. We blend it down in
this little blender and filter out all the fibrous
materials. [Inaudible]... This is some of the
material we did this morning. That was 50
grams of flowering kale. It is now a gram of
fiber. What we have done is extracted almost
everything that is in the plant to a liquid. In
this flowering kale you can see the purple
pigments in the water. The bottom part is
the water, the top is the solvent with
whatever pesticide is concentrated in and we
will end Up with something like this. We
evaporate some of that down to concentrate
and what we end up with is something like
this. We started out with a complete field of
flowering kale, took 10 heads, ground them
up, blenderized it, filterized it, and evaporated
it. This is actually what we ended up
analyzing. This is what we ended up
screening for the state list. It's about 205
different possible pesticides.
270 California
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Government Rep: Do you look for
pesticides or for registries?
Johnson: Whatever. Registered or
unregistered. Everything that we can use or
can't use.
Government Rep: But it's stuff that's on
the list?
Johnson: Yes, and the list keeps getting
expanded every year. There are a lot of
compounds that we will see, like a lot of times
the state sends us wine samples to analy2e and
tell them what's there and how much is there.
About every other test we will identify a
compound that's not on the list and we will
send the results and do a recovery study on
that compound and approve it for the list. So
we are constantly adding more and more
compounds.
Government Rep: How much would you
say this process for this field is—what it costs?
Just to give us a sense of the cost of this
testing.
Johnson; That's a good question. We did
about 900 samples last year and it cost about
$250,000 to run the lab last year. If you do
the math, it's $260 a sample.
Government Rep: So, is that for testing
the whole list of compounds?
Tohnson: No.
Government Rep: How many single
residue methods are there in addition to your
multi-residues?
t
Johnson: Now, there are probably two.
Government Rep: So in essence you
make each one of those vials go through
three different analyses'.
Johnson: I don't want to leave you with
the impression that we are finding lots of
residues. Right now we are finding maybe
one or two on 60% to 70% of the samples.
So what we are trying to do here is to look
for compounds that should not be there. If
we did not have them applied they should
not be there due to drift or misapplication.
But we are also looking for compounds to
make sure they are below federal levels. But
with the lab it has become very important,
because domestically we don't find many
problems. The vast majority of our problems
come from exports because we have to meet
federal and foreign government levels, which
can be very difficult when an applicator is out
there applying according to the U.S. label,
shooting for U.S. tolerances. We have
Canada with tolerances on the 20th
compared to the United States. So this is
why the lab has become very important. We
do a lot of business with Canada. This time
of the year we delay harvest on about a block
every week to Canada. We have to delay it
one to three days to let the pesticides degrade
so we can meet the tolerances. We do this a
lot this time of the year. We used to do that
California 271
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quite often domestically, at least every two
weeks... [Break]
As I was telling you before, we try to do
this same day, so usually in the morning we
are doing workups in the other lab and in the
afternoon we are in the instrument lab doing
analyses of data, inspecting the data. What we
are doing right now is we are running the
flowering kale which you saw out there and
this here is a gas barometer EC, which is
configured to screen for about 95 phosphorus
based pesticides. Right now we are seeing a
little bit of Diazinon about 10% to 20% of
the samples. Occasionally some Dimethyl.
Government Rep: Is that consistent with
what you would expect knowing the use
history on that?
Johnson: Yes, it is. The test pressures
right now are not very high so we are not
using a lot of pesticides. So we are not seeing
very much at all. As soon as we get some
warm weather for three to five days, bugs will
start running amok and they will start
recommending more and then we will see
more. Right now it is very clean. This
instrument here is another gas barometer and
it is configured to look for about 95 to 100
chlorine-based pesticides, a lot of those now
banned nasties, such as DDT. There is a list
of about 16 to 19 of those compounds. Right
now we are seeing a compound called
Ambush [Inaudible] on about 60% to 80% of
the samples. That is the compound that
usually gives us trouble with export because
we have a U.S. tolerance of 20 parts per
million and a Canadian tolerance of one part
per million. So that is the compound that we
have to be careful about monitoring so we
don't get a block shipped off to Canada with
our tolerance. Sometimes what we will do is
dedicate certain blocks to certain areas. In
certain instances we just wait for that block.
This estimate here is a liquid [Inaudible]... it
screens for a group of pesticides called
Cordamix. It is about 12 of them. I think
right now there are only two allowed on the
vegetables that we are looking at, so we
should never see the other 10. So, again we
are looking for a lot of pesticides that we
cannot use at all as well as those that we can.
We are seeing right now a compound called
Lannate or Methomyl on about 10% of the
samples. I think DuPont is not going to
reregister. Did you know that?
Government Rep: Methomyl as chem-
icals can stay alive, I don't know about the
Lanox use.
Johnson: But Lanox is kind of a strange
compound. We don't see it for months and
months and then all of a sudden we see it.
But I think what it is, is that in the beginning
when you start to see an increase in pest
pressures, PCAs [pest control advisors] will
go through some strange compounds that are
not used regularly. Insects haven't seen these
compounds for a while and they will have to
become acclimated to them and occasionally
[Inaudible] ...which we have seen twice in six
years. So hopefully by the end of the day this
flowering kale that we are analyzing will pass
and if it doesn't, whatever problem it has we
will have to solve it, whether that be waiting
272 California
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for things to degrade or whether we have to
destroy the crop. Again, if there is something
there that is not legal or is not registered, the
crop will have to be destroyed.
Government Rep: How many of your
problems are situations where there are no
tolerances?
Johnson: Yes, that happens about twice a
year out of 800 to 900 samples.
Government Rep: What is your guess as
to why this is happening? With such low
rates, it does not sound like it is happening
intentionally.
Johnson: If you are around and notice
that rockford and cauliflower sometimes are
grown quite close to lettuce, then it would be
a drift situation. What we do is to test so
many rows until we can't find it anymore.
Then we make sure the fields that test
positive for [Inaudible]... are not harvested
and we harvest the other side to try to salvage
the field. A lot of times we get a third of the
field harvested. Two thirds will get this.
When you start taking samples from each row
it gets really busy around here. We have to
figure out where we don't see the pesticide
any more, where we do see it and where we
have to harvest beyond that point.
Government Rep: The Ag Commissioner
investigates all those illegal residues also.
Another Govt. Rep: Do you report to the
Agricultural Commissioner?
Johnson: Yes.
State Official: Whether it's them or it
comes from a state sample, if you have a drift
from tank contamination, or slow updates—
and often we are not able to establish why
this extremely low level was present—we do
spend a lot of time and resources investi-
gating each and every single case.
Johnson: It is unfortunate, if it is there
you can't harvest it. So a lot of time and
effort is put into figuring out how to deal
with the field contamination. This kind of
inadvertent residues can happen in several
different ways. You mentioned the tank mix,
where somebody hasn't clean out their tank
and then treats the lettuce and you get small
quantities mixed in with the one pesticide
that was intentionally applied. That would
seem to me to have a gradient base across the
field. When we go there and sample, if
there's anything left, we take a nine-point
sample and then try to establish gradient to
see if it looks like a drift. Then we will get
the applications history of all the fields
around there. We will get the weather data,
and if we need to, we will get the spray
history of all the equipment that's been in
that field. Then we put all that together and
try to figure out how it happened.
Government Rep: Is that where a lot of
your misuse investigations go or are you
doing that a relatively small part of your time?
Johnson: Those tend to take a significant
amount of our time because it takes a long
California 273
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time to do one of these investigations. We
ma7 do five to ten a year. They are long and
tedious investigations. Often, it is something
like [Inaudible]... at the protection limit and
once that cab goes from here it goes to the
salad bar. We have a state policy to
investigate every one of them.
Government Rep; The point is that this
man is here to ensure that it doesn't happen
or it doesn't enter the market.
Johnson: One thing that I have to
impress upon you is that the problems are
very rare, but they do occur and we deal with
them the best way we can. Ninety percent we
deal with in here is with respect to exports.
We are shipping to Japan and Canada.
Canada has extremely low levels, whether
those levels are set as trade barriers or
whether they are truly a food safety issue,
who knows. It is difficult to get produce into
Japan sometimes.
Government Rep: Who is the PCA [pest
control advisor] for the company? Do you
hire somebody or do you have a staff PCA?
Johnson: The PCA is an employee of Soil
Services. He is the one that walks the fields
and makes recommendations. We really make
very few, if any, recommendations of what
should be sprayed or when. It is contracted
out. If s a separate entity.
Unidentified Speaker: It is usually the
grower who takes care of that. He usually has
people that he likes working closely with who
handle it.
Johnson: Different growers have
different PCAs, so we keep on file the
pesticide applications because we are required
to, and if you leaf through them you will
notice several different names to be
consistent with different growers. Right now
there are four different PCAs for all the crops
that are coming in here.
Government Rep: Is the PCA company
that you contract with, is that a PCA service
company or is that an ag chemical?
Johnson: That is the employee of the
applicator.
Government Rep: Are they paid per
application or are they paid per acre?
Johnson: Salary.
Government Rep: So, there is no
incentive for them to reapply.
Unidentified Speaker: Actually it is a
disincentive, because if they spray too much
they end up spending too much money.
They don't get paid commission on using
pesticides.
Government Rep: Are these PCAs
practiced in IPM [integrated pest
management] techniques?
274 California
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Johnson: Yes they are. We had our own
in-house PCA when I first joined the
company and that was back when they rated
pest management. This was kind of a new
buzzword that is being practiced now for six
or seven years and it caught on quickly
throughout the industry. I am called into the
boss' office on occasion and asked, "What are
people using as pesticides?" This stuff is
expensive, a large cost on our lettuce. I don't
know about the fields, but I can tell them
what I have seen in the lab versus what I am
hearing about pests in the fields. Most of the
times the crops are clean until the bugs really
hoard them up and then the pesticides have
to be applied. It is amazing how clean the
industry really is. I am not saying that
because I work in the industry, there is
actually data day in and day out on how low
the residue levels are and how few of them
there are.
Government Rep: Is the company doing
any research to find alternatives to chemicals
to try to cut that cost down?
Johnson: Yes, this valley is the greatest
user of ladybugs. We buy these huge crates of
ladybugs and I put them in that freezer out
there for 20 minutes to slow them down.
Then we run them out to the fields, especially
when mere are large amounts of aphids in the
kale, especially when we were growing large
amounts of kale, cilantro, and parsley without
pesticides. And we would release a bunch of
ladybugs.
Government Rep: Is there any research
going on on things like habitat management
or multi cropping, alternate rows?
Unidentified Speaker: In the advent of
our organic program we are actually finding
organic techniques that are applicable to
conventional farming and vice versa. The Ag
Extension is doing some work with planting
harborage areas in leaf lettuce with different
nectars and pollen plants, but they did not
have excellent results. California is adding a
new category on the pest control advisory
license in integrated pest management.
People will be required to have continuing
education in IPM pretty soon.
Government Rep: Do growers have a
way to share ideas?
Johnson: Yes, our growers work real
closely together with us and with each other.
Government Rep: Are there other
operations like yours?
Johnson: We believe we are the only in-
house operation. There are other people
who contract out. There are a lot of pesticide
programs, a lot of companies and every
company has some sort of testing program of
one kind or another. Some sample one in
five and some sample everything, but every
company is out there generating data.
Government Rep: [Inaudible]...
California 275
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Johnson; With tolerances we look at
seasonal trends of what is being seen versus
what is out there. For many years most
companies were not testing. They were
relying on government testing. They didn't
have a true feeling for what was actually
sprayed. Now we have these huge databases
and we have a good feeling of what is out in
the market^ what the levels are, and what the
seasonal trends are.
Government Rep: [Inaudible]... What is
the classic differential between organic and
conventional [Inaudible]...marketplace?
Johnson: It is typically higher in organic.
Probably 20% to 50% higher.
Government Rep: What is your pro-
duction costs differential?
Johnson: Organic? It runs 10% to 15%
higher. We are finding that yields can be
comparable depending on the time of the
year. Right now we are having a big problem
with [Inaudible]... Organically we are releasing
sacks and sacks of ladybugs and other
beneficial insects. We have different sticky
traps set out for flyers and they seem to be in
such large numbers and propagate so quickly
that it is real tough to get them under control.
Yield during this time of the year, for instance
broccoli, are probably 30% ...
Government Rep; How do your profits
compare from organic versus conventional?
Is organic simply a more profitable business
or when you take the increased price you get
for the product, then the increased cost, is
that a wash? How does it compare with
conventional?
Johnson: We are finding that it can be
more profitable. It really depends on your
inputs—how much time you are actually out
there. The organic people that go to the
extent of putting crews out there every single
day pulling weeds—that is the real
[Inaudible]... cause that can put the costs
through the roof. Even though you may get
an additional upside on the market, that
usually means high cost. To answer your
question I think so long as you keep your
inputs in place it can be profitable.
Government Rep: Are you expanding
your organic and converting your
conventional to foresee going completely
organic?
Johnson: I don't think we will. I see our
organic business growing, but I don't ....
Government Rep: What do you think is
the obstacle to going 100% organic?
Johnson: Market share. There are not
enough enlightened people that are going to
consume organic strictly at this present day.
Maybe in 10 or 15 years. There is an advent
of Fresh Fields, Whole Foods, New Leaf and
other supermarket chains growing that target
organic products 100%. I think that it is
going to grow but right now we don't have
the consumer demand.
276 California
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Government Rep: There are concerns
about pesticides in general. The organic are
not considered—so the other things...what do
you foresee the possibility of agriculture
without pesticides?
Johnson: I think there are a lot of things
we are finding in organic farming that is
applicable to conventional farming. I am
speaking mainly of beneficial insects and I
think you will see a big decrease in the use of
pesticides. We are actually finding that now,
that with a few adjustments we can skip
spraying. There are more options for us now
than alternatives.
Government Rep: What about the rest of
the grower community? You folks have staff
doing research and you keep on top of the
cutting edge. What about the rest of the
community, are they moving along in this
direction as well? What are the major
obstacles to getting that mainstream group of
conventional growers to focus their attention
on reduced use of pesticides in a big way?
Johnson: You are seeing more of the
larger companies starting to get into organic
farming and everyone is beginning to get their
feet wet and trying it out. But again, it all
depends on consumer demand. It is more
expensive and not everyone is in the frame of
mind to go organic all the way.
Government Rep: So, it is not just the
price.
Johnson: You can produce a lot of...per
acre and you have three or four large
companies doing that at the same time.
There is just not the demand.
Government Rep: So, they need to sell
them as organic because they can't recover
their cost if they sell them as regular table
products.
Johnson: We have found that in a lot of
our organic fields, depending on the market
conditions, if the organic market is saturated,
we will pack them in a conventional box. We
will ship them as conventional products, just
due to the fact that we want to give our
grower some return on his profit.
Government Rep: Does he recover the
cost of production by doing that?
Johnson: It helps. It's better than just-
but he may not recover all his costs.
Government Rep: You said earlier about
the Worker Safety Programs and you said you
were going to cover some of that here, tell
us...
Johnson: Yes. Javier, who runs our labor
contractors has gone through the state
accredited classes for the State of California.
We give our workers their cards and we also
have meetings every three months with the
workers updating them with worker safety
issues regarding drift and misapplications.
We feel that we are a hard working group and
California 277
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we have a tight knit group. We feel that we
are doing a good job.
Government Rep: Are there any parts of
the regulations that are any problem in terms
of compliance that strike you as a real
nuisance or expense?
Johnson; No.
Government Rep: How are you going to
display your application specific information?
Have you made plans for that?
Johnson: We have.
Government Rep: Would this be your
central location?
Johnson: It might be. We are still trying
to figure out where to put this.
Government Rep: What about notifying
people about which fields are under restricted
entry in fields of 10-20 acres? Does that
present a difficulty and how do you overcome
that?
Government Rep: The oral notification is
really impractical to make that work because
the labor is too dynamic so people are going
to go to field posting.
Government Rep: So they use the skull
and bones sign?
Johnson: That's right, California has the
skull and bones sign.
Government Rep: So, is that being used
for posting any kind of application round up
to ...
Johnson: Anything with a restricted entry
we use the signs and they are always there.
Government Rep: What do you mean,
"They are always there?"
Unidentified Speaker; In this county we
have a posting regulation, would you explain
that? We are ahead of the game in that we
are used to posting fields. We just keep
posting a lot more fields under the Worker
Protection Standards.
Johnson: We usually do that every
morning through Javier who informs his
supervisors who might be going to the fields
that might be dangerous.
Government Rep: So you are doing it
orally?
Johnson: They are posted in the fields.
Government Rep: Do you prefer the
skull and cross bones to the stern face and
upper raised hand?
Unidentified Speaker: I do.
Johnson: People are accustomed to that,
they knew what it meant. It has a lot of
acceptance among the workers. You might
see some federal signs and a lot of people
278 California
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wanted to comply and had to buy them.
Here we are accepting either type of sign until
they wear out.
Government Rep: And the workers are
getting training on both signs.
Johnson: Yes.
Government Rep: You have a pretty good
working relationship with your workers.
Without naming names or going into details,
how is that relationship as far as pesticide
safety with the workforce in general? Are
workers in the valley generally knowledgeable
about pesticides and pesticide safety and to
get the information they need from the
employers and the training they need?
Johnson: I think so. A lot of people •who
have worked here for a long period of time
are well aware of the regulations. (End of
taping]
Clinica de Salud, Salinas, CA,
July 25,1996
[Beginning of tape missing]
State Rep: [Inaudible]... about what we
want them to look for and given that
California already has standards in place and
they are trying to make them compatible with
the EPA standards... You are saying that here
in California it is a requirement to report
[Inaudible]...The issue is exposure in and
inaccuracies... It is our Department that has
to receive the reports. Under Section 2950 of
the California Health and Safety Code, it
states that any physician or doctor that treats
a suspected case of pesticides is supposed to
report it to the state -within hours. And what
we are finding here is that the average
reporting ...what we found in 1995: We had
170 pesticide incidents and out of that,
between 70% to 72% were actual pesticide
related incidents and out of that 72%, 58%
were never reported to the Health
Department.
What happened technically is that we
send them a notice that they are in violation
of a state code. The agency that enforces it is
the State Department of Industrial Relations.
Under your federal law, [Inaudible]...
abrogating sections that require medical
reporting? Because one incident involving 45
workers was not reported to the Health
Department. Some of these came to us
through the Ag Commissioner or the
companies. We have called doctors with
threats of lawsuits and they didn't report it in
48 hours, but in seven days still have not
reported them. We filled out a report
California 279
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informing the Department of Ag. Here in
1996 we have an increase, which is 16
reported incidents of pesticide suspicious
cases. Eight are pesticide related and two of
these eight are not reported to [Inaudible]...
Poctor. A couple of reasons why I think
the case is difficult is because it is a pain in the
neck to report it. First of all, it is something
that really takes you out of the way. Secondly,
to get the information from the patient as to
where it happened or who it was that they
were working for is often very nebulous. It's
difficult to get hold of the phone number,
who the contractor is, and the person's phone
number may have changed. It is also
problematic. You have to jump through a
number of different hurdles. I am not an
apologist for special practice but those are
some of the things that you have to contend
with as a provider. I have not seen a lot of
patients with pesticide exposure, but my sense
of the patient is that it is mostly hearsay.
Information gets to them very poorly and it is
an extension of what the doctor was saying.
It is hearsay when the field was sprayed.
Part of it has to do with the fact that they
were there three days after some sort of a talk
was given. Even if they were present at the
talk, to actually listen and remember is also
problematic. But I think this turnover of
laborers really undermines detailed knowledge
of what is going on. I think the farmworkers
that we are seeing are generally misinformed
and obviously a better effort to communicate
information to the farmworkers in a way that
is understandable to them... Many
farmworkers are not proficient and don't
have high levels of education, but they can
really understand much. They have little
formal education but they are very educated
at the same time. But I see that as a big
weakness. I have not met any growers, but I
believe they are hostile toward the EPA.
They generally take a dim view of EPA and
any regulations that they issue. I think there
is ill will in serving the regulations. I think
enforcement is a very big issue. I think it is
the only place where a police state might be
indicated.
Government Rep: [Inaudible]... But you
know that a hostile attitude toward the EPA
by the growers ...it's a general feeling.
[Inaudible]...
Government Rep: I was also curious to
know if under-reporting by the health
providers—to what extent is it the lack of
awareness that it is a requirement that they
should be reporting?
Doctor: I think there is under-reporting
and I think it is standard all over. My sense is
that there is definitely under-reporting of
possible pesticide exposures. I think a lot of
physicians and physician assistants for these
providers are not aware of it.
Government Rep: As practitioners, what
would be most helpful in terms of figuring
out how to put together a patient's symptoms
that are associated with pesticides? What
type of information would you like to have
readily available to you?
280 California
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Doctor: I personally think most of the
information is readily available to most
practitioners already. Obviously you have to
think about it when you see a patient. I think
that most providers know what to look for.
You just have to think about it. I think they
are aware, but there is some inertia by them.
That's my opinion.
Unidentified Speaker: Don't you think
that it is difficult that the [Inaudible]... is so
vague? Unless it is called a blocker or
something, then you have some idea of what
is going on, but everything else is called
rashes, respiratory problems, tiredness. A lot
of my friends say maybe the person doesn't
want to go out and work.
Unidentified Speaker: There is always the
temptation to call them sublimated. They will
get better in a couple of days, why pursue it?
And I think that is a condition that a lot of
people succumb to.
Government Rep: I am curious about
your opinion about things being under-
reported by doctors who don't reali2e
suspected pesticide poisoning [Inaudible]... I
am curious about your opinion on that.
Doctor: They have a good point here. I
could see my doctors under-reporting. That
is required when pesticide poisoning is
suspected. That is indicated in 1995 when we
had 77 cases. Some of those were allergies or
other things that could be eliminated. If you
were a doctor you would have to fill out the
form. For the doctors, that keeps them
pretty busy. The worst thing, however, is
that if we are going to be accurate we would
have to fill out the reports, especially if it falls
under a (pesticide) incident.
Government Rep: Your numbers have
changed fairly dramatically from 1995 to
1996. What do you think is behind the
change?
Doctor: I don't think it is EPA. I would
say it is awareness. There is a lot of emphasis
in our accounting. Even though there are
audits, there are still incidents reported.
There is a lot of effort by everyone even
though we are still finding incidents of...
Doctor: I don't have any numbers or
statistics to tell me. I think part of this may
be different efforts to record and identify
cases, but part of other variables are involved.
Say, for example, we had people walking into
our doctors that have not been reported
because a lot of these are illegal aliens. Well,
if you get to the fields, more than half of the
people in the fields are illegal aliens. So,
when those guys get sick they don't come in.
They are not going to report and say, "Hey
come and look at me~I have pesticide
poisoning." By the time we see them we are
not sure what it is. It's a rash or something
else. So, no one never reports anything.
There is another issue that explains why
numbers are so low. That's what worries us.
There are a lot of unsupervised workers.
There has been a lot of discussion on this
issue. The public is generally not aware of ...
remain cautious of the pesticide issue. That
California 281
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is one of the reasons why it has dropped
down for the last three years. Right now
there is a concentrated effort to bring the
numbers of incidents down. The State of
California has been in this business longer
than EPA.
Government Rep: There is a 72-hour
requirement for reporting a case and how you
can get this information to the physicians, etc.
I think... with a virus is a mistake because we
get tons of stuff and it is worrisome to look at
everything carefully. Maybe putting an ad in
the newspaper could be honest and it would
be a better attention provider. Physicians
read the papers, especially when there is
something directed to them. That would be
an effective way of doing it. It needs to be
done. Most of us tend to forget about it.
Government Rep: Maybe California
Medical Journal might be appropriate to have
that kind of information. I mentioned the
CMA Journal would be appropriate also.
Once you identify somebody, for a lot of
doctors it would be very physical and a lot of
work to report every single case that is
suspected to be pesticide related. What would
you think facilitates that one step to actually
get all the physicians to report more of those
cases?
Doctor: I think a couple of things: One is
to model the way you are supposed to report
it and two, to have a couple of phone
numbers to call and for there not to be a
problem getting through. I think physicians
are busy, but I think everyone is busy, but
physicians are busier and they are also
impatient. Nevertheless, it would facilitate to
have a couple of 800 numbers with adequate
staffing to attend to the phone lines to get
adequate information about reporting or
what to do and how to do it. It would very
helpful.
Government Rep: What about the
Department of Health Services—do they
work with the medical professionals? Do
they have mechanisms to get information out
about how to report incidents and what their
standard operating procedures are with
suspected cases of pesticide illness? Do they
have a strong presence?
Doctor: Not that I am aware of.
Doctor: I have never seen anything come
across my desk from the Department of
Health Services, telling me how I should
report pesticide incidents.
Government Rep: They have a
publication called "Guidelines for Physicians"
that talks about how to report. Are you
familiar with that? [Inaudible] We in the
EPA in Washington use the California system
of reporting a lot. It is the best in the
country. Few states collect information like
that. Do you see any patterns of illnesses
that are different from non-farmworker
patterns or are they uniform all along the
board? Are there certain things that are
going on in the workforce that we see or
don't see in other workforce populations?
282 California
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Doctor: I think the most obvious is the
muscular skeletal problems and back pains
pertaining to pesticide exposure. It is
unbelievable how many 45-52 year olds we are
seeing who have bad back pains and to be
honest, I think that the work is inhumane. I
think that the human being is not built to do
stooped labor for eight hours a day for several
months at a time and sometimes year-round.
I don't know how many patients I have seen
who are 55 and have severe back pains. On
top of that, they have arthritis because of the
medication they have to take for the back
pain, and then they become disabled. They
don't retrain them. It is a problem that has
many repercussions, personal repercussions
and societal repercussions. Then they have to
go to Social Security or the state for disability
and then that's a big mess. I think that one is
required to prevent things of that sort.
People have to work less hours or maybe take
2-hour breaks. It's just inhuman work.
Government Rep: [Inaudible]
Doctor: I have been in Salinas for 10
years now. I came here from another
agricultural area in the San Joaquin Valley.
Here the stuff is skin rashes, people's finger-
nails are turning black and the other thing is
that people have a lot of allergies. That's why
I got on the phone and called some of the
guys in town who have seen that kind of stuff.
We have seen a lot of problems with hands
and feet To me it is interesting coming from
the San Joaquin Valley reportable area—the
chemicals that they use are different. You see
a lot of vague complaints also, the back pains,
the joint pains, the general feeling of weak
and tiredness...that is exhausting labor
[Inaudible]...
Specially one thing that you mentioned:
I see a large number of people without
immune diseases, actually. You see a lot of
people with connective tissue diseases, quite
a few with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis,
immune inflammatory diseases, and I know
that those were reported things. A couple of
months ago, I think there was a World
Health Organization that said that exposure
to pesticides undermines the immune systems
and those exposed to it, and this is
subclinically, right? I know that you
mentioned whether those were clear cut
health effects. There are whole areas where
it is sort of "doesn't meet the remedies."
That may be part of it. I see a tremendous
number of people who have immune
diseases. I think those are the things that set
them apart from those who don't work in the
fields. That is certainly another theory.
Government Rep: Can you think if
training [Inaudible]...
Doctor: I don't think so, for the most
part it is a weird combination of things. The
politics around pesticides sort of tells people
it is not important, if you don't drink the
stuff, do not worry about it. And besides, the
people that are exposed to it are not really
that important anyway. They are those
brown people that work in the fields. So I
think in general, the medical community feels
that it is a problem that's focused on a lowly
group of people. Malpractice is different, I
California 283
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am not worrying about that. I don't think
people are going to take time off of their
practice to listen about pesticides. We did a
few courses on pesticides here at the
Pnaudible]... and the only doctors that we
were able to gather were the residents of the
[Inaudible] because they are sort of a captive
audience. The doctors in the neighborhood
did not come in, yet I am sure they are the
ones seeing the worst cases.
Government Rep: How would you try to
reach that population? Maybe the residents
might feel different about the issues because
they are the ones-most likely the farmworker
population. How would you suggest that we
reach the private practitioner?
Doctor; One thing that I am going to
impress upon you is that the United Farm
Workers union... that recently their approach
to pesticides is more scientific. They are
talking science in the body of pesticides
instead of the emotional kind of stuff that you
heard in the '60s. But yet you talk to people
on the street and they say pesticides are not a
big problem, it's only those rabble rousers in
the UFW union. But it really isn't, they
actually have a message that if you go to any
university and you talk to anyone in
pharmacology, it is a problem, but yet in the
public side and the media it is not an issue.
We are not concerned about pesticides in
California or in any country around the world.
I was reading an article where bees are dying
and now people are concerned, because
plants requiring cross pollination are not
doing well, and that counts in agriculture and
business because they begin losing money
there. Now people are interested and they
want to know what is going on. But how do
you get the public's attention to be focused
on this mission? How do you get the medical
community to get focused? I don't know.
Government Rep: Some training and
[Inaudible]... the CMA as part of another
course that physicians were attending and
sponsored by [Inaudible]...
Doctor: I took a course on obstetrics and
gynecology and one of the seminars was on
pesticides. We were a captive audience again.
I know that in this area it is a big concern
because we have women out there working
and no one knows what the effects are. The
bottom line is science doesn't know.
Government Rep: There was a Family
Care Conference ...talked about an hour ... to
single it out I think it would turn off a lot of
people even with the help ... and I think it is
more likely to attract a lot of people
[Inaudible]...
Government Rep: One of the efforts that
we are trying to do with the UC Davis/
Agricultural Health and Safety Center is... one
of our outreach efforts is to bring pesticide
safety information to rural health clinics and
we have done some of that in the past. Is
this an appropriate way of approaching it?
Can we bring the information to you and also
information on pesticide use in the area?
284 California
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Doctor; I think so. I think person-to-
person contact helps. The information, as
long as it is interesting, tends to get
overlooked, but I think it is almost missionary
work, tends to help. Also, it should be made
easy for us. We are not very special, but it
should be user friendly. Some handout
information tends to be difficult to navigate.
The position of a lot of providers is that they
are very busy and the time is money. So you
have an audience that is kind of resistant
Government Rep: Could you use the
World Wide Web at all for getting
information or would you use it if were easily
available?
Doctor: Personally^ probably not. It's
kind of a new idea, but I might.
Unidentified Speaker: Excuse me. Thank
you very much for your time ...
Government Rep: Thank you. What pitch
would we make about the reporting through
any method? At the federal level, any type of
reporting that we ever tried to undertake
hasn't survived due to regulations and
registrations. Therefore, we tried to go
bottom up or we tried to go with the rest of
the states. But the one big pitch we make for
it is that it helps us demonstrate the situation.
People removed in a foreign environment
away from the obvious [Inaudible]... there are
the burning rivers, the smoke stags, the acute
poisoning, the subtleties that they don't see,
the chronic and sub-chronic effects, and the
things that we don't know. The big challenge
that we get when we are trying to get
regulations and strengthen them is to prove
it. Where are your numbers? The most
harsh reality of that outlook is the body
count. Beyond that they start looking at
incidents. Not that we believe that this is the
way to go or the only way to go, but it is one
way that people hold us accountable. They
will challenge and not let us push forward
certain protections without certain
information. The reporting is absolutely
essential, if it is able to show some kind of
' indicator that is large enough to be a concern.
So, the under-reporting is a huge thing that
we have to figure out how to get a handle on
to make a case that there is something out
there that is not imaginary. The difficulty in
diagnosing pesticides, which is a pitch that we
tried to make because it is real hard to keep
these to get strength and protections on the
books for long.
Doctor: Does the employer have any
reporting requirements?
Speaker: They have pesticide use
reporting requirements, not through our law,
but through other laws, federal and state,
that helps in a tangential way, which can
provide you with certain information. So
maybe if you are aware of what pesticides
dominate your area, you see certain
symptoms, you might be able to put the two
together. It has never been successful ever to
get reporting on pesticides....about specific
applications for limited periods of time, so
that somebody that might have an exposure
[Inaudible]...
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Doctor; This workforce, as in any other
workforce in California probably is not going
to go anywhere, so that is the catch-22: You
want reporting, but it is not coming because
we are busy beating up illegal aliens and those
are the ones that are working the fields. They
are not going to report it.
Speaker; One question you asked earlier
concerning this perception that pesticides are
a problem even among the medical
community and people who are trained in
health care having this perception that
working around toxins is not a hazard—can
you help us understand where that comes
from and perhaps what we can do to increase
peoples' sensitivity to pesticides without
creating hysteria? Where does this perception
that pesticides are not an issue come from?
Doctor: Probably the Dow Corporation,
the Monsanto, all of them, back in the '60s sat
down and drank the stuff. I grew up working
picking oranges in the Joaquin Valley. The
stuff called [Inaudible]... I recall the grower
drinking it He used to say, "You don't
worry, you can drink the stuff." All I know is
that my eyes would sting after it was applied.
I did not know what effect it had on us.
Maybe with malathion is the same thing.
Now it is the grower's son drinking it saying,
"See, you can drink the stuff." And today it
is sprayed on our fruits and we are all eating
it. We are not worried about the pesticide
incidents. Therefore, it doesn't cause any
problems.
Doctor: The perception is not that it is
not hazardous, but that it is not hazardous
enough and furthermore, people exposed to
this things are the downtrodden, the lower
socioeconomic classes. The perception is not
that they are expendable, but that they are
less than of consequence. I am not
exaggerating, but that is part of the
perception. Also, there are things that are
considered more important.
Government Rep: And also, from what
we have seen, if you were to tally the issues of
concern to the farmworker community, such
as housing and pay, pesticide injuries are a
detractor. So pesticides are lower down, so
they are not getting on the radar screen.
Doctor: It is probably lower down only
because the symptoms are big and the
immediate effect is a rash, but on a long term
basis nobody has an idea what happens, so
therefore since we all live for today and
nobody sees the future, we are not concerned
about it. Also, pesticides are a fact of life. If
you are a farmworker you have to go out
there. If they spray the field, you hope you
don't get sick, you don't know what is going
to happen later on.
So, a lot of it has to do with the amount
of information that is made available and
perhaps if there is more information, more
discussion about what we don't know about
pesticides to counter the confidence that is
generated by industry... Is that really our only
step that needs to raise everyone's general
awareness? That is a long-term-are there
short-term things or do we need to start
286 California
-------
focusing on just building this long-term
awareness?
Doctor: I think that the companies that
make these chemicals have a jump on you
early on. They told the public not to worry.
Then we blew DDT everywhere. If you go
back to where these guys are coming from, in
Mexico, DDT is being thrown around. They
give it to the guys in bags. They walk around
the cornfields spreading it with their hands.
No one is told anything. Here in this country
we have grown so accustomed to pesticides
and their use that it is like a common
everyday thing. The long-term is that it may
have an effect. We just don't know right now
what it is now. That is a hard concept to get
across. What the medical community is
saying is that we are not sure if it has an effect
at all. That tells the public go ahead and use
it, it is nothing to worry about.
Government Rep: What can we do to get
over that? How can we answer that question?
Short of, say, a multimillion dollar govern-
ment 20-year study, which is not likely to
happen, is there anything that we can do to
answer that question of, given the kind of
information that doctors have access to now,
is there anything that EPA can do given the
constraints and budget and so on? Is there
anyway that we can coordinate the grassroots
effort or information exchange or some way
to answer that question about what we don't
know?
Doctor: I was wondering what happens to
that data about possible exposure. Does it get
discounted completely or does it turn out to
be something concrete? There is a lot of
potential for exposures that never really pan
out completely and we are facing those
weaknesses. A lot of other conditions,
'malaise, and nervousness trace back to the
exposures, whether that kind of possible
exposure gets anywhere. That is one
possibility, that a lot of those reports of
possible exposures probably won't go
anywhere, but they may be somewhere and
that is one possibility of increasing your
reporting and to make these issues more
aware of the need to report and to make it
easy for them to report even possible
exposures. I know that California is the only
state that has reported and therefore when
we came with our regulation, part of our
justification was the data, whatever we had
from California, because no one else has the
level of reporting departments. So, several
other states are starting to come through,
such as Washington State, Florida, and Texas.
Doctor: California, I feel, is fairly accurate
even though our indications as doctors...
What we are saying is we would prefer that
doctors [Inaudible]... so I would say that
surprisingly at this point in time, other states
like Texas, Michigan and Florida [Inaudible]...
Doctor: It has also occurred to me that it
would be helpful to communicate with some
of the farmworkers unions and tell them the
information can be reported because
sometimes the workers will talk to the union
person rather than the physician, and even
the union person can give the information to
California 287
-------
the physician. That could be another
possibility. Once a report is made, it is
required by law that the report has to be
investigated. Every one of them has to be
investigated by the local Ag Commissioners
Office in the county that it occurred and
there is a file in Sacramento of every report
that has ever been made. Those are all
reports by physicians. There are also some by
workers compensation records, too. It is not
a whole lot of cases this year.
Part of the obstacles involving physicians
and the public in general stems from the
propaganda from the chemical companies:
The exposure is not enough to do significant
damage, second of all, economically, there is
no option. For example, methyl bromide ...
Government Rep: One technical question:
When a worker comes to you with a rash or
something, does he know to tell you or is it in
his mind, "I am a farmworker, I may have a
pesticide problem?" Does the farmworker
provide you information that helps trigger in
the doctor, "I should look at this from a
pesticide angle?"
Doctor: Most of the time, no.
Government Rep: Most doctors are not
sensitized to pesticide problems. Their initial
reaction is not to say, "This is a farmworker,
this could be pesticides." [Inaudible]...
Doctor: I think that is exactly the way to
categorize it. I don't think that people think
about that
Government Rep: If the doctor is
familiar enough with pesticides, does he know
to link up... how does he get more
information? If he sees a worker come in
with rash that could be pesticides, does he try
to get hold of the farmer or the applicator?
Does he try to get information about what
pesticide was applied?
Doctor: I don't think so either. I think it
depends on how bad the rash is, the doctor's
integrity, the load of their work. If they love
their work and they have integrity, they are
more likely to pursue their work to the end.
Government Rep: Who would you go to?
How do you get that additional information?
Doctor: If I see someone who has been
exposed to pesticides, I try to find out who
they work for and where they worked at, and
the phone number so that I can try locate the
site, the number of his employer. [End of
taping]
288 California
-------
Written Comments
Dolores Flores
AmeriCorps/Proteus
Keith Kelly
Arizona Department of Agriculture
Patricia M. Clary
Californians for Alternatives to Toxics
Ernie Flores
Central Valley Opportunity Center, Inc.
Grower, Arizona Produce, Cotton, Grasses, and Grains
Richard W. Nutter
Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner
Joe Karl
Santa Barbara County Agricultural Commissioner's Office
Yvette Black
SoilServ, Inc.
Henry A. Mulder
Westland Nursery, Inc.
Shelly A. Tunis
Yuma Vegetable Shippers Association
California 289
-------
My name is Dolores Flores and I am an AmeriCorps member
working in Tulare County at the Proteus Office in Visalia.
Some of the barriers that I have faced in trying to train workers is
when some employers want us to hold the trainings during workers' lunch
periods. While holding trainings during lunch is obviously better than not
holding trainings at all, it is very difficult to conduct these trainings
because workers usually tend to stop only for a short period of time and
would rather rest and eat than concentrate on the material that needs to be
learned by them.
The second barrier is that some employers do not want to provide
adequate seating for the workers during the training sessions. Because the
training lasts about an hour it's best when the workers are truly in an
educational environment and in our area this usually means shade and
some form of seating, even buckets or crates are fine.
The third barrier is some employers are in a hurry and want shorter
training sessions. Rushing workers during training sessions will simply not
allow the worker to fully understand the required eleven points that must
be covered. When training sessions are hurried there is very little
interacting with workers and many times their questions are not
-------
answered.
To deal with the grower's need to have his workers available when
he needs them, we are available to train workers very early before dawn or
in the evenings. We try to make pesticide safety training as easy and
convenient for everyone as possible. We are here to help workers and
employers.
Dolores Flores,
Proteus Inc. - AmeriCorps
-------
FIFE SYMINGTON
Governor
KEITH KELLY
Director
Arizona Department of
1688 West Adams, Phoenix, Arizona 85007
(602) 542-0998 FAX (602) 542-5420
OFFICE OF DIRECTOR
July 18,1996
Jeanne Keying
Office of Pesticide Programs (7506C)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
401M Street, SW
Washington, D.C. 20460
Dear Ms. Keying:
After discussing the WPS issues with the Environmental Services Division, the division
responsible for WPS enforcement, we are submitting the following comments as was requested
regarding the WPS.
These are the areas that we as regulators repeatedly hear that are difficult for the regulated
parties.
1. Who is the responsible party? In Arizona much of the farm work is done through
contractors. Contractors are used for applying pesticides, planting, weeding, harvesting or
irrigating. There is always an uncertainty as to who is the responsible party. As a
regulatory agency, we can give them the information that the EPA has provided as a guide
to state agencies. People are concerned that the other party may mess up somehow and
they then will be held responsible.
2. With the heat in Arizona, it is difficult to get workers or handlers to wear specified
safety equipment. Employers can supply the needed protection, train the users on proper
use, and tell them they must wear the safety equipment and the precautions they must
follow to avoid heat stress. However, when it only cools to 90 degrees Fahrenheit at night,
the workers and handlers are more concerned with heat than of exposure to the pesticide
they may be dealing with.
, 3..Growers continue to question why it is necessary to keep decontamination supplies
available for 30 days. In the August of 1992 proposal of the final rules, the EPA stated
that 30 days was the maximum based on their model for 1 product. However, the
requirement extends to all products.
-------
Jeanne Keying
Page 2
July 18, 1996
Suggestions for improvement:
Clearly define who the responsible party is or allow the state the opportunity to adopt
rules that can clarify this.
Although the EPA has recently come out with their final rule that will require the
decontamination supplies be available for 30 days, we still feel this is unnecessary. Have
the length of time that the decontamination supplies must be available more closely tied to
the toxicity of the product.
Successes in implementation:'
Arizona developed a train the trainer program. Anyone who wishes to train workers or
handlers, if they are not.a certified applicator, must attend this course. Currently, Arizona
has over 1200 trainers available throughout the state. This program is done in both English
and Spanish. The surveys returned at the end of the courses have been overwhelmingly
positive in regard to the course and its content.
With the many trainers available, the compliance rate is high for field checks on training of
workers. Inspectors also attend various training seminars put on by people. Through
these, it appears that the training being done is of adequate quality and that employers are
complying with the law by training the workers and handlers as required.
The EPA helped sponsor and put on an inspector training course over a year ago in Yuma.
Attending this class were representatives from tribal governments, Nevada and Arizona
inspectors. This supplied all inspectors with a tremendous amount of information on the
standard and its implementation. This has helped us move from having 2 investigators
doing only WPS enforcement, to having all of our investigators being able to do WPS
inspections.
Arizona has two groups which allow for much networking and exchange of information
and the discovery of information. These groups are made up of agencies which help the
agricultural worker, and the second group is made up of regulatory agencies that deal with
worker issues. Many people belong to both groups. The first group is called the Arizona
Interagency Farmworker's Coalition. The second group is called the Arizona Farm Labor
Coordinated Enforcement Committee. Through these committees, we have been able to
educate many people on the WPS and also have a network to answer questions or respond
to complaints brought to our attention.
Available assistance:
We, in addition to the compliance assistance that regulatory agencies normally give, have
started a non-regulatory Consultation and Training Program. This program was run
through the Legislature in 1993 by the regulated industry. The sole purpose of this
-------
Jeanne Keying
PageS
July 18, 1996
program is to consult with growers on any agricultural regulatory activities. The only
program that has been consulted on extensively, is the WPS. This has allowed Arizona
growers the opportunity to have someone come on site, do a review and then write
recommendations as to what is needed to ensure compliance with the law.
Usefulness of available assistance:
The EPA has disseminated much outreach material which we have used extensively,JEhfi
How To Comply manual, the worker and handler books, the safety equipment guide, etc.
Both the growers and applicators, and workers and handlers, have utilized these materials
extensively.
When new rules have been proposed, the summaries and explanations have been very
helpful. This is a very helpful tool when going to the public to explain the proposed and/or
final regulations.
It would be beneficial to disseminate updated versions of the How to Comply and the
worker and handler books.
Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to respond. If you would like further information on
anything, please contact Jack Peterson, Associate Director, BSD at (602) 542-3575.
Sincerely,
Keith Kelly
Director
KK:JP
c: Kay Rudolf
John Hagen
Jack Peterson
Ken Davis
Frank Zamudio
Alex Leivas
-------
GALIFORNIANS FOR
ALTERNATIVES TO TOXICS
8601/2 llth Street, Arcata, CA 95f521 • 707 822-8497 • 707 822-7136 fax • cats@igc.apc.org
July 16,1996
Ms. Jeanne Heying (7506C) .
Office of Pesticide Programs/ Field Operations Division
Environmental Protection Agency
401MSt,SW ,
Washington, DC 20460 .
Dear Ms. Keying,
We write this letter to provide some insight to real life enforcement of Worker
Protection Standards.(WPS) in/reference to forestry pesticide applicators and mixers.
We believe, based'on numerous interviews of workers and observers of workers and
work sites, that forest pesticide applicators are employed in one of the most hazardous,.
if not the most hazardous, types of pesticide application in.the United States. Hazards
are extreme for forestry pesticide workers for two reasons: 1) the work environment,
especially terrain and vegetation, is harsh and cannot be compared to work in field
crops, orchards and vineyards, or nurseries/greenhouses, and 2) monitoring and thus
enforcement of WPS appears to be almost nonexistent. . .
Our organization, Califomians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs), was formed in
the late 1970's to coordinate community groups'throughout forested Northern
California which were fighting annual aerial applications of .herbicides to tens of
thousands of acres of forest lands. :
In the mid- 1980's, the U.S. Forest Service suspended herbicide applications to its
holdings in California until an Environmental Impact Statement was completed in
19.91: The FS today annually sprays 4,000 to 6,000 acres in forests east of the Central ..
Valley and none on the coastal side of the state. The majority of FS pesticide
ipplications are completed on the ground by crews. Crews are usually hired under
:6ntract. . . ,: .
Private timber companies used herbicides on their lands without interruption
for over thirty years. • More herbicide is used in privately owned forests in the
northwestern corner than in any other area in the state. For Example, herbicides'were
applied to 8,200 acres in Humboldt County and over 7,000 acres in Mendocino County
forest lands in 1995. The trend in recent years has been to apply herbicides on the
ground rather than from the air, and nearly all herbicides applied to private, forest
lands in California today, are applied manually by crews. Crews are usually hired
under contract. •
. CATs is not an expert regarding WPS. We are, however, the focal point for
individuals and groups in northern California concerned about forestry pesticide
application. Our goal in these comments is to broaden discussion about real world
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Worker Protection Standard Comments to U.S. EPA
Califomians for Alternatives to Toxics . ,7/96,
implementation of the WPS by presenting, issues about a type of pesticide application
which is routinely overlooked, but which dominates parts, of northern California and .
western Oregon and Washington. '."'•'•'
• ' It is our observation that, with respect to the WPS, not all working conditions
involving pesticides are created equal. One standard cannot provide protection for
every category of work involving''pesticide application. We contend,that EPA Worker.
Protection Standard regulations are inadequate based on our observations in the real
.world. .Specifically, we believe that Worker Protection Standards and enforcement ,
strategies very o'ften fail in forestry pesticide applications.
. t • '•-.'.' , , ' .
• Typical conditions for workers applying herbicides to 'release commercial trees
from vegetative competition are arduous. Workers are required to carry a backpack
full of pesticide mixture which they apply with one hand while with, the other pump
'the container to maintain pressure'.. When,applying pellets/workers carry a scatter
applicator which requires manual operation.' Application is accomplished while
negotiating through limbs and leftover logs, berry bushes, tan oak and other brush on
steep slopes where established.paths do not exist.. Workers are sometimes forced to
flee wasps, disturbed rattlesnakes' and foraging bears, m Western forests, temperatures
routinely exceed 100 degrees Farenhe.ight in the summer, and weather may be .
unstable, rainy and cool-during the spring and fall. .Forestry conditions for herbicide
applicators cannot be compared to rough conditions experienced by hikers, and others
"who traverse forest lands on established trails. In the case of forestry pesticide
applicators, hazardous conditions presented by the terrain are magnified by the
particular nature of their occupation, which involves carrying arid releasing toxic
chemicals into the environment.' According to numerous reports we have received,
falls, cuts and scratches and contact with brush are unavoidable and frequent..
Hazardous work conditions are exacerbated by a routine lack of sanitary
facilities., Forestry pesticide applicators are frequently 'out in the woods' for several.
consecutive days, sleeping in tents or. 'work shacks' that lack running/water and, thus,
showers and washing'facilities, and which lack adequate waste disposal systems or .
more than rudimentary food preparation facilities.. Real world reports to our
organization strongly indicate that forest pesticide applicators often must clean
themselves, their clothing 'and equipment in streams, a situation which is hazardous
to both worker and the environment and must surely be out of compliance'with WPS\
Anecdotal reports to our 'organization indicate that required protective clothing
' and devises are inadequate'for these working conditions. Workers cannot wear
protective .shoes such as rubber boots. Temperature extremes and rough terrain often
render goggles, Coveralls and gloves too hot, too constrictive and often too 'in the way'
for use. We have received several reports of goggles and gloves found near .
application sites, discarded on the ground and covered with the purple dye that is .
mixed with herbicides and adjuvants in tank mixes used by forestry applicators.
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Worker Protection Standard Comments to U.S: EPA
Galifomians for Alternatives to Toxics
7/96
In one signed report, a local resident, observed forest pesticide applicators .
working in'hot windy weather oh steep slopes in Shasta County. The workers' clothes
were saturated with purple dye, as was their skin.
Forest pesticide applicators, have been observed washing their bodies in creeks,
because the creek was the only available.cleaning .facility. In one published report,
workers were given water to drink in a bucket.that only minutes, before had contained
herbicide. . •.-. '•;:'• " . :. • • • ' •-.-'''
One worker described to this writer that he was not'able to wash his hands
during breaks,,thus eating and .smoking with hands covered with pesticide.
Another described sitting down briefly .for a break and soaking his upper body
with pesticide, when he slid down a few inches on the steerj incline, leaning against the
spray nozzle in an attempt to regain his balance. • . .
A field/technician observed Workers camping in a tent.on a landing (a flattened
area.on a hillside Where logs are stacked during timber cutting activities), far away
from showers, or even a creek, with dye stained clothing and empty pesticide
containers piled up. next to the tent. . . . '..'..
Another, forest worker reported seeing spray crews with purple dye on .their
faces, except for where the goggles covered their eyes. . . ••'"
A former Humboldt County resident applied herbicides to land owned by
Simpson Timber Company. He related to this writer that his back was wet with tank ..
mix within minutes of initiating operation each day he worked. He quit; after two •
weeks because his. skin became .very irritated. His wife told me that his skin blistered,
then peeled off in large patches which remained pale in contrast'to:his dark skin for
six months after he left the job. Neither he nor his .wife reported the problem to
authorities, saying that they had no idea of who to tell> that when mentioned to a
.doctor the concern was dismissed; and that, because he was. a recent parolee from.
prison, the couple was afraid.to make complaints. . : . . •'.
• We received a. report which indicates that not only are forestry applicators'
clo.thes and skin .often saturated with chemicals, but also that members.of the public
may be exposed .to chemicals on protective clothing. According .to the report, a person
who appeared to be a Latino farmworker arrived at a Mendbcinp County laundromat
in a 'crummy' (large, heavy duty .van used to transport forestry workers) with several
large bags of purple stained clothes, which he to laundered at the facility. Observers
could only surmise that the clothing was purple Splotched from forest pesticide •
application since the person washing the clothes could not speak English and the
observers could not speak Spanish, but their conclusion fit observations of spray crews
in the rural area during previous weeks. If the laundered clothing were articles
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Worker Protection'Standard .Comments to U.S. EPA
:Califomians for Alternatives to Toxics 7/96
required for protection under the WPS; it appears that a rather large loophole in the
WPS is wide open for public exposure to pesticides applied in the forestry setting.
* i» ' • • •
In the Spring of 1995, CATs conducted an informal survey of 23 county
Agriculture'Commissioner's offices,, interviewing by telephone inspectors charged
with the enforcement of pesticide related laws. Very few minor infractions have been
reported to county agriculture commissioners in California;. We believe that the.
reason so few environmental .and health violations are recorded is because, there are
cultural, language,, inspection/enforcement, geographical, and .employment issues
that confound reporting of violations.. '• • . .
According to county agriculture-inspectors, who are front line enforcers of the
WPS, many, though not all, contract forestry pesticide applicators on the West Coast
states are Mexican Nationals, most of whom speak Spanish and very little English. A
few agricultural inspectors we surveyed speak limited Spanish bitt most do not.
Communication between inspectors and workers usually occurs with a translator
present, often the crew foreman. A major obstacle to recording complaints of timber
pesticide applicators may lie in that workers are unable and/or unwilling to report
violations and complaints to inspectors who do not speak the same language, or in
conversations translated by management.
Most inspectors we spoke with told us they complete none to a few inspections
per year,,up to five or six in the counties where the most forestry herbicide is.applied. '
That so few inspections take place is due at least in part to lack of adequate staff :
resources .and'other inspection and enforcement priorities.
The major impediment to adequate inspection cited by most inspectors was. the
particular difficulty1 of finding applicator :crews in. a forestry setting. Very often timber
companies have large land bases that are difficult to navigate, with steep and winding'
dirt roads, locked gates blocking roads, and other obstacles. Visually locating crews in
the field without a.helicopter (even with one) is next to impossible. Knowing just
' when a site is-being'sprayed is difficult to ascertain. Unless a restricted use pesticide is
•used, no advance notification is given to the Agriculture Commissioner's office. Even
in the case-of restricted pesticides, no precise date is required. Weather conditions
of ten cause application plans, to he modified., . ' . : .
Essentially, inspectors have to make arrangements in advance to go into the
field with crews. One inspector said that he has conducted surprise inspections in the ;
field, observing with binoculars from an adjacent ridge, but this is the only 'surprise'
inspection claimed among all the inspectors to whom we spoke. .
A particularly disturbing incident was reported to CATs in May which involved
illegal dumping of leftover pesticide mix into soil at a worker camp site and vastly
•inadequate cleaning facilities provided by contractors working for Pacific Lumber
Company and staying with permission on Bafnum Timber Company's land.
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Worker Protection Standard Comments to U.S. EPA
Califorriians for Alternatives to Toxics
7/96
Barnum built a rustic shack.without cleaning facilities to house its seasonal
forest herbicide applicators about three years ago. Nearby lives a family who have a
well, shared with four other families, within 100 feet of the work shack. The .
•neighbors became concerned about contamination of their domestic water supply after
they observed workers washing their bodies in a nearby creek. One neighbor
concealed himself and observed as herbicide application spray crew members dumped'
purple colored liquid from their backpack pesticide sprayers onto the ground near the
.shack..'Roundup'containers were observed piled at the site. When the neighbor
approached the apparently Latino workers explaining that the chemicals were
dangerous and could harm them, the workers reportedly laughed and dismissed his
concerns. The workers spoke very little English.
According to the report we received, the neighbor immediately called the
Humboldt County Agriculture Commissioner's office but several days elapsed before
an inspector returned the call and made plans to'inspect the site. It was not until after
the neighbors contacted CATs, and we.contacted the agriculture commissioner's office,
that the inspector responded to the neighbor's call.. :
According to the neighbor, art open pit garbage dump near the shack was
removed by the timber companies in the days prior to the inspection..The shack may
also have been completely removed. The inspector met representatives of Pacific
Lumber Company to inspect.the site and take.soil and water samples. The Deputy
Agriculture Commissioner did not intend to sample the domestic well, but the
neighbors insisted and prevailed. '
Atrazine was found in. the soil near the shack. The well water tested negative
for pesticide residues. The contractor was cited but not fined. We do not know yet if
the contractor was cited for violations of WPS. We have requested a copy of the
investigation'file and will forward to you any further information about this situation
that we believe may be relative to WPS. when we receive it.
People witnessing events relating to worker.safety don't call the Agriculture
Commissioner's office for.a.number of reasons: Often, observers don't understand the
law in respect to pesticide, application and exposure or of worker protection, Others do
not know to whom their report should be made. In the case of. forestry workers, the
fear of job loss due to filing complaints about their.employer or another company in
the industry; and especially to enforcement agencies, is a compelling reason witnesses
give CATS to explain why they withhold reports to officials of observed violations.
Some who call our organization to make a report refuse to reveal their names, or
demand that we keep their name confidential. Workers applying pesticides tell CATs
that .apparently illegal conditions exist, but. none yet have been willing to sign their
names to a.report. The family who reported the pesticide dumping violation were
hesitant to complain because they are also timber workers, but they .felt they had no
choice due to potential for damage to their only water supply.
-------
Worker Protection Standard Comments to U,S. EPA.. •'
, C&liforriiaris for Alternatives to Toxics " 7/96
, We.believe 'that the anecdotal .reports we.have received strongly indicate that
.violations of-WPS .commonly, occur for forestry pesticide applicators. Workers, the
"public and the •environment are atrisk.in an atmosphere, of extremely little
monitoring. It is clear to us .that basic improvements to monitoring and enforcement
need to be made if the goals of title Worker Protection Standard..are to be in any way
realized-in forestry herbicide application. :
Sincerely,
Patricia M, Clary
qc; ., • ..
Governor Pete Wilson . .. •
Jim Wells, California EPA/Department of Pesticide Regulation
Senator Diane Feinstein, U.S. Senate . . :.
Senator. Barbara Boxer, U.S.- Seriate
Senator Mike Thompson,, C A State Senate .
Assemblyman Dan-Hauser/CA Assembly •..•'".
Ralph Lightstone, Anne Katten, California Rural Legal Assistance
Shelly Davis,' Farmworker justice Fund
Trustees, Matteel Environfriental Justice .Foundation .
Sara Greensfelder, .California Irvdiari Basketweavers Association
Betty Ball, Meridocino Environmental Center .
Jay Feldrnany National Coalition, for Against the Misuse of Pesticides
Norma Grier, Ncirthwest'Coalition.for Alternatives to Pesticides
-------
CENTRAL VALLEY OPPORTUNITY CENTER, INC.
" Preparing today's people... for tomorrow's jobs"
Ernie Flores
Executive Director
July 23, 1996
U.S.E.P.A.
401 M. Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20460
Subject: Public Hearing Comments
Central Valley Opportunity Center (CVOC) is a private, non-profit
organization that has been serving the Central Valley for over 15
years, providing social and vocational services to farmworkers
and other disadvantaged persons of Stanislaus, Merced and Madera
counties.
Central Valley Opportunity Center, Inc.(CVOC) is pleased to be
sponsoring a Pesticide Safety Training Project this year. CVOC
has joined with the national Association of Farmworker Programs
and the AmeriCorps National Service Program to provide pesticide
safety training and health related referrals to 26,000 migrant
and seasonal farmworkers and their families nationwide. Under
this AmeriCorps Project, CVOC is hosting four(4) volunteers, who
are available to assist the growers, contractors and farmworkers
of our service area in meeting WPS standards which require
farmworkers to be trained in basic Pesticide Safety.
All of CVOC's AmeriCorps Members are bilingual(Spanish/English),
have received their State Certification as Pesticide Safety
Trainers and have received training as pesticide instructors.
The basic safety training takes approximately one hour. All
trained farmworkers are issued the Environmental Protection
Agency's WPS verification card as proof that they have received
the training. AmeriCorps Trainers are available at anytime to
provide training at employer job sites. There is no charge to
either the employer or farmworker.
Our experience in operating this project has been that there are
many growers, contractors and workers who are very aware of the
need for workplace safety and pesticide safety. There are also
Corporate Offices
Merced County Center
1748 Miles Court.
P.O. Box 23O7- 95344
Merced. CA. 95348
(209) 383-2415
Kax(209) 383-2859
Stanislaus County Center
701 H Street
Modesto. CA. 95345
(209) 577-3201
Fox(209( 521-9954
Madera County Center Winton Business Adventures
17296 Road 26
Mjidrra, CA.B3637
12091 67I-O97I
rax(2()9l «73-8556
6838 Hrtdgei Court
P.O. Box 1389
Winton. CA. 95388
12091 357-3716
Kax(209) 357-3719
An Affirmative Action & Equal Opportunity Employer & Training Facility
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growers, contractors and workers, who with instruction and
direction make the changes necessary to have a safe work
environment. And unfortunately, there are a small number of
growers and contractors who repeatedly and knowingly subject
their workers and the general public to unsafe conditions and
pesticide poisoning.
CVOC's AmeriCorps Members have conducted wide scale outreach to
inform farmers and farmworkers of our badic pesticide safety
training. While a great many of the farmers are initially
suspicious of our training, after learning exactly what the
training involves, they have been generally supportive. Some
farmers however insist that the training is not necessary, that
WPS standards do not apply to them, that it is the responsibility
of their labor contractor or that they will do the training
themselves.
One of the most frustrating scenarios has been the lack of
support by some employees of the local County Agriculture
Commissions. In some instances farmers have sought advise from
the Ag. Commission Offices on WPS Pesticide Training Standards
and have been informed that WPS standards do not apply to
California or that the Standards are not in effect yet and that
they will be changed. Again, for the most part Ag. Commission
Office employees have been very supportive of our efforts and a
very reliable source of information.
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to comment on WPS
Standards. I hope that our Members and Farmworkers will take this
opportunity to provide details on the progress and problems they
see with implementing WPS standards. If I can provide you with
any additional information, please feel free to call me.
Sincerely,
Sr
/CX*-/
CVOC Executive Director
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EPA REGIQN 9 MEETING AGENDA ITEMS
JULY 21 1996
FROM: GROWER, ARIZONA PRODUCE, COTTON, GRASSES AND GRAINS
SUBJ: WORKER PROTECTION TRAINING
CER 1 LFICATION OF INSTRUCTOR TRAINING
DISCUSSION; INTERSTATE FARMING. PARTICULARLY FARM LABOR
CONTRACTING. DRAWS ON LABOR FROM MANY STATES. CURRENTLY. NO
S£CrPROCITY EXISTS FOR STATE-CERTIFIED INSTRUCTORS Of THE EPA WPS FOR
WORKERS/HANDLERS WORKING TN OTHER STAfES. AS A FEDERAL
REQUIREMENT, CERTIFICATION IN ONE STATE SHOULD MEET STANDARDS Of
ANY011IER.
RECOMMENDATION! STATE-CERTIFIED TRAINERS OF EPA WORKER
PROTECTION STANDARDS SHOULD BE QUALIFIED TO TRAIN WORKERS IN OTHtR
STATES. STATES SHOULD BE ENJOINED PROM "AMPLIFICATION" OF THOSE
STANDARDS. STATE-SPECIFIC TRAINING SHOULD BE CONSIDERED A SHPARATfc
REQliTREMBNT FROM EPA-MANDATtD TR.AINTNO, WITH PRLVIARY EMPHASIS 0\
REDUCING OR ELIMINATING RliDUNDANT MANDATED.TTUTNTNO.
: DECONTAMINATION STATION'S
>.N: WPS STANDARDS REQUIRE SOAP, WATER AND TOWELS FOR EACH
WORKER. WPS DOES NOT ALLOW FOR INDEPENDENT OPERATIONS WHEREIN
SEPARATE FIELD SANITATION FACILITIES AJIENOT FH/XSABLE. SUCH AS I-OR
IRRIGATORS. IRRIGATION. WORKERS SHOULD NOT BE CHECKED FOR
INDIVIDUAL ISSUE/PRESENCE OF WATER/SOAP/TOWELS. HELD SANITATION
REGULATIONS ARE .ADEQUATE FOR WOKXERS IN CREWS
! DELETU REQUIREMENT FOR DECONTAMINATION
STATIONS FOR WORKER EMPLOYEES
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MONTEREY COUNTY
AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONER
C«») 7S9-732S • 142« ABBOTT STREET - SALINAS. CALIFORNIA 93901
FAX; (<0»)4Z2-SOOJ
RICHARD W. NUTTER
AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONER
ADMINISTRATOR. OF WEIGHTS & MEASURES
Worker Protection Standard Comments
July 25, 1996
The imposition of a national standard for worker safety
was needed because many states were lagging behind in that
area. However, California has had an excellent pesticide
regulatory program. It is at some risk of being
compromised. This is mainly due to the inflexibility in
the implementation of the Worker Protection Standard.
California had a program that was demanding, but for the
most part the regulated community could see the benefits.
It is generally seen as fair and effective. California's
program has been evolving for over 25 years to meet the
particular needs of the State. Now we have a situation
with some of the new noticing and records display
requirements that the regulated community will be
expending much additional energy with little or no
additional benefit apparent. This could lead to an
erosion of respect for the whole system. A lack of
enforcement in other states could lead to increasing
cynicism.
The situation here is one of small ranches and lots. The
labor situation is very dynamic and fast-moving. The
Worker Protection Standard may fit well in major-crop
producing areas but if there is a worst-case scenario for
implementation, it is the Central Coast of California.
Growers are concerned about the logistics of providing
notice to the multitude of labor contractors, harvest
companies, pest control operators, advisors, etc. The
situation is much more complex than anything the Worker
Protection Standard was designed to cover. Growers are
also concerned about liability. If the grower informs the
labor contractor but the contractor does not pass the
information along to their employees, the grower could be
held liable. Perhaps under the regulations they have
discharged their obligation, but there are still concerns
about liability. Since absolute compliance is practically
impossible, the regulations could provide leverage for
litigious individuals.
California Code of Regulations Section 6618, Notice of
Applications - The old California "likely to enter"
standard was superior to the "walk within 1/4 mile"
standard. Because of our small field size, many crews
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will.be within 1/4 mile. Labor crews generally do not go
wandering about. They go the their assigned field and
work there. They may enter adjacent fields. Giving oral
warnings to so many people is not practical or even
possible in many cases. This will lead to widespread
field posting. Every pesticide now has a restricted entry
interval. There will be so many signs posted that their
effectiveness will be reduced as workers become inured to
them.
Another basic flaw of the federal standard is that it
still requires oral and written notice for some materials
even when they are applied in such a way as to preclude
any contact with workers. For example, disulfoton
injected below the soil would require dual warnings but
workers could enter the treated area without restriction
as a "no-contact" activity. In our situation here in
Monterey County, the logistics of providing dual
notification are daunting. It is difficult to see how
this can be accomplished effectively.
Some growers near the ag-urban interface feel the 1/4 mile
notice requirement may be used as a legal instrument by
residents opposed to agricultural operations. Residents
may insist that they also have a right to notification if
they are within 1/4 mile.
California Code of Regulations Sections 6723.1 and 6761.1,
Application Specific Information for Handlers and
Fieldworkers - The key difference between the Worker
Protection Standard and prior California hazard
communication regulations is that the information must be
"displayed" at a central location. This additional
requirement means that an entirely different set of copies
must be maintained to comply. Some growers, especially
smaller ones, do not have any facilities to house the
information. This is much additional effort for very
little benefit. Workers had access to the information
before Worker Protection Standard and displaying the
information is not even an effective strategy to deter
worker intimidation.
In California, where all agricultural pesticide use is
reported, the information is also available from the
Agricultural Commissioner's office. Labor representatives
will occasionally request such information from the
Commissioner.
California Code of Regulations Section 6762, Field Work
During Pesticide Applications - This section does not
apply to workers on a farm, only in a nursery. Why should
workers_employed on a farm have a lower standard of
protection than those employed on a nursery? For farm
workers the prohibited area is only the treated area while
for nursery workers, for an aerial application it is 100
-------
feet. Can a farm worker work on the edge of a treated
area during an aerial application?
The justification given in the Federal Statement of
Reasons is that "In greenhouses and nurseries production
areas are often close together. Plants requiring
different pesticide treatments and hand labor schedules
may occupy the same bench or bed." They then define sod
farms and Christmas tree farms as nurseries. Vegetable
crop production, e.g. Central Coast, is similar to the
nursery situation. It is certainly closer to the above
quoted characterization than any sod farm or tree farm.
Field sizes are small ani there is a lot of labor
activity. These definitions for "farm" and "nursery" do
not adequately cover all situations found in California
agriculture. There are workers on farms that could
experience the same risk as those in a nursery and they
are not afforded the same protection regarding
restrictions associated with applications.
This standard should be evenly applied. Also, the
distances are too short. Should one approach to 100 feet
from an aerial application?
California retains California Code of Regulations Section
6614 as a basic standard. This is applicable only to the
applicator. There is no regulation prohibiting an
agricultural employer, outside of a nursery, from placing
employees in the way of a pesticide application.
California Code of Regulations Section 6770, Field Reentry
After Pesticide Application - A solution must be found to
the dilemma faced by the cut flower industry. They are in
a position where many growers will not survive because
they cannot harvest their crop.
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SANTA BARBARA COUNTY
ILL,
William D. Gillette
Commissioner/Director
TO:
FROM:
DATE:
SUBJECT:
Jeanne Heying
Office of Pesticide Programs, USEPA
IH^epi
Joe KarlfTJeputy Agricultural Commissioner
Santa Barbara County Agricultural Commissioner's Office
July 25,1996
Comments Regarding WPS Implementation
Public Meeting, July 25,1996, Salinas, CA
Suggestion: Modify the 1/4 mile notification requirement by allowing growers to adopt a strict
policy of prohibiting entry into any field, either the employer's or another's, other than where the
employee is specifically assigned to work.
A typical vegetable grower, at any given time, is farming many fields at all stages of growth.
The fields are frequently scattered throughout the growing region. Insecticide, fungicide, etc.,
treatments may be required in any of those fields. Labor such as thinning or irrigation may be
required in those fields. The process of ensuring that all workers who may potentially pass
within a quarter mile of any treated field, have been notified is overwhelming. Also, because the
workers are required to be notified only of treatments to their own employer's fields, the process
misses an important point: other fields they work around or pass by may also be treated.
A more reliable method of avoiding unexpected worker exposure to pesticides is to do as some
local growers do: instruct all workers to enter only those fields they are specifically assigned to
work in. Entry into other fields is then a violation of the employer's policy and should be dealt
with by the employer through his own system of progressive discipline (i.e., warning letter,
unpaid day off, release from employment). Such a system is more effective and would be, if
placed in regulation, more enforceable than the WPS solution.
9R3 C.aminn del Rfimedio • Santa Rarbara. California 93110 • Phone fROfil fifll-fifiDn • Fax lRn*\ fiftl-fifiO.3
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Suggestion: Provide clearer communication to fieldworkers by allowing an exemption to field
posting requirements under specific conditions.
Under certain circumstances pesticide label direction/regulation combinations currently allow
fieldworkers to enter and work in fields posted with signs warning workers and others to stay
out. The situation arises following subsoil injection of a pesticide such as disulfoton. Under
appropriate conditions, employees may reasonably, and safely enter and work in a treated field
during a label imposed restricted entry interval if the employees will not come in contact with
treated surfaces. Label requirements in combination with regulations, in this case, both specify
field posting and allow unprotected reentry.
This results in fieldworkers working without PPE in some pbsted fields, a situation which •
increases the potential for worker confusion about the meaning of posting. Which fields are safe
to enter and which aren't becomes questionable. In spite of the fact that worker's safety may be
secure, allowing fieldworkers to work hi posted fields creates a situation which can be easily
misinterpreted and puts a portion of the worker protection program in question. The requirement
for field posting is counterproductive in this case. Subsoil injection should be exempted from the
requirement for field posting.
Suggestion: Increase the accuracy and reliability of information available to workers by
changing the manner hi which it is required to be made available to them.
Regulations require that workers have unimpeded access to information about what has been
applied to fields where they work. A typical grower, at any given time, is farming many fields
growing different commodities at all stages of growth. The fields are frequently scattered
throughout the growing region. Insecticide, fungicide, etc., treatments may take place in any of
those fields. The activities of a diverse farming operation are highly complex. The information,
and a system capable of storing it, is equally complex.
• To ensure that the correct information is received, the retrieval of records reflecting pest
control activities on a particular plot of ground on a particular day should be handled by, or at
least assisted by someone who is familiar with the filing system.
• The records must be complete and reliable. If access to the pesticide use records is
uncontrolled, their accuracy becomes uncertain. Use information may be inadvertently
misfiled, or the copy of a desired record may be removed by an interested party.
The availability of use records is specified in California's hazard communication program.
Allow employers to provide information on request, thereby improving both information
reliability and access for requestors.
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AGRICULTURAL CHEMICALS •• HERBICIDES • INSECTICIDES • FUNGICIDES • FUMIGANTS
POST OFFICE BOX 3650
SAUNAS, CALIFORNIA 93912
9 MIWC.
Date: 7/25/96
PLANT: TELEPHONE (408) 422-6473
FAX: (408) 422-0521
1427 ABBOTT STREET
To: USEP A, Office of Pesticide Programs
From: Yvette Black, Environmental Affairs Director, SoilServ, Inc., Salinas,California
Subject: Comments to the Federal Worker Protection Standards
U.S.EPA's intent behind the WPS is not questioned, many states need help developing worker protection
programs, but California is not one. CDPR Enforcement letter 96-003, in the Initial Statement of Reasons
section-Alternatives Considered states that this is not an appropriate forum to challenge the underlying federal
requirement upon which these revisions are based. California does not challenge the federal intent, we are
already effectively pursuing this intent with current California regulations, in a way that works with the specific
growing conditions in California. The notice section of this enforcement letter states that these standards should
not impair the ability of California businesses to compete with businesses in other states, but they will! Some of
these changes delay cultural practices that must be performed in a timely manner or crop quality and harvest
timing will be effected. Mostly these changes will only increase the regulatory burden and create more avenues
of liability for growers, without increasing worker safety. . : .
6618. Notice of Application: Growers consistently use the same Farm Labor Contractors and PCO's, whose
supervisors have been mandatorily trained to stay out of fields, other than their assigned work field. This
requirement will greatly increase grower liability, especially because of the 1/4 mile delineation, without adding
any safety value. This section will be interpreted by fieldworkers as such: there is an application being made less
than a 1/4 mile away, I can smell it or see it, I'm sick and can't work! The regulations are misinterpreted and
misused and this type of abuse will increase with specific distance delineations. And even though growers
consistantly use the same labor contractors and harvesters there could be many different crews on one ranch of
one grower in one day. Our local ranches are made up of many small lots, broken down into many plantings of a
wide variety of crops; the number of people to be contacted prior to an application could be enormous.
Alternative: Remove 1/4 mile distance. Allow growers a written agreement, with each outside labor contractor,
signed by each of their employees, stating:
1. They are aware pesticides are applied to these fields
2. The specific application information is maintained and available at a central location
3. They will enter only their assigned work fields
Except double notification materials which must be posted.
6734. Handler Decontamination Facilities: In 673 4(c) the 1 pint of water for eye flushing must be carried by
handler or on the vehicle or aircraft. Tractors do not afford adequate storage and mounted toolboxes are costly
and subject to contamination.
Alternative: Allow applicators to store eye water in the cab of the nurse rig. The water is required only for
pesticides that already require eye protection and most accidents occur during mixing and loading which would
be at the nurse rig.
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6761.1 Application-vSpecific Information for Fieldworkers: This is another section that will be extremely difficult
to comply with. On the average, local growers work five seperate ranch locations, sometimes a half hour apart
in travel time. On each ranch there is an average of two applications per day, being completed at various times
around the clock. Growers would spend a significant amount of time trying to display this information.
• Alternative: California already requires growers to maintain these records for two years available at a central
location. All labor companies are given the locations, and it is much safer for them to access at in an office rather
than searching a ranch for the information. Please allow us to continue as such.
6762. Field Work during Pesticide Application: This section is very vague and would be ideal to address the
crew/application conflict situations. While working for the county Ag Commissioner's Office I witnessed a
number of crews come on to a ranch and begin work in a field adjacent to an application. The PCO applicator
does not have the authority to direct the crew to wait until the application is completed and locating someone
with the authority is very difficult and time consuming. We have been forced to instruct our applicators to stop
the application. This is a no win situation for PCO's. Does the applicator wait for the crew to finish in the field?
Sometimes this can be an entire day. So, the applicator is left with half a load of material still in the tank that
cant immediately be applied, it can't be dumped out, and it can't be transported to a new location. I agree with
Hazard Communication, people need to be aware of the hazards they work with to prevent injury.
Unfortunately, labor crews take advantage of these situations and the system has become a tool for exploitation.
Conclusion: The Federal Worker Protection Standards were developed with the idea of one grower, one crop,
one worker in mind, and for this scenario it may work. For intensive cropping systems, required to grow many
vegetables across the nation, these standards create definite hardship. As stated ealier, for many states the
standards were greatly needed but for the states that have already addressed worker safety issues flexibility
should be allowed in the interpretation and adoption into regulations that fit the particular needs of each state.
For our situation these Standards create a lot of unnecessary paperwork without increasing worker safety. Small
family farms are already having a tough time and the liability and unnecessary work created by these Standards
could put many out of business.
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3439 CLOVERDALE ROAD - P.O. BOX 429
PESCADERO, CALIFORNIA 94060-0429
Telephone (415) 879-0148
FAX (415) 879-0998
Mt». . Joannas-
Off i-c-e* of P«at.i<3id«-rt»- Me»
W« hod planed to «tt.<3-nd you*- public me-e-tin-g in Solinan ,
on July 25-, to dievcuo Woi-Vfesr Pi-ot «c t ion Standard
u 1 e> t. i on cs .
:«uc5« of unf or-«te«:<--n <~.i .tr-<=u mot oner «RCS , ««r you to «wpr-^cs» oux- <=
to
W out
W«» -gt-ow out-
many »
> hts.v<=- in California.
f»-om tvulV>», m«inly P i- <~«- «v i
oucs t>ulfc> <=jropc» i>ot.H in •gi--
L *?•/*» f liU t
«& n c3 in t. h er
Wsr havo- «a
timo w«* h
mostly
m on a ywav jround fc>aai«r «cs i r. the: eiuinm
to apply i ncKaot Aoi «•> S h c.,-,c3 ardo -with tH« REX will
a re-al haircicsh i £> fo»- u» .
of all, our of»-ni~o t , on<» oon t inuckUcs apaoe without part .1 t ioncs .
Tt i « i mpooesi t>l<» to l^«r«»p woi^Vieiro out of th« «t ruo tu*-tur«r v«>i.-y rapitlly and o<^«c) to l>«-
harv«t aprayis-d, whil«- oth«ro do not.
Thii-dly, fch«rr.l<5 fo*
omami»nkal<9, dome hav« RET 'us of 12 ho.ur» and many lon-go-r. Wo do
not hav«r much choice* of chemicals.
Outdooro in th<=- fiold , wo grow t
«ta 1 r? .
Flowor gr*--ow«ro havo an uni
to lar«f«- ver-crotab>lo fi«*rldt!> or orchards containing juest
crop.
-------
sgu lot lone that would tteep woz'VcesK'o out of th«r tK>«r«to would
ax~ta in 1 y to any «r«a A o cJry, wo
«il3.owoc3 'to wor-V< in ifowej n«B*et to that t»-«»at«d ax~taa .
wo^Vtet>l-& r«r«ful « t ion cs«n »>«• f ox-mu 1 a to-d .
tr-
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4710 South Fairfield Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85282
Shelly A. Tunis
Attorney
Phone: (602) 820-2487
Fax: (602) 897-2904
July 25, 1996
Ms. Jeanne Keying
Office of Pesticide Programs (7506C)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
401 M Street, S.W.
Washington, B.C. 20460
Dear Ms. Keying:
Re: Evaluation of WPS Regulations
The following comments concerning the evaluation of the WPS regulations are submitted
on behalf of the Yuma Vegetable Shippers Association (YVSA). YVSA would like to thank EPA
for the opportunity to comment on our experiences with the WPS a year after the implementation
of the program. This presentation is a combination of several responses of our members. We
used the six evaluation topics as a guide to develop our response.
Yuma Vegetable Shippers Association
The Yuma Vegetable Shippers Association is an association of growers, shippers and
associated services for fresh fruit and vegetables produced in the area surrounding Yuma,
Arizona. The growing area touches the Mexican border with approximately 60,000 acres of fresh
vegetables grown and harvested in the Yuma area during the growing season from September
through April. During the winter months, the Yuma area is the primary source of iceberg lettuce
for the United States. The area also supplies a major portion of other fresh vegetables such as
broccoli and cauliflower to the people of the United States. Yuma agriculture is not only
important to the people who rely on jobs directly or indirectly related to vegetable production, but
it is also significant to the millions of people across the country who depend on quality fresh
vegetables during the winter months.
Understanding the Intent and Requirements of the WPS
Our members believe that understanding the basic intent of the WPS is relatively easy, but
applying the specific requirements of the WPS is difficult. YVSA members say they can tolerate
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Evaluation of WPS Regulations
July 25, 1996
Page Two
most of the WPS, but they do not understand what benefits they are receiving from it. They say
that the WPS does not reflect a desert vegetable agricultural establishment nor a person's ability
to comply in field situations. YVSA members say they are of the opinion that the WPS was
drafted on the basis of midwest soybean and corn farmSj and that EPA did not even consider the
diversity of Arizona vegetable production. They gave three specific examples of their difficulties
with the WPS.
Specific Posting Requirement
A number of our members believe the specific application posting standard has little to no
relevance when applied to Yuma vegetable farming. In almost every farming situation, there is no
central congregation site for workers. It is not uncommon for some agricultural establishments to
have fields that are forty miles apart or have as many as forty separate parcels in an agricultural
establishment. Workers are picked up at the Mexican border crossing and driven as many as fifty
miles to the fields. The workers may not work in the same fields for more than two days at a
time.
YVSA members understand the intent of this posting requirement to be a method of
communicating with the workers about pesticide applications. But when they apply the standard
to Yuma agriculture, they consider it wasteful and excessive. Our members believe the workers
will never utilize the posted information. If the workers have a need for specific pesticide
application information, they will ask the fanners.
Yet, farmers are required to post the information in a location that will be accessible to the
workers, and remain secure enough that the reports will survive all weather conditions and not be
taken during the thirty day period. The current posting requirement for application specific
information in a central location is onerous and does not effectively produce the intended benefit.
Decontamination Facilities
The second concern of Yuma farmers involves decontamination facilities. Most farmers
are of the opinion that providing a decontamination facility of adequate water, soap and single-use
towels within a 1/4 mile for every tractor driver, irrigator and other worker is burdensome and
unnecessary. During the past year, a number of farmers have supplied decontamination facilities
at costs of $100 to $700 for each tractor driver and irrigator. They report that none of the
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Evaluation of WPS Regulations
July 25, 1996
Page Three
decontamination facilities have been utilized by tractor drivers and irrigators since they were
purchased over a year ago.
4
Most farmers additionally believe there is no scientific basis for the decontamination
standard. Vegetable farmers who track pesticide residues say that the residues have degraded
well before the expiration of a 30 day period. Moreover, farmers are. concerned that this
provision may lead to widespread fears about the safety of fruit and vegetables, since people eat
fruit and vegetables that have been sprayed within the past 30 days. The standard as written adds
relatively little to the safety of workers, but it significantly increases the costs of farming as well
as increasing the anxieties of consumers.
Heat Stress and PPE
Yuma fanners, applicators, crop advisors and Arizona regulators are also in disbelief over
EPA's standard for PPE in extreme heat conditions. In the desert regions of Arizona, most people
understand that HEAT KILLS. It is also well known that heat kills countless more Arizonans
than exposure to pesticides. Farmers, applicators, crop advisors and regulators realize that a
common sense approach to PPE and farming in desert regions must occur. The current WPS for
PPE does not indicate a common sense approach for extreme heat conditions. Therefore,
farmers, applicators and crop advisors avow that they will not put their workers at risk for injury
or death due to heat stress merely to comply with the WPS PPE standard.
Success in Implementing the Requirements
Most members of YVSA believe they have no choice but to comply with the WPS in some
manner even though they do not agree with all of the components. They say that agricultural
associations have helped disseminate information and the Arizona Department of Agriculture
personnel have also been helpful. But a number of people believe that a large portion of the
agricultural industry is only doing the bare minimum or not complying at all because they do not
agree with the specific requirements of the WPS.
EPA must understand that Arizona has had a successful worker safety program in effect
since 1989. Furthermore, Arizona statistics show that the number of agriculturally related
pesticide injuries and illnesses are very low when compared to structural pesticide or personal
pesticide illnesses and injuries. Arizona agriculturists understand the dangers of pesticides and
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Evaluation of WPS Regulations
July 25, 1996
Page Four
they know their record on pesticide usage. That is why many Arizonans resent the federal
government telling them that they do not know how to care for their workers - they do not know
how to properly use pesticides - and only the EPA through the WPS knows what is best for
Arizona farmers, applicators, crop advisors and their workers.
Difficulties in Implementing the Requirements
YVSA members cited various difficulties in implementing the requirements. As mentioned
above, several people have serious concerns with the practical aspects of implementing the
posting of specific application information and the decontamination facility standards.
One grower also indicated that he believed all growers were automatically assumed guilty
until proven innocent. He said many growers were honestly trying to interpret and comply with
the new complex requirements, but they were met with a strict enforcement mentality, instead of a
regulatory assistance philosophy.
Suggestions to Improve Implementation
When asked to respond to this topic, YVSA members had numerous concrete
recommendations.
1. Recognize heat kills considerably more people than chemicals do.
EPA must allow the use of common sense for PPE in extreme heat conditions.
2. Allow a sufficient grace period before new requirements are enforced.
Farmers plan their schedules many months in advance of their actions. A grace
period of nine months to one year should be given for all new requirements.
3. Send out all changes in the WPS to the regulated sector. Most people
who have experienced difficulty in complying with the WPS say that it is because
they do not have accurate information. They would like a copy of the law sent
directly to them.
4. Simplify record keeping and paperwork requirements. Many small
businesses are overwhelmed with all the paperwork requirements of all the state
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Evaluation of WPS Regulations
July 25, 1996
Page Five
and federal agencies. Farmers believe the EPA and other government agencies
must make every effort to combine and simplify record keeping and paperwork
requirements.
5. Give leeway to state regulators to make common sense judgment calls.
The EPA must recognize that the WPS does not fit all situations across the entire
United States. State regulators are better suited to apply the basic requirements of
the WPS to their state. EPA must allow states some latitude.
6. Clear up vague areas. There are still many vague areas contained in
the WPS. This causes confusion and conflicts when one farmer is told one
interpretation and another farmer receives another interpretation.
7. Ensure that only qualified people are trainers. Occasionally, trainers
have not been able to answer questions from the audience. The trainers do not
follow up with the person to inform them of the answers to their questions.
8. Provide adequate funding for compliance assistance. When the EPA
imposes new laws on the regulated sector, it is incumbent on EPA to also provide
adequate funding for compliance assistance. Most farmers, applicators and crop
advisors will make every attempt to comply with the law if they understand it. The
problem is that most small businesses do not have adequate resources to devote to
understanding and implementing all the new government requirements. The
regulated sector needs compliance assistance from the government.
Available Assistance from Regulatory Partners Involved with the WPS
None of our members have had any direct contact with EPA personnel. Opinions of
YVSA members concerning contacts with state personnel vary widely. Some people believe that
state regulators were helpful, others believe that they only wanted to issue citations.
Usefulness of Available Assistance
While a number of our members stated that the Arizona Department of Agriculture
personnel has helped them interpret and comply with the WPS, some concerns were also
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Evaluation of WPS Regulations
July 25,1996
Page Six
expressed.
1. State regulators dp not always have answers for farmers, applicators
and crop advisors who call with questions. The state regulators must call an EPA
official for the answer. Sometimes, it takes days for the EPA official to return the
call to state regulator. This is frustrating for the state regulator and doubly
frustrating for the person waiting for the answer.
2. Regulators in different offices do not give consistent answers to the
same questions. Depending on whom a person speaks with, the person may
receive a different interpretation of a regulation.
3. A major concern expressed repeatedly is that federal regulators do not
understand actual farming situations in Yuma, Arizona. Until people at EPA
actually understand desert vegetable farming, there will continue to be problems
with the WPS and problems with compliance.
4. The Arizona Department of Agriculture has instituted an innovative
compliance assistance program to help the regulated sector comply with the WPS
as well as other agricultural regulations. Almost all the people who have utilized
the program are very happy with the results. The major problem is getting the
regulated sector to accept the concept that the "government will help them."
Many people still do not trust the compliance assistance program. It will take time
before trust is established.
Other Statements From Our Members
Farmers, applicators and crop advisors are very aware of the expenditures they have
made in order to comply with the WPS. They have spent considerable amounts of money for
new posting requirements, decontamination facilities and other WPS regulations. And they have
some questions for EPA.
1. Has the exposure to pesticides in Arizona dramatically decreased
since the WPS -went into effect?
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Evaluation of WPS Regulations
July 25, 1996
Page Seven
2. In Arizona, what is the percentage reduction of agriculturally related
pesticide injuries and illnesses since the implementation of the WPS?
YVSA members state that if a significant decrease in pesticide injuries and illnesses is not
achieved in Arizona within two to three years, the WPS must be re-evaluated and repealed,.
Arizona will continue its own worker safety program that will ensure a correlation exists
between the benefits of the program and the costs incurred by regulated industry.
The Yunia Vegetable Shippers Association appreciates the opportunity to present our
WPS evaluation comments. Our members hope that you will seriously examine our comments.
YVSA members believe if EPA officials actually understand our concerns with the WPS, EPA
will certainly make necessary changes in the WPS.
Sincerely,
Shelly A. '.ruins
Attorney, representing
Yuma Vegetable Shippers Association
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ill'I II «i HMI/J t I i ii« ] ii " l i
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8. Missouri
Public Meetings:
Portageville, Missouri
• August 7,1996, 7:00 p.m.
• 22 participants (21 registered), including 2 speakers
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions:
Delta Growers' Association, Charleston, MO
• August 7,1996,12:30 p.m.
• EPA staff met with 10 association members.
Bill Bader Farm, Campbell, MO
• August 8,1996, 9:30 a.m.
• Tour of 800-acre farm (peaches, apples, vegetables).
• EPA staff met with owner Bill Bader.
Beggs Melon Company, Sikeston, MO
• August 8, 1996,1:30 p.m.
• Tour of 400-acre melon farm (watermelon, cantaloupes).
• EPA staff met with owner Don Beggs.
Union Jackson Farm Labor Camp, Cobden, IL
• August 8, 1996, 5:00 p.m.
• EPA staff met with 10+ farmworkers; Pasquale Lombardo, IL Legal Services.
Missouri 291
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Transcript of Public Meeting
Portageville, Missouri
August 7, 1996
Jake Fisher; Good evening. My name's
Jake Fisher. I'm the Superintendent here at
the Delta Center. I'd like to welcome every-
one to the Delta Center and especially the
folks out of state, to Southeast Missouri and
Missouri. You're in God's country now! We'll
take care of you.
Now I have the pleasure of introducing
the Chairman of our Delta Center Advisory
Board. The Delta Center has an Advisory
Board consisting of 42 members, ag business
people, farmers and all phases of farming, and
Dave is the chairman of that, Dave Haggard.
He's a rural crop farmer, grain farmer, from
the Steele area. I believe Paul asked me to
have a farmer come and facilitate this, so it's
my pleasure to introduce Dave. Dave, I'll turn
it over to you.
David Haggard; Thank you, Jake. I don't
believe with this crowd we need much of a
facilitator, so we won't stand on formalities. I
don't think anybody at the front wants that, so
we'll launch right into it. It's my pleasure to
start off by introducing to you Dan Barolo.
Dan, would you like to take over?
Dan Barolo; Sure, OK, thanks for the
opportunity. I think that I'll sit and make it a
little more informal. The last time I was in
church, the same thing happened: Most of the
people sat at the back. And I don't know if
you think it's a quicker way to heaven or
whatever, but feel free to move toward the
front if you think it'll facilitate the discussion.
I'd like to introduce a couple of people
from EPA and the State Director and then I
have a couple of introductory remarks and
then we'll throw it open for some comments.
Cathy Kronopolus, to my immediate right, is
the head of the Worker Protection Standard
(WPS) Regulatory Program in our office in
Washington, D.C. and is responsible for
pulling together a program that makes sense
country-wide. Kathleen Fenton at the end of
the dais is a Worker Protection Specialist with
our Kansas City Regional Office. We're
pleased to have her today. The gentleman to
the right is Joe Francka, he's the Director of
the Plant Industries Division for the Missouri
Department of Ag. Joe, I think you might
introduce a couple of people?
Joe Francka; Yes, I'm here representing
John Saunders, the Director of the Missouri
Department of Agriculture, and I would like
to introduce some of my staff. Also, Rep.
Marilyn Williams is here and she represents
part of Stoddard County and another county.
Marilyn, would you stand up please? We
appreciate you coming and your concern for
this. I would like to introduce Jim Lea, who is
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the Program Administrator for the Pesticide
Program; Paul Andre, who works with Worker
Protection Standards and did a lot of work
with EPA people on this meeting. And then
we have a new pesticide-use investigator for
this area, and I think it would be beneficial for
you all to know him: Larry Ward. Larry, would
you raise your hand? I might as well introduce
the other two: Paul Bailey, a program
coordinator with our department, and Alan
Uthlant. So I appreciate the opportunity, Dan,
and thank you for coming down and giving
the people of this region the opportunity to
speak about Worker Protection Standards.
Dan Barolo: OK, thanks. I have five
minutes of quick overview and this will be
informal enough so that we'll have an
opportunity for any or all of you to engage in
a little discussion when we're done here. My
remarks, at least introductory remarks, are
going to be translated by Angel Castro to
Hispanic friends that are in the audience here
and we sincerely appreciate your willingness to
do that.
Worker Protection Program. I want to
make sure that everybody clearly understands
from a Washington-EPA perspective the
importance that this program has to us. We
truly believe that it's a critical part of pesticide
management in the United States. The
workers across this country basically need the
understanding and the education to assist
them in protecting themselves and their family
in the long run. We think it is part of good
and best management practices in ag
production in the United States and are
hopeful that it will be successful. We've had
some meetings earlier today in Missouri, and
I'm personally pleased to see how it seems to
be getting off the ground in a positive way.
We want it to be successful. In order for
it to be successful, we need everybody's help.
And part of our message and part of our
being here is to try to understand from
everybody involved in this—the user
community, the affected farmworkers, the
regulatory managers, the extension agencies,
the political community, the academic
community, and, just as well, the media—we
need everybody involved to try to figure out a
way to best implement a very practical idea.
I want to start out making sure that
everybody understands that we don't believe
•that we've figured out exactly the best way to
implement a Worker Protection Program.
The regulations are lengthy; they are complex-
-we admit to that—and part of the reason that
we're here is to listen and listen carefully so
that -we can go back and make appropriate
adjustments if they're necessary. And, again,
we want the program to work.
To give you a sense of the fact that we do
listen from time to time, despite whatever the
reputation is, there have been some changes in
the Worker Protection Program in the recent
past. There have been some exemptions for
crop advisors; we've lowered the restricted
interval to four hours under certain
conditions; we've made amendments to the
signs to allow them to be smaller and allow
them to be in different languages; and we're
working on further amendments. For
example, we saw some evidence today and
we've heard from around the country
concerns about gloves and the use of gloves
Missouri 293
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and their value, particularly in hot weather.
We want to fix that so that the value of gloves
is accomplished by the actual use of them. So
we're trying to work on some amendments to
the gloves. We're also reconsidering some
exemptions for some noncommercial
production activities, for example, golf courses
and others that have come to us as a problem.
We particularly appreciate the cooperation
and leadership in many states across the
country and that particularly goes for the State
of Missouri. We've seen some evidence today
that suggests an aggressive effort to get a
communication message out there and the
message is being received, both in the worker
community, it appears, and in the user
community, and we appreciate that energy.
Some ground rules for this session: we'd
really like this session to be open and honest
and constructive and civil. So those are
relatively nice ground rules for any kind of
meeting, but I guess, the value to us in a
discussion like this is, in fact, if there's some
open and honest discussion. If all we hear is
that we are idiot bureaucrats from
Washington-we've heard that before, you
know—that may get something off people's
chest but it doesn't help us make the Worker
Protection Program any better. If all we hear
is there shouldn't be a program, that's not
going to happen. So we're looking for some
constructive ideas and recommendations
about how we can improve what we think are
some valuable objectives.
We have to have a meaningful partnership.
This gets back to my interest in making sure
the regulators and the growers and the
farmworkers and others are working together
toward implementing this program as
constructively as possible. The commitment
that we make is, as we have these meetings
around the country, we are going to use the
discussion and the input that we receive from
this to modify the way we do business in
Washington and the program itself. So we'd
like you to believe that your input will make a
difference, and, obviously, hopefully you'll
hold us accountable for doing that.
I want to thank in advance the people
who showed up tonight, their attendance and
participation. It looks like, based on the
number of speakers who've signed up, that we
will be able to have David Wildy give an
overview or his statement, and then we can
throw it open for some general discussion.
So, again, we appreciate the opportunity to
listen to real people, and maybe, in turn, to
give you a sense that there are at least one or
two real people in Washington—you don't
have to look at me when you respond to that!
Hopefully, we'll be able to hear clearly your
message and you will see some positive
responses as a result of it. So, a very quick
overview and introduction and hope that we
can have a meaningful discussion.
David Wildy, and if I didn't pronounce
correctly...
Jake Fisher: How many do we have that
want to speak?
Dan Barolo: He's the only gentleman
who signed up.
Jake Fisher: Well, OK. Then we'll just go
to opening...! was going to say we're limited to
294 Missouri
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five minutes each so we won't speak too long,
but I don't guess that that's necessary.
Dan Barolo: Well, OK. There'll be plenty
of time. And for the record, we would
appreciate a name and affiliation. Thanks.
Jake Fisher: Go ahead, David, we've got
enough time.
David Wildy: My name is David Wildy. I
represent the National Cotton Council. The
Council is the central organization of the U.S.
cotton industry representing growers, ginners,
warehousemen, cottonseed crushers,
merchants, cooperatives and manufacturers
from California to Virginia.
I farm in Mississippi County and live in
Manila, Arkansas, about 50 miles south of
Portageville. I grow about 5,000 acres of
cotton. I might add that my operation is run
by seven to eight full-time employees, and
most of them permanently live on the farm.
Occasionally we employ hand labor for four
or five days during the summer. Most farm
employees often assume various roles and
often switch from "worker" to "handler"
during the day. My employees are trained
handlers, however, many employees are also
trained as certified applicators.
I am a member of the Council's Producers
Task Force on Environmental Issues which
has provided input and guidance to our staff
on the Worker Protection Standard. In
preparation for this testimony we solicited
input from other task force members. First,
let me say that the cotton producers of this
country appreciate the opportunity to
participate in this hearing. The National
Cotton Council, having had a place at the
table in 1985 when revision of the Worker
Protection Standards first began, has always
been a proponent of protecting our
employees and we have strived for programs
which are reasonable, sensible, logical and also
practical. Our comments tonight are
consistent with that philosophy.
The WPS issue has been relatively quiet
since full compliance began in January, 1995,
and after changes were published in May,
1995. During this time, employers were
dealing with compliance with the WPS under
actual field situations. WPS compliance
demands the employer's attention throughout
the work day. It is a very complex, and I
think confusing, set of guidelines which are
subject to interpretation on how to implement
them. I use the term "guidelines" rather
loosely because, in actuality, they are part of
the product label and are subject to state and
federal enforcement. As you know, we have
labels that are very large, a lot of fine print
with regard to Worker Protection Standards.
And then they also tell us, reference is made
to the WPS standards described by a 140-page
"How to Comply" manual when all of you
were beginning to become aware of it. It
makes it very hard because we're trying to
digest all this information in the fields and
farms.
The producer's greatest fear is that under
the very best of intentions, he/she could be
out of compliance for any number of reasons.
We, therefore, strongly urge that this Agency
and state enforcement compliance continue to
be constructive and instructive. This is a very
Missouri 295
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complex set of guidelines to be implemented
on a daily basis under real time farming
situations.
The following portion of my comments
will address specific information sought by the
EPA. Firsts you have available assistance from
regulatory partners and others involved with
the WPS and [Inaudible]... Training
information has received most attention, as it
should. With training largely accomplished
now, the emphasis should be placed on
interpretative guidance and instructive
compliance under field conditions. Assistance
in Arkansas has come from the Cooperative
Extension Service and from organizations like
the National Cotton Council and Farm
Bureau. To assist cotton producers, the
Council has developed and circulated about
2,000 copies of the Worker Protection
Standards booklet...[Inaudible]...related to
cotton production. Also, a copy of this
booklet will be included in our statement.
The Southern Cotton Growers provided
another 2,000 copies of EPA's "How to
Comply" manual at its convention.
One measure of available information is
the Internet. The Council's staff did research
and found about 600 references to the WPS.
This was a lot of information, but it was
discouraging that most references were dated
1994 and early '95. Another search was
conducted on EPA's Home Page. We
suggest the Internet may be an outlet for
interpretative guidance and other
informational materials.
The next portion [deals with]
understanding WPS requirements. We think
that understanding comes from experience
and from interpretative guidance. We
encourage the Agency and state agencies to
assist in this learning process. We understand
that there is another guidance document being
readied for release so we urge the Agency to
make that fully available to us.
The last subject is the success in
implementing the requirements and difficulties
in implementing the requirements. Training
has been effective as well as development of
the central area information site.
Most producers question the need of
anything other than the name of the product
and see no need for the EPA Registration
Number and active ingredient. I use a
computer program which prints this out and
it still doesn't mean anything to me. My
problem is that I have 90 cotton fields
scattered over two counties, and it is difficult
for me to keep the treatment log up-to-date
during the day. We have so many distractions
in all directions that I'm not even sure what
field I'm going to next, when you come to a
field that's too wet and then you go to another
field. It just is not [Inaudible]... for making
this information posted at the physical
location when all my employees around the
farm [Inaudible]... So what I try to do is get
the information down on paper and then at
the end of the day or hopefully within a day or
two, put it in the log, on board, to comply.
But if you really held my feet to the fire, I'm
out of compliance.
Decontamination sites are being provided,
although the justification for a 30-day
requirement is the cause of much confusion.
Actually, we were disappointed that EPA did
296 Missouri
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not modify this requirement when they had
they had the opportunity to do so.
We are learning how to deal with posting
and notification. Location of signs is very
confusing. Most operators prefer verbal
communication, except where double notifi-
cation is required.
Personal protective equipment is a
problem, although it offers the most
protection for our employees. I can provide
PPE, I can train my employees how to use
them, I can inform them about applications
that are [Inaudible]...but I cannot make them
wear personal protective equipment. This is
why it is so important for us all to strive to
make the rules as practical, logical, reasonable
and sensible as we possibly can. If I have
satisfied my responsibilities to the very best of
my ability, I should not be responsible for an
employee's wearing and proper use of PPE.
Although helpful, the extension for limited
contact activity, we feel this is overkill since
workers must put on full protective equipment
in a four-to-five-minute [Inaudible]... We run
a lot of cultivators that come out to the end of
the field and they have vines or something and
they get off and pull off [Inaudible]... To
comply with the actual rules, they have to
completely suit up with personal protective
equipment to perform a job of pulling the
weed off the cultivators. We feel that this is
very awkward and hard for anyone to comply
with.
In summary, we want to publicly express
our appreciation of EPA staff for working
with stakeholders in the development of
changes to the re-entry intervals, irrigation
rules, crop advisor rules, limited contact
activities, sign, size and lanaguage, and the
worker training requirements. We also think
the Interpretative Guidance Questions and
Answers have contributed to a better
understanding of certain WPS provisions,
particularly irrigation practices. We want to go
on the record and say that while these changes
on interpretative guidance have been
constructive and have provided a sense of
practicality to the WPS rules, we certainly feel
that these changes have not in the least gutted
the very heart of the WPS program as has
often been quoted in Washington.
We agree with EPA in the belief that
agriculture workers, handlers and growers are
best able to provide unique insights on the
effects and effectiveness of the WPS
requirements and the implementation of
standards after one year's time in the real
world. We share EPA's related goals on WPS
to create an environment of credibility and of
acceptance of a program [Inaudible]... by
farmers and workers alike. We applaud the
Agency for follow-up and the National
Cotton Council is pleased to be a part of this
process. [Applause]
Dr. Ray Nabors: [Inaudible]...
Dan Barolo: I'd like an opportunity to
respond in general discussion to some of the
points made and maybe build on them a little
bit, but anybody else who's been inspired or
encouraged by the previous comments and
the fact that we haven't kicked the first two
people out of the room?
Missouri 297
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Andy Kendig: My name is Andy Kendig.
I am an extension weed control specialist and
I do work here at the Delta Center. I am
reluctant to be up here. I don't think it is any
of my business to represent the views of the
University of Missouri, but I do work with
pesticides on a day-to-day basis. I just wanted
to echo some of the earlier comments. I wish
I could stand and tell you that I am 110
percent compliant, that my central notification
system is working perfectly, that I get every
last EPA registration number recorded when
I make an application. I just simply want to
make the point that fully meeting these
regulations to the letter of the law, 'i's dotted
and 't's crossed is quite a challenge.
When I get among farmers, my gut
inclination is to try to commiserate with them
rather than tell them, "Isn't this Worker
Protection Standard a wonderful thing." I
fully support the spirit of what's trying to be
done here. I frankly tell my workers I do not
care about these regulations. Regulations do
not assure your safety; it's what you do that
assures your safety. I actually give my people
a little extra training. All of my employees do
get a private applicator training, but then I go
on to tell mem some important things that are
not included in that training. I have to assure
them that there will be pesticide exposure on
this job—maybe from a door knob, not from
out walking in a previously treated field;
maybe from contact with a truck tailgate.
So I am encouraged that things have been
changed. I know that the Worker Protection
Standard has been evolving in a number of
ways so that's something else that's en-
couraging.
Dan Barolo: OK, any other statements?
For the record, I think we would really like an
opportunity to open it up for some discussion
at this point in time. Maybe I can start out
with a couple of general responses to
comments made.
First of all, I sincerely appreciate all of
them. They're on target. They're construc-
tive. They're helpful. Three, four or five quick
reactions. One is we would love to be able to
hire some real people into our program. One
of the frustrations—and not to say that you all
have not faced them—but for the last year-
and-a-half, we have been in a hard freeze, a
combination of the budget cuts that are
occurring in Washington... I think we can all
support them, relate to them, but as the
individual responsible for the program, they
hurt frankly. And they hurt by not being able
to bring some young blood into the program.
And they particularly hurt not being able to
bring in some balanced blood into the
program that can give us the kind of real
world experiences that we would like to have.
So feel free to talk to anyone of your favorite
Congresspersons and tell him or her exactly
what I think of them in terms of general
support for the program. That is a practical
problem. One of the reasons that we need to
reach out and touch and involve greater
constituencies around the country, is to make
up for what we know to be a deficiency in our
program and that is that kind of implied
expertise.
We have started some initiatives. Many of
you may have heard of the Environmental
Stewardship Program that is underway
nationally where we're trying to establish a
298 Missouri
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partnership with various user associations so
that we get down into the user community
and build the bridges so our people can spend
some time out seeing how kiwis grow, how
tomatoes grow and, in turn, better understand
pest pressures and pest management in that
particular commodity. And, as well, it will
help us in our priorities setting. We have
about 35 of those signed now up, everybody
from the National Potato Council to the Cling
Peach Board in California to many other user
associations around the country. We hope
that will help fill up some of that gap.
There are 3.5 million workers in the
United States. A significant number of those
are migratory workers. We have an obligation
in the broad program to evolve, devolve a
program that provides some basic protection
for them. One of the problems—and you hit
right on it and it is true for both registration
of new chemicals, as well as the Worker
Protection Program, as well as any other
program we are involved in—and that is: How
do you establish national standards that are
meaningful to local and regional geographic
individual circumstances? Not easy to do. We
need help figuring out a way to plug that gap.
One of the ideas that we have come up
with—I know you all know this—is the idea of
State Management Plans as an approach to
dealing with the ground water problem. All
we would say nationally is: Here are some
broad fundamental principles that we want
you to think about at the state level, the
regional level to affect meaningful ground
water protection. States, you have the
opportunity to work with your regional, local
governments and develop your individually
tailored state plans. But doing that for
national labels is a particularly difficult issue
and I know that all of you know that. So we
need to find mechanisms to make sure up-
front in the process, we're involving more of
the people affected by the way we do business
rather than after the fact. So your points are
well made.
We are struggling with—and we agree with
most of them—we're struggling with how do
we fill that gap. How do we fill that expertise
gap? How do we fill that national standard
versus local/regional differences gap and how
do we establish a Worker Protection Program
that applies across the United States? Some of
your suggestions, I think, are headed in the
direction of helping us with that. For
example, commodity type approaches for
restructuring and one of the things that Cathy
[Kronopolus] is beginning to work on, for
example, is a commodity "How to Comply on
an Ag Sector Basis." In other words,
translating the Worker Protection Standards
regulations that now exist into how they apply
for greenhouses, how they apply for fruit and
vegetables, how they apply for other
segments. We don't know how else to do
that. So thoughts, suggestions, recommen-
dations. Anything I said that any of you think
particularly is way off base?
Speaker from Audience: [Inaudible]
Dan Barolo: How do we do that on a
national level?
Speaker from Audience: [Inaudible] ...
Montana and none of them are the same. So
Missouri 299
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if you are going to do that, I would
recommend that you do it maybe not exactly
by commodity, but pretty close, and get the
people from across the nation so that you can
get input from the various regions because
they are going to vary a lot. We've got five or
six different geographic regions right here in
the State of Missouri, let alone going across
the nation with something.
Dan Barolo; I have a pointed question to
you. One of your earlier comments dealt with
the fact that one of the reasons we don't have
a lot of workers here is that they've seen, and
are afraid of, EPA people because they've
done things to them in the past.
Speaker from Audience: No, I'm talking
about the regulations that are coming out of
the Environmental Protection Agency.
Sometimes they just don't make sense to a
fellow in the field. He's out there dealing with
it on a day-to-day basis and you're writing
about it in Washington—there's no communi-
cation there. There's a lack of understanding
and a lot of fear there and some of the things
that you all have written up don't really make
sense out here on the field. And I think that
you've got to have some expertise in the area.
If you can't bring on new people, I can
understand that, I mean with all the tax cuts
going on and things, but there are already
people available. And I think you can get that
expertise if you ask for it.
Pan Barolo: David, you mentioned the
difficulty in digesting the "How to Comply"
manual and the Federal Raster notices. You all
in the cotton community have taken that,
tried to extract it, and produce something for
the cotton growers? One, you are going to
leave a copy of that with us, right?
David Wildy: It will be part of our written
statement.
Dan Barolo: Secondly, kind of a general
request or offer to all of you is: Those of you
who have access to the "How to Comply"
manual or the other publications that are out
there, I think directly and indirectly, some of
you are suggesting that some of the answers in
there don't make sense always in the real
world. It would be very, very helpful if we got
some explicit comments on those: "This
answer does not make sense because..." or
"This answer would make more sense if you
changed these three words from these three
words to these three words." I appreciate that
that might take some time, but to the extent
that any of you have the opportunity or the
access to people who have the opportunity to
go through that and offer some suggestions
on how and where we could change it, it
would be very helpful. Your cotton manual
might give us some ideas and thoughts about
how we could structure some commodity
stuff and to what extent does that represent
national cotton producers thoughts, or is that
regional.
Speaker from Audience: [Inaudible]... The
Cotton Council developed this manual and
I'm a farmer and the Cotton Council
developed this for us so I'd like to
[Inaudible]....
300 Missouri
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David Wildy: Dan, this was put together
about a year ago, and we essentially went
through the "How to Comply" manual and
pulled out those things that obviously
pertained to greenhouses and forestry. We
tried to keep it confined it to row crop-type
agriculture. At the same time, we felt very
hesitant about doing any interpretation on our
part, but we did try to make some suggestions
on posting, to make sure growers and
producers understand that posting is not for
the people that drive up and down the road; it
is to protect your employees. So make sure
your employees know how you are going to
post on your farm. That doesn't mean you
have to put 12 signs around a single field. Tell
your employees which entrance to that field is
going to be the posting entrance and put one
sign up if you want to. If you don't want to
put a sign up, and you have the option of
verbally communicating with the workers and
you object to putting signs, choose the verbal
route and put a sign up only when you have to
maybe. But we haven't really done a whole lot
of interpretive type things.
We included some of the information that
focus on irrigation and things like that, that
came out a little bit later. We need to update
this and include some of the new guidelines
and new information that came along. But
we're still, I think, very early in the stages of
trying to understand exactly what needs to be
done. One example that we used is the
planting time operations where we're dealing
with treated seeds that may have a fungicide
and insecticide on it. We're putting a granular
insecticide in the furrow, we're maybe putting
a fungicide in the furrow, maybe [Inaudible]...
putting a herbicide on top of the rows—so
we're dealing with three or four compounds
all at once. Exactly what kind of glove, who
wears gloves? So it's complicated as far as
trying to deal with that out in the middle of a
cotton field on a busy day.
Speaker from Audience: A chemical
might have a different set of gloves that are
required and are we wearing the right glove
for the right chemical? It gets so complex out
in the field when you're dealing with handlers
that you have to explain it to.
Dan Barolo: OK, one of you offered a
phrase that I thought was a philosophy that
we are trying to promote in the program and
that is "constructive and instructive com-
pliance." I think that if we can find a way to
sell that as a message in the first year or two of
this program, that we have an opportunity to
make some meaningful inroads into enforcing,
encouraging a program that makes sense in
the field, that accomplishes the basic purposes
of worker protection and doesn't worry too
much about making sure that every Y is
dotted in the regulations themselves. And I
hope that is the message getting out to the
states and the community. It doesn't, in my
mind, back off of our obligation to ensure
worker protection, but it is a positive step
toward making sure that we get there in the
most sound manner possible.
We are hopeful that in the next months
and year we'll head in the direction of
improving on that kind of instructive and
constructive compliance and guidance. That's
why thoughts, ideas and recommendations
Missouri 301
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about how to make the "How to Comply"
manual will be very, very helpful to us and
why going on a commodity/sector approach
will as well maybe provide some more
instructive guidance and direction on the
program.
Thoughts, recommendations from
anybody? Let me just throw out one other
area and that is the dilemma, the ever-present
dilemma of how we bridge the gap between
national standards and local/regional issues
and needs. Congress has said to us, there will
be national registration. Our difficult job is to
interpret all the studies that are available to us
in ways that provide that kind of national
threshold of protection, recognizing in some
instances that it may go way beyond what's
necessary and in other instances it may just be
on the border of acceptable risk protection.
Any thoughts, any ideas beyond changing the
statute?
Speaker from Audience: All these
materials that we use—I've farmed for more
than 20 years—I've had it, I've eaten it, I have
done everything except take a bath in it. I've
been to a doctor and all kinds of things, but
I'm a survivor and I know these workers are
survivors. I've never known anybody too
seriously hurt but [Inaudible].... What I'm
trying to say: Is there some way that the
manufacturer, just one person, can be
communicated with so he can dilute as many
as possible of these things that are harmful to
humans? These people that are driving these
tractors, man, you've got a big job ahead, but
if you could cause this chemical to be less
effective to the people...
Dan Barolo: I know many of you know
this, but part of what we're going through
right now is this program called re-registration
and it's basically looking at all the old
chemicals, some of which were registered in
the '40s and '50s and with all due respect very
little testing, very little understanding and
knowledge of the effect of the active
ingredient at the time. And our job is to
require the registrant to do the studies to
demonstrate to us that they meet today's
health and environmental standards. Over
time, the next four years, we'll finish that
program, and over that period of time we
hope to be able to ensure that the really bad
stuff gets out of the marketplace. Because you
are absolutely right, the more we can provide
assurance that what's being allowed out there,
if used properly, will be safe, the fewer
incidents that should occur.
You've indicated that it is probably more
risky working for EPA in the pesticide
program in Washington than it is applying
some of the pesticides around the country.
On the other hand, let me assure you that all
of us have seen some very sad circumstances
of individuals who have been seriously
affected by pesticide poisonings and pesticide
incidents, both from misuse as well as use in
accordance with the label. So our job is to
figure out how can we assure some minimal
level of protection for them and obviously not
adversely affect the job that needs to be done
in terms of ag production in the United States.
We think we're getting at your suggestions
through this evaluation process. We are about
half-way done. Another four years, we'll be
done.
302 Missouri
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Speaker from Audience: Aren't you
working on speeding up the registration of
some of the new pesticides that show real
good—less toxicity and effectiveness, that sort
of thing?
Dan Barolo: In fact, last year we created
two major initiatives in that area. We actually
took some of our existing staff and created a
new division. Some of you may be familiar
with it; it's called Biopesticides and Pollution
Prevention. That is the division where the
Environmental Stewardship Program exists.
We've actually got some state grants going out
to various subcontractors around the country,
trying to advance best management practices
and promoting their understanding. But that
division has responsibility for reviewing and
evaluating biopesticides, those that are
biochemicals, bioengineered products and so
on, and getting them into the marketplace
more quickly. So by focusing the scientists
and the regulatory managers in one operation
we, in fact, are getting a lot more out. For
example, we registered 22 of those last year.
The average in the past 10 years was four or
five.
The other thing that we put out is an
incentive to registrants. We've also said that if
you come to us with a complete application
for a new active ingredient that you can show
us is significantiy safer than the pesticides that
are out there, we will accelerate the review and
the evaluation of that. Again, last year, I think
we got about 15 applications; we agreed that
about 11 or 12 of those did pass that screen
and we registered a half-a-dozen new, safer
pesticides. Some of them are still finding their
niche in the market. Who knows what is
going to happen to them when resistance
catches up with all pesticides, which it
generally does. But the fact is, we're offering
incentives and are getting new, safer pesticides
registered significantly faster than we have in
the past. We hope over time it will displace
some of the more risky chemicals.
Speaker from Audience: One of the
messages that was conveyed in the Worker
Protection Standard trainings that I've been
through is the label, of course, is the law and
that you should consult the label to know
what the necessary PPE is. Thinking of that
in farmer terms, that means I need to know
20,30 or 40 different sets of PPE equipment.
To make tilings work in my research program,
I went through and surveyed about 60
different chemicals last year and came up with
two classes of highly toxic materials and less
toxic materials. What is the possibility to
establish something that's formal, legally
binding, that might help the farmer select and
train his people to use PPE, based perhaps on
the signal words of "caution," "danger,"
"warning"? Obviously you could still put
exceptions to the rule where you would need
less PPE, but that's something that could
probably be done to make life a lot easier for
everyone.
Dan Barolo: That's very logical. We'll go
back, but I'm confident pieces of that have
been analyzed in the past. But that's one of
the things that I think we're all talking about:
How can we bring some greater common
sense and, in turn, assurance that the basic
Missouri 303
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conditions are likely to be understood and,
therefore, practiced in the fields? Simplifying
that approach is obviously part of that answer.
Other thoughts, comments, concerns,
questions on things we haven't touched on?
Cathy Kronopolus: Not specific
questions, but I think the notion of the
commodity, even going beyond commo-
dity—Take, for example, the Cotton Council
book, and if you were to work on talking
about the chemicals, the PPEs, going beyond
the regulation and having some kind of short
book (not getting into the hundred-page
version), pulling out the essence of what the
requirements are and then getting beyond just
what the requirements are in terms of practice
and operational issues so you can get to the
heart of some of the PPE questions-that I
think is what we'd like to explore more fully
with you all. It would be a great opportunity
since you've already advanced it so far.
We worked with the forestry community
a bit to do a similar type of book that didn't
go under EPA letterhead; it went under the
Forest Service, as well as I think International
Paper and some other folks that played in it.
We'd like to be able to get back at the table
with you all and help with some of the
interpretive questions and talk about some
questions you might feel a little uncertain
about asking. I think it makes sense to have
those discussions so that the farmers don't
have to sit there looking a little bit fearful.,
"Did we go too far in this interpretation.'"
Your coming to the table bringing those
to our attention, will help us understand what
some of the constraints and circumstances are
with posting issues, with notification issues,
the communication flow and where the
workers really are at and some of the
difficulties. So that's one that I think we're
going to take and run with. We love to work
with you and we've engaged in the past and
you know we've been taken up with some rule
amendment time, that's what's dominated our
time, but we'd like to move into the
communication realm again and the
interpretative side. I heard that from some
other folks as well. So that might be a good
starting point since you've already advanced it
to a certain degree.
Dan Barolo: Corn, soybeans, two biggest
[crops] in this area?
David Wildy: Well, and cotton.
Speaker from Audience: Could I respond
to Cathy's comments. What kind of
mechanism would develop a commodity-
specific booklet like this? Would this be an
interpretative-type booklet or... it wouldn't be
any rulemaking as far as a commodity-specific
kind of thing?
Dan Barolo: No rules.
Cathy Kronopolus: No rules. I think we
should see where it takes us. I think we've got
to get back to the table and I think we should
see. If it's interpretative issues, we've got to
go through the interpretative issues. Is it PPE
clarification? Maybe we'd bring that in. And
if we could focus it on a pointed sector, we
might have a better chance to start addressing
304 Missouri
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something and have a success story of looking
at one crop: What are the particular chemicals,
what are the PPE issues, what are some of the
notification issues, and see what we can come
up with as a prototype to look elsewhere. It's
simply a compliance assistance, communi-
cation, interpretative tool—not a rulemaking.
So I think we can do it in a timeframe that
might work for all of us for your next season.
Kathleen Fenton: I'd just like to add to
the communication effort that Cathy talked
about and that the comment was made that
there are no experts at EPA. I think that now
and in the past, we've had some very good
experts in the field. Dave Ramsey is here
from EPA-Missouri, and Glen Yeager. They
have quite a few years of experience. They've
been with EPA for quite a long time, but also
in...
I think, what is a pretty new philosophy
recently is that EPA, the Departments of Ag,
Extension, we're all looking at new ways to
partner. We're all looking at new ways to
partner not only with each other (those three
that I mentioned), but also with industry, with
commodity groups, with associations.
Even though I know that Cathy and Dan
are opening their hands now and saying,
please let us know things, I want to extend
that for the region as well, for Kansas City—all
of the different regions. I know Arkansas,
you're in Region 4. The regions are there to
take phone calls and to talk and to meet with
you as well. And also, the Departments of Ag
Extension Services, like the MD&Rs of the
states as well. So don't discount the expertise
that is out there. Believe it or not, we really
are here to help, too.
I was talking with Jeff Herman earlier and
I know that we need to work on getting out
there and being seen and talking. We have
phone numbers. We're more than willing to
have meetings with commodity groups or
associations or anything, but I just wanted to
make that point, too.
David Wildy: Yes, I'd like to respond to
that, too, and it goes back to Ray's comments
and some of your comments. We in the
cotton industry have taken up your suggestion.
We need—both the commodity groups and
the EPA—to learn more about each other's
jobs. It's a two-way street. As a follow-up to
that, we've developed a project where we will
invite EPA staff to go to a cotton production
region and show them [Inaudible]... and a
worker protection site, reduced tillage, weed
eradication and other things. And this is a
two-way street and there's a lot of Extension
and research people that don't know much
about what EPA does and a lot of growers.
So this is a two-way street and we've found
out through dealing particularly with some of
the Section 18 processes that it makes a lot
more sense to communicate up-front and in
advance and keep a two-way street going.
Speaker from Audience: As a professional
communicator, agriculture communicator,
EPA's story hasn't gotten to me too hard in
the last 15 years. My sources usually come
from the commodity association (soybean,
cotton): "Have you heard what the EPA's
doing to us?" And it's always been that half-
Missouri 305
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negative approach on what the EPA's doing
to us and not much from the EPA, very little.
EPA news comes from Capitol Hill, it comes
from the USDA, but it doesn't come to the
agriculture communicators that I know and
the farm broadcasters directly. That's a
shame, folks.
Dan Barolo: You're making an excellent
point. We're going through these flattening
exercises that most of the government is
going through and one of the things we're
committed to is increasing the focus of our
communication energies and efforts.
But two or three things... a couple of you
mentioned the Internet and the home page.
We will begin to put more and more of our
documents into the Internet and a home page.
Not everybody has access to that, but a
growing number do. Secondly, believe it or
not, EPA's pesticide program publications are
the single largest distributed publications in all
of EPA. About 750,000 actual copies of
various EPA pesticide program-related
publications were distributed last year through
the Cincinnati warehouse and through other
NPTN and other kind of networks. So there's
a lot of material around. What is frustrating to
us is we're obviously not getting it in the right
people's hands. And frankly, I think you
represent some of the right people. We need
to figure out a way to get to the media in the
United States, and frankly, get the media to
find us so that they don't get their news
stories from the registrants and/or a
Congressman and/or somebody else who's
giving only a piece of the story. Do we just
give our piece sometimes? Yes. But at least
we have the requirement to make our piece
open and available and [Inaudible]... and
statute and regulation and the rest of the
programs. So I'd really like to get a card from
you on our way out here and make sure you
get on our mailing list for every single
material. You may scream "uncle" after a
•while -when you see it all!
Speaker from Audience: I screamed
"uncle" on the Alar situation. I got so sick of
that, you wouldn't believe. I started to suspect
you folks did too, but God almighty, that's all
I heard for six months and then it didn't...
Dan Barolo: I understand. And we're still
living with some of the legacy associated with
Alar, there's no question about that, but I'm
trying to get people to think about tomorrow
and the next century and less about who did
what to whom last year or five years ago or
before. Otherwise, the conflict will continue
forever and that doesn't do any of us any
good. Other questions, comments, sugges-
tions?
A couple of closing remarks, a little bit of
recapitulation of what we've just heard and
secondly, hopefully a challenge to all of us.
One is, and let me just start off by
personalizing it, I'm getting old fast. I'm tired
of talking. I'd like to contribute to advancing
ag management, pesticide program in a
responsible way into the next century. We're
looking for people who will buy onto holding
us accountable to do that. So there are a lot
of choices in the world and one of them can
be: "This is another typical government
[official] who talks for a living, spouting off."
306 Missouri
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On the other hand, there could be: "Well
maybe there's an opportunity here to build
some new bridges and some partnerships with
some people and be part of an organization
that wants to try to do things differently.' I
encourage you to try to take us up on the
latter.
Those of you who are within the state and
Extension agents and others, I encourage you
to talk laterally. What I mean by that is across
states, across agencies, across whatever,
because if we don't, we're going to get this
splintered approach to advice and counsel to
the national governing body. If we get a
considerably different message from California
and Oregon and Wisconsin and Idaho and
Missouri and New York and so on and so on,
you wind up with the inevitable gridlock.
Whereas if we could get some consistent
messages across sector organizations, across
user organizations, across the Extension
Service, we have an opportunity to influence
the same kind of directed, positive change. I
encourage you to do that.
We're trying to reach out and talk to
USDA. I'm confident over the years many of
you have tried to work and may understand
them better than we do. But they, as well, are
reaching out and we've actually had in the last
year or so some constructive meetings where
we and they have actually worked together,
[Inaudible]... and some other forums, where
we're getting connected in ways that we
haven't in the past. I see that as being positive
steps, but it is frustratingly slow. We're
looking for ways and means, how can we
focus collective attention and intelligence on
bringing answers in a quicker forum to the
problems that you all have to deal with on a
day-to-day basis. And I think some
constructive suggestions came out of here
today, focusing on sectors, focusing on
Extension and focusing on simplifying the
Tox 1, 2 category kinds of approach to PPE.
Those are the kinds of ideas and
recommendations that we have to translate,
move beyond talk and actually put into
practice. We're interested and anxious to do
that. I would appreciate some of you over
time holding me accountable. If you need to
complain about anything, send them to me; if
you want to pat somebody on the back, send
it to the staff in the pesticide program or in
the state agencies who on a day-to-day basis
are more than earning their taxpayers' dollars.
Let me end by extending a thank you and
appreciation to the state and regional people
who were involved in making this happen; to
my own staff who went to extraordinary
efforts to pull these meetings together across
the country; and more particularly to each of
you and all of you for attendance tonight.
Hopefully, we all learned something to make
this program more meaningful tomorrow and
tomorrow. Thanks very much.
[Meeting adjourned]
Missouri 307
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Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Adolfo Carbajal
Farmworker
Frank Carter
National Cotton Council
Angel Castro
Rural Missouri Inc.
Tom Chidirtez
Helena Chemical Co.
Jim T. Criswell
Oklahoma Dept. of Agriculture
Fred Fishel
University of Missouri Extension
Jake Fisher
University of Missouri
David Haggard
Grower
Jeff Herrmann
ISK Biosciences Corp.
Tony Howard
University of Missouri
Andy Kendig
University of Missouri, Delta Center
Ray Nabors
University of Missouri Extension
Cyril W. Owen
Cotton Producers of Missouri
Hugh Robinson
Delta Farm Report
Arturo Soto
Farmworker
Gene Stevens
University of Missouri, Delta Center
C. Alan Uthlant
Missouri Dept. of Agriculture
Larry Ward
Missouri Dept. of Agriculture
Stephen Watkins
Grower
David Wildy
National Cotton Council
Marilyn Taylor Williams
State Legislator D159
308 Missouri
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Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Delta Growers' Association, Charleston, MO
• August 7,1996,12:30 p.m.
• EPA staff met with 10 members of the Association, many of whom are cucumber/pickle
growers.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— Participants noted that they had no difficulties complying with REIs or posting
requirements (although there was some confusion over -when posting needs to be
done), and no problem getting pesticide products relabeled with WPS labels by the
deadline because they had already moved their products out to the customers.
Participants had no knowledge of incidents of pesticide poisoning.
— The participants also experienced no problem with decontamination requirements.
The growers try to have washing/decontamination supplies available on the
equipment so they do not have to worry about the quarter-mile requirement. The
Association makes workers leave their clothes at work and sends the clothes out to
be cleaned.
— Concerns expressed about glove liners and related heat stress issues.
— Participants expressed a need for better communication and recommended getting
the word out through the American Retailers Association.
— v Growers noted the need for a replacement for Atrazine and expressed concerns with
the new law.
Bill Bader Farm, Campbell, MO
• August 8,1996, 9:30 a.m.
• EPA staff visited this 800-acre farm, one of the few orchards in Missouri. Crops include
peaches, apples, vegetables.
• EPA staff met with owner Bill Bader.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
Missouri 309
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— The owner's primary difficulty related to WPS requirements is with concerned
customers who see the WPS warning signs when they come to the property to buy
fruit.
Beggs Melon Company, Sikeston, MO
• August 8,1996,1:30 p.m.
• EPA staff met with owner Don Beggs and his son, and toured the 400-acre melon farm
(watermelons, cantaloupe). The Begg family has been growing melons for 101 years.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— The owner was satisfied with his workers and stated that the migrant labor force was
necessary for the farm's continued operation.
— The owner felt that REIs are more problematic for harvesting cantaloupes than for
harvesting watermelons. Unlike cantaloupe, watermelons do not need to be
harvested daily.
Union Jackson Farm Labor Camp, Cobden, IL
• August 8,1996, 5:00 p.m.
• EPA staff met with 10+ farmworkers; Pasquale Lombardo, IL Legal Services. Additional
farmworkers joined the meeting late. (The small turnout may have been related to the
somber mood of the camp in the aftermath of a car accident that had occurred earlier in the
day, killing one farmworker and injuring five others.) A brief training session was given to
the farmworkers by Jeanne Keying.
• Among the topics presented at the meeting were:
— Workers complained that growers are not conducting the WPS'training (although
these workers had received training either in Florida, Michigan, or elsewhere).
310 Missouri
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Written Comments
Stephen F. Mona
Golf Course Superintendents Association of America
David Wildy
National Cotton Council
Mark Weber
Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association
Missouri 311
-------
Urucc R. Williams
Vie* I'
Paul S.
George li. Renault Iff
Imnic4!ai» Psut t'rtudtnt
ftjy V. Grigg
O»vcw*. Pearls
Ken Mangum
Miclutl W»U:iec
Tumni/ D, Win
U. Scott WoodhttJ
PMC Pr*»WenU'
Robert M. Williams
Sherwood A. Mijorc
S. Moore
Walter K.Boysen
James "V Umndc
John J. .Spwlnik
KiclufU C:. Rkikc
lUbcrc V. Mitchell
CliiTbrd A. Wigotier
ril W.
. Clcav«c
Mclvin B. Lucys' jr.
R.
W,
u^eiic D. Bascon
Rilcy !,. Srorrcrn
Donstd C. Hcirn
D- L.v>>n
S'cphcn CI. Cadendl!
William R. Robero
Randy Nichols
CMif Exrcuuye Officer
.Srephcn I'. Moru
1421 Re^areh Pjjrlf Drive • Lawrence. K&ntM «(W9.»HS9 • Qi3/«4l-*24u • SOOM72.7H7M
August 1,1996
Mr. Glen .y^ger ;
Environnfcijtal Engineer
United States Environmental Protection Agency
RegiemVfl
726 Minribsota /(.venue
Dear Mt yager:'
T arn vtritibg on Behalf of the Golf Course Superintandor^* Association of
America (|GCS^A), to share our .views on the implementation of the Worker
Protection Standjard (WPS), for consideration at the Public Meeting on this
iisue whifch is scheduled for August 7,1996 in Portageville, Mo.
GCSAA is the tBading professional aasocration for ths men »ad women who
manage and maintain golf facilities in the United States and worldwide. From
its ueadqiarters fti Lawrence, Kan., the association provides education,
informatijpn andlrepresentation to individual members from more than 50
countries;]
As you kjvow, the 1992 Worker Protection Standard covered agricultural
workers. ;Golf cruises were not intended to be covered, and plants grown on
ftie^e establiahments fit within the exceptions provided in the regulation. The
WPS &tatt.*£ th&tjthe requirements do not apply when plants aro grown for other
than cornimcrciai or research purposes, or when plants grown are intended only
for aesthetic purposes.
An Interpretive JGuidance Work Group was assigned to prepare R Question and
Answer «|ooum«nt on WPS compliance. Thu Work Group determined that the
WPS should cov«r these aroaa, even though every other part of the golf course
is exempt from WPS.
Apparently the Work Group's logic was that if golf eoursea did not grow
their own cod and trooa, they wauld be purchased from commercial
GCSAA a dcditattd to Dewing its members, advancing their profession
and iHrifhing (be quality of golf and its environment.
-------
GGSAA
, Mr: Olen Yager
Pago 2
August 1, 1996
nurseries that had to comply with WPS. The Work Group decided that the golf courses' sod,
ornamentals and trees jfheiejjare have "commercial value" and are subject to the regulations. We
agree that the WPS property applies to facilitiaa that grow turf or ornamentals for off-site sale.
However, the small areas or) the gcilf course where replacement sod, ornamentals and trees are
grown should be covered ureter thp same exception that covwa golf courses, for the following
reasons: " :
1. The intended scope of WPS, to communicated by the officials who wrote the Standard.
does not include these golf course operations.
2. Golf course turf plots iuid greenhouses are typically very small areas, and application of
WPS would be «n»eagoii|ably burdensome to golf couree.8 and product manufacturer*.
Although a product pmujhased for use on these areas may be the same as that used on the
golf course, it would have to carry a special label.
3. Most importantly, this decision'offers no additional protection to OUT workers. Virtually ull
ar« fittte licensed poatiei-de applicators, even if it ia not required by aiatc law, and arc among
the best-trained and eqdjpped of any user groups.
GCSAA is a progressive organization that cares deeply about worker safety, risk reduction and
environmental protection. lifts our objective to be recognized 36 a model environmental industry.
We do not object to reasonable regulation merely because it may involve some inconvenience.
However, we fail to understand thejEPA's rationale in this decision. Under this ruling, registrants
spend money unnecessarily joid ouij management practices are complicated substantially, but
workers are not protected aniy morej effectively — and perhaps less effectiv*ly.
We champion the EPA's role In protecting and preserving human health ana the environment.
However, we do not be,Ucvejithis ruling fulfills the intent of the law or furthers the EPA's
mission. Therefore, we respectfully!request that the EPA Region VII take prompt and appropriate
steps to encourage the Uniteijl States Environmental Protection Agdnoy to reconsider and reverse
this action.
Please include these comments in th|e official record of the EPA Region VII Public Meeting on
the Worker Protection Standard. Wp appreciate the opportunity to express our viaw*.
it /fogbeiitt^to.serving its members, advancing their profession,
anil enriching the quality afgotfanil itt environment.
-------
GCSAA
Mr. fcten Yager
Paea 3
Auguct 1,1996
Thank you in advance ,ft»t y6u>r consideration of this matter. Pl«as« do not hesitate to contact me
if you or your «t$fif desire ariy additions] information.
Sincerely,
Stephen F. Moiu, CAB
Chief Executive Officer
SFM:cn
GCSAA is ''dftiicaxeld to itrvtng ist utemfart, advancing, thtirprofession,
and etirirtiiny the quality afgatf.tnditt ttifironmrut.
-------
GOLFtCOURSE SUPERINTEND.iENTS
^ ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
• ' i
i
1421 Research Park tjrive .
Lawrence, KS 6<$049-<385*j
Telephone: (913)841«2240^
OUR MISSION
GCSAA is dedicated to serving its members,
advancing their profusion and enriching the
quality of golf and its environment.
FACSIMILE TRANSMITTAL SHEET
1996
""-X
Mr- Glen Yager, EPA Region VII
NUMBER OF PAGES: 3 plus cover ehfltt
FROM: Carrie D. Nicks
t
PHONE NUMBER: 913/832-3610
DOCUMENT(S) TRANSMrTTEDf Comments to WPS Public Meeting
ORIGINAL TO FOLLOW BY U.S.. MAIL: YES jg NO q
MESSAGE
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A--I/V — .L^&rv^^^^T o /OP/ 76=-,
L • ' & / ' "" "
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(/
FAX NUMBERS
Acoauntlnet «13/»32U4SS BxKtbtt SrJe>: 913/633.44-li ' M«mbrf«hfp: ~"
Career Devetepment: 913/831-44*3 FttiirwJiKion (Development!. 313/832-4433 MIS-
Chapter Relations: 9I3/I3J.4449 Government ReUtfons: 913/832-4433 Production 4 Mail Center-
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If you experience problems in traijismiasiijn, pleaia call:
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ill 3/832-4433
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913/832-444!)
-------
August2, 1996
Red River Valley
Sugarbeet Growers Assoc.
MINNESOTA
NORTH DAKOTA
Ms. Jeanne Heying
Office of Pesticide Programs (7505C)
US EPA
401 M St. SW
Washington, D.C.. 20460
Dear Ms. Heying:
On behalf of the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association we wanted to share
our thoughts with you about the Worker Protection Standard. Our Association
represents about 2,000 sugarbeet growers in Eastern North Dakota and Northwestern
Minnesota. We grow roughly one-third of the nation's sugarbeet crop. Our growers
employ about 5,000 migrant farmworkers to hoe sugarbeets in their fields. A number
of them may also operate equipment and do other farm tasks besides hoeing.
Our Association has worked very hard to help educate and inform growers what is
required of them in meeting the new standards of the worker protection law. While
there seem to be endless specific rules that often sound more technical than they
really are in practice, many of the provisions are nothing more than plain common
sense. Our growers are also exposed to chemicals on a daily basis and they are
mindful of the many dangers. A sense of reasonableness among growers already
prevails in this region and they are making a good faith effort to comply. The EPA must
in turn also be reasonable in its enforcement efforts.
A frustration prevails in that the rules vary in each state causing much confusion to
growers who farm in both states. Besides the worker protection law, there are endless
other rules that growers must comply with when employing migrant hand labor. As an
example, growers must first check the workers "green card" and complete immigration
forms (commonly called l-9's) when they are hired. A farmer may hire as many as 20
or 30 workers and a form must be completed for each worker. Careful labor records
must be kept on hours worked for each individual. This is necessary as often times
wage disputes will arise in the fields. Additional rules apply when employing crew
leaders or when growers provide housing to their migrants. Growers also keep very
careful and detailed spraying records on each field such as time of spraying, weather
conditions, wind direction, amount and rates, etc.
1401 32nd STREET SW
FARGO, ND 58103-3430
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Jeanne Heying
Page 2/EPA
August 2, 1996
It is not often any wonder that some growers get so tired of the seemingly growing list
of rules and regulations with which they must comply. We have found that so many of
the agencies don't often know what other agencies are doing in a particular area or
how they might choose to enforce, understand, or interpret various rules of the worker
protection standard. To name a few, these agencies are OSHA, Migrant Health
Services, Migrant Legal Services, Department of Labor, Department of Agriculture in
each state, etc. Growers would like to have one source that they could turn to that
could answer all of their questions. The Association has tried to do that as best we
could and I have attached a recent newsletter that includes an explanation of the
worker protection standard and other requirements when employing labor.
We also held a series of training workshops for growers several years ago that
included much more than just worker protection standards. We prepared a book for
those workshops and that is also enclosed for your information. We believe the EPA
must help cooperate with all of these agencies to help streamline the requirements
involved in all facets of hiring hand labor besides just the worker protection standard.
The above information is given as additional background so that EPA can have a
better appreciation of the additional requirements that growers have and to
demonstrate that our Association is very proactive in trying to follow the laws and
educate growers.
To focus more specifically on the worker protection standard, we have several
comments. The decontamination sites are a good idea but more practically they are
often set at the end of the field where the workers park their cars. The posting and re-
entry requirements are not really a big problem. Showing the training videos has
worked, but we have since been told that the videos may not necessarily meet the total
requirements. The videos were marketed as meeting the requirements of the worker
protection standards. Confusion exists in this area.
We must also never forget that the workers also have some responsibilities as well.
We know of situations where workers may choose to ignore the signs or warnings for
various reasons. The workers must also be willing to ask growers questions when
they are being trained. Situations occur where the workers don't want to take the time
to review the video or study the written materials. We must remember that such
education and training is a two way street.
I would like to conclude by saying that farmers are responsible and take such laws
seriously. But, past experience has shown that the EPA in its legislative efforts has
often taken an extreme example that might have happened among farmers and
attempt to portray that as the average or status quo among farmers. This is insulting to
-------
Jeanne Heying
Page 3/EPA
Augusta, 1996
farmers and it then polarizes the two groups so quickly and leaves little room for
cooperative efforts. We will continue to work hard to follow the law and we ask that
the EPA work in cooperation with farmers across the country.
We appreciate the ongoing excellent work that both the North Dakota and Minnesota
Departments of Agriculture have done in this area. They have been fair and
reasonable. In the long run this is the approach that works best. They and our
growers both recognize that common sense must prevail.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to respond to the EPA with our thoughts.
Sincerely,
Mark Weber
Executive Director
MW:sjn
Enclosures
cc: Steve Poncin, Minnesota Department of Agriculture
Ken Junkert, North Dakota Department of Agriculture
-------
Field Hearing on Implementation
of the
Worker Protection Standard
Environmental Protection Agency
Portageville, MO
August 7,1996
Testimony of;
David Wildy, Manila, AR
Representing
National Cotton Council
RECEDED
SEP 2 5 1996
OPP PUBLIC DOCKET
My name is David Wildy and I am representing the National Cotton Council. The Council
is the central organization of the US cotton industry representing growers, ginners,
warehousemen, cottonseed crushers, merchants, cooperatives and manufacturers from
California to Virginia.
I farm in Mississippi County Arkansas and live in Manila, Arkansas, about 50 miles south
of Portageville. I grow about 5,000 acres of cotton. I might add that my operation is run
by 7 to 8 full time employees, most of them permanately live on the farm. Occasionally,
we employ hand labor for 4 to 5 days during the summer. Most farm employees often
assume various roles and often switch from "worker" to "handler" during the day. My
employees are trained as handlers, however, many employees are also trained as certified
applicators.
I am a member of the Council's Producer Task Force on Environmental Issues which has
provided input and guidance to our staff on the worker protection standard. In preparation
for this testimony, we solicited input from other task force members.
First, let me say that the cotton producers of this country appreciate this opportunity to
participate in this hearing. The National Cotton Council, having had a place at the table in
1985 when revision of the worker protection standards first began, has always been a
proponent of protecting our employees, and we have strived for programs which are
reasonable, sensible, logical, and practical. The protection needs to fit the exposure risk..
Our comments tonight are consistent with that philosophy. In fact, the National Cotton
Council (NCC) has been very active over the past three years in seeking changes to the
Worker Protection Standards with hopes that such changes would make WPS more
workable. '
WPS issue has been relatively quiet since full compliance began in January 1995 and after
changes were published in May 1995. During this time employers were dealing with
compliance of the WPS under field situations.
-------
Nevertheless, WPS compliance demands the employer's attention throughout the work
day. This is a complex, confusing set of guidelines which are subject to interpretation on
how to implement them. I use the term guidelines rather loosely because in actuality, they
are part of the product label and are subject to state and federal enforcement. To illustrate
this, here is a complex product label and bv reference. WPS standard, described by this
140 page HOW TO COMPLY manual is also part of the label.
Under WPS, a tractor driver cultivating cotton is now a handler because that person is
more than likely putting out a herbicide at the same time. Likewise, the springtime ritual of
planting the new crop is now a complex application operation because we are using
treated seed, a fungicide in the furrow, often an insecticide/nematicide in the furrow, and
finally, a herbicide on the surface of the drill row. The producer's greatest fear is that
under the best of intentions, he/she could be out of compliance for any number of reasons.
We therefore strongly urge that the Agency and state enforcement compliance continue to
be constructive and instructive. This is a very complex set of guidelines to implemented on
a daily basis under real time farming situations.
Although helpful, the exception for "limited contact" activities we still think is overkill
since workers must put on M personal protective equipment, to perform a five minute
task. The tractor driver cleaning cultivator sweeps or adjusting nozzles is an example. We
have proposed gloves, rubber boots and an apron/overcoat for this type of short term
activity.
The following portion of mv comments will addresses specific information sought bv
EPA:
Available assistance from regulatory partners and others involved with the WPS
and the usefulness of available assistance:
Training information has received most attention as it should. With training largely
accomplished, emphasis should be placed on interpretative guidance and instructive
compliance under field conditions. Assistance in Arkansas has come from Extension and
from organizations like the National Cotton Council and Farm Bureau. To assist cotton
producers, the National Cotton developed and circulated about 2,000 copies pfthis
publication. A copy of this booklet will be included with our statement. The Southern
Cotton Growers provided another 2,000 copies of EPA's HOW TO COMPLY manual at
its convention.
One measure of available information is the internet. Council staff searched and found
about 600 references to Worker Protection Standard. This was a lot of information but it
was discouraging that most references were dated 1994 and early 1995. These references
offered almost no help on the new revisions published May 3 in the Federal Register.
Another search was conducted on EPA's home page. Only a few hits were returned and
most involved Federal Register Notices. We suggest that the internet may be an outlet for
interpretative guidance and other informational materials.
-------
Understanding WPS requirements:
We think that understanding comes from experience and from interpretative guidance. We
encourage the Agency and state agencies to assist in this learning process. We understand
that there is another guidance document being readied for release so we urge the Agency
to make that fully available.
Success in implementing the requirements and difficulties in implementing the
requirements:
Training has been effective as well as development of the central area information site.
Most producers question the need of anything other that name of the product and see no
need for EPA Registration Number and active ingredient. I use a computer program which
prints this out and it still does not mean anything to me. My problem is that I have 90
fields of cotton scattered over 2 counties. It is difficult for me to keep the treatment log up
to date during the day. Usually, the treatment list is updated on the computer at the end of
the day. This poses no problem for me because most employees are aware of applications
or participate in the application. Nevertheless, I am not in compliance according to the
rules.
Decontamination sites are being provided, although the justification for a 30 day
requirement is causing confusion. Actually, we are disappointed that EPA did not modify
this requirement when they had an opportunity.
We are learning how to deal with posting and notification. Location of signs is confusing.
Most operators prefer verbal communication, except where double notification is required.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is a problem although it offers the most protection
for our employees. I can provide PPE, I can train, I can inform about applications, but I
cannot make them wear PPE. This is why it is so important for all of us to strive to make
the rules as practical, logical, reasonable, sensible, as possible. If I have satisfied my
responsibilities to the best of my ability, I should not be responsible for "wearing and
proper use of PPE".
Suggestions to improve implementation:
We continue to urge that EPA develop a proposal to move the provisions providing for an
exception process from the REI section to the general provisions section. This will allow
more revisions in the future and will strive to mold a WPS program to meet the need to
protect workers from pesticide exposure while on the job and will continue to assist
employers in providing effective implementation of protective measures.
i
In summary, we want to publicly express our appreciation to the EPA staff for working
with stakeholders in development of changes to the reentry intervals, irrigation rules, crop
advisor rules, limited contact activities, sign size and language, and the worker training
requirements. We also think that the Interpretative Guidance Questions and Answers have
-------
contributed to a better understanding of certain WPS provisions, particularly irrigation
practices. We want to go on record by saying that while these changes and interpretative
guidance have been constructive and have provided as sense of practicality to the WPS
rules, we certainly feel that these changes have not in the least "gutted the very heart of
the WPS" as has been often quoted in Washington.
We strongly believe that WPS guidelines must be workable for the owner/operator as well
as the employee because employees will not cooperate with PPE requirements if they
deem them overprotective, cumbersome or uncomfortable. We understand that EPA's has
a similar goal on WPS. That goal is "to create an environment of credibility and of
acceptance of the program in the field by farmers and workers alike".
We agree with EPA in the belief that agricultural workers, handlers and growers are best
able to provide unique insights on the effects and effectiveness of the WPS requirements
and the implementation of the standard after one year's time in the real world. We applaud
the agency for the follow-up and The National Cotton Council is pleased to be a part of
this process.
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ll ««S* I > « I
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9. Indiana
Public Meeting:
Tipton, Indiana
• August 21,1996, 7:00 p.m.
• 63 participants (63 registered), including 21 speakers
Site Visits and Small Group Discussions:
Indiana Health Centers, Inc., Kokomo, IN
• April 22, 1996, 8:00 a.m.
• Tour of non-profit health care group with seven permanent clinics serving about 9,000 migrant
farmworkers.
• EPA staff met with Jose Perez, Indiana Health Center manager; Gene Brown, nurse
practitioner.
Ray Brothers & Noble Canning Co./Farm, Hobbs, IN
• April 22,1996, 9:30 sun.
• Tour of 2,000-acre farm and tomato canning plant with migrant labor camp on premises.
• EPA staff met with owners Ray and Dan Noble.
Sharpview Farms, near Tipton, IN
• April 22,1996,1:00 p.m.
• Tour of 600-acre farm (cucumbers/pickles, tomatoes, corn, grain and soybeans).
• EPA staff met with owner Scott Smith.
Sharpview Migrant Labor Camp, near Tipton, IN
• April 22,1996, 3:00 p.m.
• Visit to small migrant labor camp housing 200 workers.
• EPA staff met with 20 farmworkers; Jose Perez and Maria Leija, Indian Health Center.
Indiana 313
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Transcript of Public Meeting
Tipton, Indiana
August 21,1996
Alan Hanks: It has been an unusual year
for agriculture, displayed across the state and
the region. You will have an opportunity,
which you indicated by signing up, to speak to
our federal representatives tonight. I'd like to
turn it over to our program monitor tonight,
Fred Whitford. Fred.
Fred Whitford: [Inaudible] ...Again,
welcome. For those of you that think that the
weather's too hot; I was under a tent today; it
was 120 degrees in the field today, we had
three and a half inches of rain, and, ladies and
gentlemen, we're extremely pleased because
our crops are about three weeks behind so
we're glad to sweat, glad to have all this
sunshine help our crops, 'cause we're still
fighting the freeze. I can't dress up—I do have
good clothes, but I came from the field today
so pardon the way I look.
I want to actually thank a lot of you that
are here today. We have farmers, growers, we
have [Inaudible]... and their associations, we
have migrant worker associations. We're
extremely pleased to have you, and we're very
pleased to have the out-of-state people. We
welcome you to Indiana. We have a beautiful
state and we'd like you to spend your money
here while you're here. [Laughter] It helps
support Purdue, and there is just one person
here from Purdue in case you were wondering...
Thank you again, and our basic mission
here this evening, this is a public meeting of
WPS and this is your opportunity to provide
and to share and give some ideas to our panel
that we have here from EPA, and with that, I
guess I'd like to introduce our guests this
evening. On your left is Dr. Lynn Goldman,
Assistant Administrator of EPA. To her left
is Norm Neidergang and Norm is with EPA
out of Chicago, and then to his left is Jesse
Baskerville, and Jesse is with EPA Washington
also. Thank you very much for taking the
time to be here.
I'd like to tell you what we'll be doing this
evening: I'll be the facilitator. We're going to
ask that each one of you, if you'd like to give
a presentation this evening, we have cards in
the back. We have a total of about 16 people
that have signed up. If you would like to sign
up, you will have that opportunity all during
the evening, so if there's something you'd like
to bring up, please sign up. Five minutes—
we'll allow you to have five minutes; you'll
come up to this podium, you will give your
presentation. And this is also going to be
taped; this is a public hearing and it will be
taped and there will be some written
comments to come out of it.
At the end we will have [video]tapes,
probably six or seven tapes. Some of the
314 Indiana
-------
tapes, I understand, will have a presenter with
that tape that will also have five minutes to
show that tape. In other cases, if people could
not be here, it will just be the tapes, so we will
have the opportunity to view the tapes. Mr.
Diaz here is our interpreter and he will give us
an interpretation of those tapes that are in
Spanish.
Horencio Diaz: That's right.
Fred Whitford: The restrooms are in the
back. We have coffee, drinks here to your
right. This is a nonsmoking building, so if you
have to smoke you can go outside. Any
questions that come to mind? Anybody have
any comments? Any concerns? Anything?
Very good. So, with that, we'll go ahead and
start. Dr. Lynn Goldman, you have some
prepared statements to make.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I'd like to say good
evening and welcome you to our meeting on
the Worker Protection Standard (WPS). I
think that, too often, we in the federal
government are nameless, faceless individuals.
You may see our names, you may see the
results of our work in terms of regulations and
the standards, but we really don't too often
enough get out of Washington to meet with
you face to face to find out how well, or how
poorly, the standards that we create work in
the real world. President Clinton has told us
to do just that: to get out of Washington, to
talk to people, and to listen to people to hear
their concerns.
The WPS provides very basic protections
for agricultural workers by informing them
about the hazards of pesticides, how to lessen
exposures to pesticides, and by providing
measures on how to treat the exposures if
they do actually occur. It is a high priority for
EPA. The WPS covers 3.5 million agricultural
workers throughout our country. The
standards were established by the EPA in
1992, but they were long overdue. Many don't
realize that it took the Agency almost 15 years
to develop those standards. When I came to
the EPA in 1993, nearly three years ago now,
it was a very high priority for me because at
that time we were in the process of beginning
to implement the standard. The efforts over
the last three years have been quite extensive.
We couldn't have done it without the help of
our state partners, the folks that are here from
the state agencies, but we also couldn't have
done as much as we have without the efforts
of everybody else in this room. Unlike many
of the laws that I'm involved with, the WPS
involved the cooperation and participation of
everybody who was involved in the process.
Not just the federal and state agencies, but
also the farmers, pesticides companies, and,
indeed, the farmworkers themselves.
We have done much to attempt to
provide training. We have distributed training
materials and conducted extensive educational
efforts for employers, pesticide handlers, and
agricultural workers. And tonight is yet
another phase in this effort to not only
provide education, but to be educated by all of
you. During the process of implementation
the EPA has needed to respond to a number
of specific concerns that have been raised,
problems that were not foreseen by the
Agency when the regulation was written. I
Indiana 315
-------
think that this was almost inevitable; that,
when you bring a standard to the entire
country, into the real world, that you are going
-to encounter situations that maybe hadn't
been foreseen by the people who wrote the
standard.
This has in some ways been a complex
process, but let me tell you some of the things
that we have done. In 1995, we amended the
WPS to establish five days as the number of
days of employment before workers must be
given safety training, while at the same time
requiring that the employers assure that basic
levels of information be provided before an
employee enters a pesticide field area. We
excepted qualified crop advisors from some
requirements. We allowed early entry in
pesticide-treated areas to perform certain
limited contact and irrigation activities and we
established criteria that allow lower-toxicity
products to qualify for a 4-hour restricted re-
entry interval. Recently we issued an amend-
ment to the warning sign requirement to allow
people b areas where workers speak languages
other than Spanish to put those languages on
the sign and amended the decontamination
requirement that reduces the number of days
that decontamination supplies (soap, water,
and paper towels) are required to be available
to workers after application of pesticides
which are low toxicity and have entry intervals
of four hours or less. Shortly we are going to
issue a proposed amendment to address issues
for the glove requirements.
But we want to continue to work closely
with all of you who are affected by this
regulation to identify and address your
concerns. Let me emphasize: tonight is the
time for those of you who have concerns to
tell us about them and for those of us who
work for the EPA, and work for the state, to
listen. We want to hear your thoughts about
the WPS. We want to know what is working,
and what is not working.
Before we begin calling people, I want to
express our appreciation for the leadership of
state officials here in Indiana, the efforts of
the Cooperative Extension Service, and the
commitment of local service and agricultural
organizations. In Indiana, cooperative efforts
between the Office of Indiana State Chemist,
Purdue University, Transition Resources
Corporation, and AmeriCorps serve to
protect the public health because of pesticide
safety training for farmworkers and pesticide
handlers. The Indiana State Agricultural
Cooperative Assistance training program
educates dealers and applicators on federal
and state pesticide laws. Their significant
efforts and outreach communication and
compliance assistance have not gone
unnoticed in Washington. I should also thank
some of the local political leadership in this
area. I know that the Mayor very much did
want to address this group; he did stop by to
make sure that everything was going well and
he wasn't able to stay. I know that Senator
Lugar's office is also here present tonight. We
have very much appreciated the working
relationship that we have had with the
Senator's office and really, what I feel has
been good bipartisan cooperation between the
Clinton Administration and the Congress in
trying to make this effort work.
Finally, last and not least, I want to thank
each and every one of you for taking time out
316 Indiana
-------
of your very busy lives to come here tonight
to be with us. Those of you who have come
here to comment, thank you for being willing
to come forward with your comments. This is
important. For those of you who have come
here to listen, I think that is important too.
One of the things that I think that meetings
like this can accomplish is that we all need to
listen to each other. Too often, those of us in
Washington hear one side and you hear
another side. We don't see enough dialogue,
we don't see enough people getting together
to work things through. This is a part of a
series of meetings that we've held throughout
the country and I've participated in a number
of them and I will tell you that what I find
most valuable is that in each meeting we have
learned something unique—something that is
important in the community that is here, that
perhaps has not been an issue in other parts of
the country where we've held meetings. That's
why I'm very much looking forward to hearing
what you have to say tonight.
I want to close by saying that we have
made a commitment to making this, program
work in a way that protects the health of the
workers and all those who handle pesticides
while also providing the flexibility that farmers
need in order to make the standard work for
you. I look forward to hearing all of your
comments and, again, thank you all for being
here. I'm going to turn the meeting back over
to Fred Whitford, who is our facilitator. And
thank you, Fred, for being willing to emcee
this meeting here tonight for us. [Applause]
Fred Whitford: Thanks. Those of us in
Extension understand that there's people who
are real vocal and they'll ask the questions and
they don't mind the podium, but if there are
people out here who have concerns—good
news, bad news, whatever—we would like your
comments to be written comments and you
will be heard this evening; back in the back
you can hand your comments in as you go. If
you'd like to go back and think about it and
write it down, you also can get the address in
the back. So, those of you who don't want to
be up here, please make out your comments.
This is our chance to have your input. Those
of you who are ready, it's like the football
draft, Jim Beaty you're up, you've got five
minutes.
Jim Beaty: I have some materials for the
record. I'd like to thank the panel for this
opportunity to talk about the implementation
of the WPS at Purdue University's Agronomy
Research Center. I'm Jim Beatty; I am
Superintendent of that facility. The Research
Center is a 951-acre land-grant university
research center. We have 51 researchers from
nine different departments that conduct
approximately 180 projects. As Super-
intendent, I direct the day-to-day operations.
I have four employees that work for me. I
make the land assignments for those 51
researchers. They, in turn, work on plant
breeding, they may work on earth [soil], they
may work on herbicide efficacy, and you have
a broad, diverse group of researchers. They
have people that work for them that range
from full-time technicians that may be degree
people, they have graduate students that work
for them, part-time students, and summer
labor.
Indiana 317
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When a researcher is given a land
assignment, that area of the farm becomes his
or hers for the season. The researcher may
request the foreman or myself to do some
operations in their assigned land area, but
basically the researcher is responsible for that
portion of the farm that's assigned to him.
We may be asked, for example, to do a tillage
or herbicide application or fertility for, say a
plant breeder who would do his own planting.
Likewise, a fertility researcher might ask us to
do the tillage and the planting and he would
do his own soil fertility work. So there are
times when we would enter their areas, but
only by permission.
Land assignments are made using a
numbering system and, if you look on the
back of the red booklet, there's a farm map.
And, basically, the land areas are given a
number assignment and then they also may be
subdivided and given an alphabetized
assignment within that numbered area. The
definition of a field, then, can get very
complicated because we have 240 land areas at
our farm (and by land area, that's an area that
has a grass strip around all four sides or all
four borders). The numbered farm fields,
which we have on the map, may be divided
into research fields. Those research fields, the
researcher may divide those into research
experiments which may have different
functions and then each of those research
experiments is divided into replicated plots.
And some may be as small as 10 by 25 feet or
some may be individual plants.
Coupled with this problem of defining
space on the farm is the number of
researchers who might be applying pesticides.
In our case, we have over 17 researchers who
could be applying pesticides on any given day.
Add to that the different times of the day
when our researchers could be working there
-that may start early in the morning for some
projects. Other groups of people may then
come in at 8. Some researchers may work late
in the evening when the wind dies down for
pesticide application, and many of the insect
people come in at night when insect activity is
greater. So those three problems create quite
a situation for us in complying with the WPS
and in implementing the program. We kind
of joke that we've got the second most
complicated system in the world; surely
someone out there has one that's more
complicated, but we've yet to hear from them.
Our long-term policy at the Research
Center before WPS was that nobody ever
enters somebody else's assigned research area.
And for many years that's worked well for us.
Researchers or supervisors were responsible
for the safety of their own crews. Since you
never entered anyone else's plots, you
automatically had protection in those other
areas. To implement the new WPS, then, we
had to devise a system of alerting everyone of
all pesticide application intentions. Using our
standard farm map, at the central information
board we have three clipboards with the farm
maps on them and when one of the
researchers has intentions of applying
pesticides to an area, he would look at the
clipboard that had that day's date on it and
would simply highlight the field that he might
be making that application in. Then we asked
the supervisors and workers who were coming
in at various times of the day or the morning
318 Indiana
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to go to the central information board where
the three clipboards were and check to see if
REIs [restricted entry intervals] were followed.
As an example of that, I pulled off the ones
that we used all summer and every day there is
a different [Inaudible]...of yellow fields
marked. And if everything works right, they
would check that and not enter those re-entry
areas. By having three clipboards, that
covered us for the longest potential REI.
Confusion came in once in a while ir? this
quarter-mile—where you need to be notified if
you were in a quarter mile.
Our historical record was that you didn't
enter anybody else's plots. Now, all of a
sudden, supervisors are telling workers about
pesticide applications that could be two or
three numbered fields away and a little
confusion entered then, if they could see a
sprayer way over there in somebody else's
field, who might only be doing a small area.
The confusion came and some animosity that,
"Well, why aren't we leaving our work area,
then?" And there may not have been any risk
and, in fact, if there was no off-site drift,
which there shouldn't be, the workers in those
fields might not be at risk at all. If field
posting was required, we also did the field
posting.
Training was conducted in the spring by
another group on campus. Because of the
tremendous number of treatments (and that's
what my red book is, the treatments for just
one of our herbicide applicators), we can get
into some confusion. We were able to work
this system out and meet the intent, I think, of
the law. But in doing so, we did create
confusion and misinterpretation could occur
because of that. An example would be that
quarter-mile rule.
I think the regulation was good in giving
workers training and warning about pesticides.
I guess what I'm asking EPA to consider is
giving the states the flexibility to devise
programs for the land-grant research
institutions that protect the workers but
recogni2e the complexity of our field research
operations and also recognizes the level of
training that our employees are required to
have. Other programs are already imple-
mented through the university, particularly our
safe laboratory practices programs, and
consider some kind of [Inaudible] so that
we're not forced to give, in certain cases, land-
posted warning. Let the states work with the
individual land-grant research facilities and
come up with flexible programs. Let's protect
the workers but don't cause us a lot of extra
potential for confusion. Thank you very
much. [Applause]
Fred Whitford: For the public record, the
book that was handed out is called "...Plots of
1996," by ...pnaudible]... Plant Pathology
Department, University of Indiana. If we
could follow Jim's role here, please ID
yourself and who you represent.
Anne Piechotn: I'm also with the
university. I'm the coordinator for the worker
protection program. I won't go into the detail
that Jim did. I think that he made his point
very well that our facility is incredibly
complex. And that's just one of Purdue's
farms. All kinds of folks on campus spent
hours and hours and months and months
Indiana 319
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trying to figure out how to implement this
policy at Purdue. And again, we also have
farms all over the state. We have regional
campuses, or there may be one greenhouse
that is used by one faculty member and one
student and I have to go to that facility and
give training and explain the program. And
so, I also agree with Jim: I think we need— the
land-grant institutions need—more flexibility in
trying to be responsive. To do it, we did work
closely with the State Chemist's Office, tocf.
Whenever we tried to come up with a creative
solution for some of these systems, we did try
to get approval from the State Chemist's
Office to make sure we weren't in left field.
We did our best and I really would appreciate
some flexibility on this policy. Thank you.
[Applause]
Stuart Kline: My name's Stuart Kline. I'm
the Environmental Health Agency Policy
Administrator for Purdue University. I rep-
resent a slightly different view of Purdue
University management concerning the WPS.
What we find in looking at the implementation
of that standard at our immediate facilities is
that our immediate facilities don't fit very well
into the definition of agricultural facilities.
What we find, in fact, is that our R&D
facilities fit more into the definition of a
laboratory and they operate, in fact, very
similar to a chemical laboratory or a laboratory
in which people are doing work in other
biological science-type activities. As a
consequence, as Jim was saying, we have
individuals who are assigned, for all practical
purposes, laboratory space which happens to
be a field in which an individual research,
principal investigator, undergrad student do
work which is not much different than the
kind of laboratory work that one would do in
a chemical lab or a biological laboratory. So,
in looking at this analysis and in looking at
some of the other rules that we worked on in
the State of Indiana with pnaudible]... we look
to a general need for an exception or an
exemption for R&D facilities that work with
pesticides. What I have provided for you is a
document of some recommended language
change. We're suggesting, at this point, that
the definition of exposure be added to the
record. The WPS talks about "exposed," it
talks about "exposure"—what we have done is
taken the language from the OSHA Standard
and added that language in.
The second thing that we've done is we've
defined research and development, R&D, and
that is from the Indiana rules from the inner
management group. We're defining research
and development as "activities conducted
under the close supervision of technically
trained personnel and the primary purpose of
which is to test more efficient production
processes, test methods for preventing or
reducing adverse environmental impact,
conduct research and development of new
processes and products for teaching and
education." And I think that's very important,
since a big role of the university and R&D
facilities is, in fact, teaching. This specific
exception, then, that we would recommend is
mat an exception be applied to R&D facilities,
provided that all handlers and workers have
been trained in accordance with the facility's
hazard communication program or chemical
320 Indiana
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hygiene plan, which includes exposures to
pesticides.
If you look at all our employees at Purdue
University and our students at R&D facilities,
whether they be at an academic institution or
a chemical manufacturer, those employees by
and large are already covered by HazComm or
they're already covered under the laboratory
standard, which we believe provides, in terms
of its language, ample protection against
exposure to all chemicals, including pesticides.
We'd like to thank the EPA for holding
this meeting. We think it's valuable. We're
glad to the State of Indiana that we are able to
attend a close-by facility and we'd also like to
thank the fine assistance that we got from the
Office of State Chemist, especially Dave Scott.
Thank you very much. [Applause]
Fred Whitford: Again, for the record, the
document handed out was a letter to the U.S.
EPA, dated August 21st, by Stuart Kline.
Tom Roney: I represent your first grower.
I'm here tonight, I have a lot of sympathy for
the guys from Purdue and I understand that
their situation was...It's not unlike some things
I run into on farm production, and I'll address
these comments later on, what they said, for
continuity.
We grow fruit and vegetables. We've got
a 140-acre farm. But, basically, we grow
everything; what we grow we retail on the
farm. So we also have a lot of small plots of
individual vegetable crops and fruit crops. We
may have a few thousand square feet of this
crop or that crop. A lot of those are
interplanted; in other words, we've got a plot
of peppers next to a plot of cantaloupe and
on the other side of the cantaloupe, you've got
cucumbers. The quarter-mile thing is just
absolutely ridiculous from our standpoint,
trying to work with that. It's just impossible
to do that with growing crops that you're
trying to harvest on an ongoing basis, day in
and day out. I understand the logic behind
what you're trying to do. But in reality it
doesn't work. You've got a real problem with
that. Larger operations and operations that
are in the wholesale business where you've got
a whole field of cucumbers or a whole field of
cantaloupe, you've got a lot better opportunity
to try to segregate those things and handle
them on a field-by-field basis. We raise
probably 20 different crops on 140 acres, so
it's very difficult to try to segregate those
things and abide by the quarter-mile
restriction. You can't work it—not and
continue to farm. So, for a lot of growers, it's
really tough to live with.
The re-entry issue has come up in Indiana
where you've got melon growers specifically
on Bravo and not being able to get in there
and harvest melons because you've got a 48-
hour re-entry time with Bravo. Harvest
restriction is zero days, but the re-entry time
is 48 hours. Melons, especially in this part of
the country—we raise cantaloupe, a couple
acres of them—and they have to be harvested-
-we've got to harvest melons every day.
Especially in heat like you've got right now,
there's just about six hours where they're really
at their peak. And 24 hours earlier, they're not
quite ripe but 24 hours too late they're well
past, so you've got a tough deal. Quite
honestly, you're probably only going to use
Indiana 321
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that Bravo up until when you begin harvest.
So it's the first few harvests that's really the
problem because once you get later into that
you're not as concerned about maintaining
that vine. Once you've been harvesting a
couple weeks, then maintaining the vine is not
that critical. But in the early season, when
you're first starting to harvest, it's really a
problem. You've still got to maintain that vine
and mature that later fruit when you're picking
cantaloupe for the popular market. We'll get
a little more than that out of them, whereas
the commercial guys, some of them can't wait
or work them that long. We'll pick them up
[ripe cantaloupes] until we don't have time
anymore because we're picking apples. But
we'll pick them as long as we can.
Another issue that I've come up with that
seems to me is not only worker protection, it's
in all phases of EPA: They make a big issue of
getting the common names down on all these
pesticides and listing that everywhere and so
on. To me, it's fine to have the common
name there but I think you really ought to
concentrate on trade names because that's
what the farmers know. If you tell them that
you're spraying with Guthion or
[Inaudible]...or whatever, they know what
you're talking about. If you call it by the
common name, most farmers aren't going to
recognize it, most farmworkers aren't going to
recognize it But they've seen the trade name,
they know what that is.
If you're in a real serious situation where
you've got a fire or something like that, you
can see the trade name on that box and know
what it is from 50 feet. You've got to be up
there with your magnifying glass to figure out
what the common name is on this chemical.
Most people, most workers still aren't going to
be able to identify the common name from
the spelled-out chemical name or whatever.
That's fine to have the common names on
there, but I think a lot more emphasis ought
to be put on trade names. Granted, that's a
problem, I realize, with the industry and so
on. But, for safety's sake, it would seem to me
to make a lot more sense to concentrate more
on trade names. They are usually recognized;
they're in three-inch letters on the box; you
can see them, you know what you're talking
about, and the growers know what you're
talking about. When you folks put out letters
or notices or whatever and list trade names,
one farmer in a hundred knew what you were
talking about. But if you list the trade names,
they know exactly what you're talking about
and what chemicals are involved and what
issues surround them. So it really would help,
from a safety standpoint as well as others.
PPE [personal protective equipment] and
so on: In our climate, I'm the sprayer; I'm the
one who does the chemicals, calculation,
whatever. From my personal perspective, I'd
a lot rather take the risk (I might die u year
earlier seven years out). And, a lot of this
stuff, there's just no way you can survive out
there on a tractor trying to spray when it's 90°
and the humidity's up about 70%, you're going
to melt. A lot of times you could very easily
be less at risk by the way the applicator is
doing the job, how he's handling himself,
working with the prevailing winds, and so on.
There's a lot of opportunity there to protect
yourself. I myself, now, we're spraying with a
tractor with a cab in it. That does a good job
322 Indiana
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and that's a very easy way to do it. But you
can't always use that tractor—sometimes you've
got to use an older tractor. I have access-
most people when they are mixing the stuff
have ready access to water. You've got to
have water there anyway to mix it with, that's
your carrier. It's a lot easier to wash it off your
skin than to wash it off all those clothes you
have on. And then you got soap, and they
hold it all together, it's a real problem. Thank
you.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: You raised the issue
of spraying with a cab. At some of these
meetings, the issue has been raised about
whether there should be standards for the
safety of those cabs, in terms of how well they
work to protect people when you're inside of
them. Because I've heard this before about
how an efficient cab is preferable to wearing
PPE. Do you have an opinion about that?
Tom Roney: Well, as far as I've ever seen,
there's only one cab manufacturer that, at
least, advertises that their equipment is EPA-
approved, and that is a secondary
manufacturer who manufactures cabs to be
retrofitted on existing equipment. And as far
as I know, none of the mainline manufacturers
advertise their cabs to be EPA-approved.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: And I should say that
the federal EPA does not have an approval
standard but there is a standard that some of
the states have. So that's what that
advertisement is about, then. If it says it's a
federal EPA approval, then that's something
we want to look at. I think the fellow sitting to
my left [Jesse Baskerville], he could follow it
to the end of the trail.
Tom Roney: It seems to me I have seen
it advertised as "Titus Nelson" or somebody
who puts out cab information. Look it up in
the ads. But that's been a problem. My
understanding is that EPA had come up with
a standard-or else they'd been changing the
standard—and so the mainline manufacturers
have not even attempted to try to meet any
specification because they are either all the
time changing or they really aren't nailed in. It
seems to me that's a real problem.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: It's true we have not
developed that standard, and that a few states
have, and I'll just say that comments we've
received say that we should do it and others
say we should not.
Tom Roney: I think it would be good to
have a standard as long as it was legitimate and
would make sense for the manufacturers. It
would seem to me...I don't see a problem with
the cab I've got now on my tractor. It seems
to be very tight. You can get a charcoal filter
to put in it to fit right in it. And it seals well.
It does an excellent job. Thank you.
[Applause]
Scott Monroe:...|Tnaudible]...I'm a fifth
generation melon grower from Southern
Indiana. I'm also a crop consultant. In my
opinion, the 48-hour re-entry interval
represents a very oppressive regulation for
southwest Indiana melon growers who need
Indiana 323
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fungicides. I work with 18 different growers
in southwest Indiana. My family also grows
melons and this is the general consensus
across the area.
The reason why the 48-hour re-entry
interval is unacceptable: chlorothalonil
functions as a necessary part of our
production in southwest Indiana. It's a very
essential fungicide, which must be used on our
crops. We have other fungicides which could
be used for disease control [Inaudible]...
Mancozeb-based products and copper-based
fungicides. However, Mancozeb-based pro-
ducts have a five-day harvest restriction which
is basically worse than the chlorothalonil REI.
Also, Mancozeb-based fungicides are, for all
intents and purposes, ineffective in southwest
Indiana. Chlorothalonil is an essential part of
our production. Basically, the reason that I
understand Indiana has submitted an
exception request is that the REI is
[Inaudible]...
As the previous speaker said, these crops
are very temperature sensitive. Crops that are
left out over-ripe are basically worthless. They
cannot be cooled, they cannot be shipped,
they are just left to rot. A large supplier in
southwest Indiana has the ability to process
100,000 melons per day. At 90 cents per
melon, that 24-hour REI can result in a
$100,000 loss. That's a high value.
Options. We do have technologies
developed by the university. MELCAST,
developed at Purdue University by Dr. Rick
Latin, is a disease warning system which allows
growers to use weather conditions as criteria
for applying fungicides, as opposed to a
chemical-based system. The MELCAST
system connects growers through telephone
lines. MELCAST is placed throughout the
counties [Inaudible]...checked every day,
operating in adverse environments which are
[Inaudible]...Current research indicates that
MELCAST can reduce pesticide use by 25%,
so technology is available to reduce fungicide
use; we pretty much know that. It's
throughout the state. Some places are not yet
accessing the MPT .CAST system, but we have
an extensive outreach program.
Melons have been raised in southwest
Indiana since 1870, the point being that it's
not /disease will strike, it's when. Melons have
been grown so long there that alternaria
spores are resident in the soil, and they are
now resistant to many types of fungicides. To
wrap it up, I entreat you to reassess your
reaction to the exception request.
Susan Bauer: Good evening. It's really a
pleasure to be here this evening and glad to
see all of our fellow Worker Protection folks
here in the audience. I'll try to go through this
as fast as I can and, if I speak a little bit too
quickly, just give me the "slow down" sign.
My name is Susan Bauer and for the last
17 years I have worked with migrant
farmworkers through Community Health
Partnership of Illinois, which is federally
funded by the Health Center. They provide
primary health care services to over 6,000
migrant seasonal farmworkers and family
members each year. We at Community
Health Partnership are deeply committed to
the success and implementation of the WPS.
We've been involved since the early days of
commenting and re-commenting and
324 Indiana
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commenting again on the revisions. Over the
years, we've had plenty of support from
various sources. We have recruited and
trained 17 migrant [Inaudible]... workers from
various migrant health centers throughout
Region 5, including the folks from Indiana
Health Services who are here tonight, and
eight of our own staff to conduct worker
training under the WPS.
To date, the Illinois Community Health
Partnership staff has trained and issued the
verification card to over 500 agricultural
workers in Illinois. Also, with training from
the EPA Environmental Justice Grants
program, we have formed a WPS Committee
in Illinois which brings together farmworkers,
providers and advocates, agricultural health
and safety specialists, representatives from the
agricultural industry, and state and federal
agricultural pesticide regulators in a consensus
forum whose goal is to promote the
meaningful and manageable implementation of
the WPS. Our work this year culminated in
the development of a training research guide
which will be going to press as soon we can
work out a few graphic problems. But; we are
really delighted with the progress that we've
made with that group.
So, as you can see, we at Community
Health Partnership are very much committed
to making worker protection a living,
breathing reality. But even in the face of my
eternal optimism about implementation of the
WPS in Illinois, I am deeply troubled by the
seemingly endless attempts by some
agricultural industry representatives, and even
some state departments of agriculture, to
whittle away at an already very minimal health
and safety standard. In addition, the lead
agency structure which relies upon state
departments of agriculture, whose principal
constituency is the grower-producer
community, to enforce the standard is
inherently flawed. Although I am aware of
some notable exceptions, this structure
represents a clear conflict of interest. Add to
this the fact that enforcement and compliance
are greatly underfunded, the end result is a
minimal health and safety standard with
virtually no enforcement. In light of these
budgetary and structural realities, I believe the
time has come for EPA to begin to think
more creatively about ways to support and
encourage implementation of the WPS.
Some of these ideas, you may be
surprised, are mine. I think some of the
things that really need to be looked at
seriously...! think it's time for some tax
incentives for individual growers who can
demonstrate full compliance with the
standard. I think it's an option that nobody
has looked at with any serious thought before.
I think that the people at the EPA's standards
agency have to get into the business of doing
hands-on technical assistance to deal with the
kinds of problems that people are raising here,
because they are really legitimate and I think
it's time for our land-grant universities to put
more time and effort into developing
nonchemical alternatives so the problem of
[Inaudible]...acres—you know, a few acres of
this and a few acres of that—can manage this
problem without jeopardizing the health and
safety of these workers and his own health
and that of his family.
Indiana 325
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I think it's also time to start recognizing
and disseminating information about
exemplary worker protection programs in all
areas on all kinds and types of agricultural
operations. One of the tapes you'll be hearing
later is from a farmworker who was unable to
join us this evening. He is one of our
[Inaudible]... in Illinois. One of the points that
he'll make is that where he works, which is a
very small nursery, they have taken agricultural
health and safety very seriously and it has been
directly related to a high increase in
productivity in the nursery. So I think that we
need to look at that it can be done even when
you're not a big player, so to speak.
We also need to support and train the
farmworkers themselves. One of the goals
that I tried to promote in our state is that
there be one individual who is bilingual or, if
that is not necessary, one individual on every
farm throughout this country who is certified
to train other workers on worker protection.
And I don't think that's an unreasonable goal
for us to shoot for. And, as I said earlier, it's
time for the EPA to get out in front and start
promoting greater alternatives—nonchemical
alternatives to pesticides to reduce that
exposure for everyone involved.
With regard specifically to the WPS, I have
the following recommendations. I think
there's a pressing need to evaluate and clarify
what actually constitutes training under the
WPS, which is one of the most basic issues at
hand. I think there's still a lot of employers
who are under the impression that showing a
video and you're done and that constitutes the
training. I also must say that even with
apologies to our friends down at the National
Migrant Research Program who we work with
very closely on many issues, I think the videos
I've seen do not do justice to the standard or
to the training needs of the workers, among
others approved by EPA.
The fact that adult training requirement is
once every five years is an insult to all workers,
especially in a hazardous type of situation such
as agriculture. And I think there needs to be
some certification of trainers who
conduct-not just their knowledge of pesticide
safety, but their understanding of how to
teach other people, especially teaching adults.
And, finally, I think that there needs to be
explicit expectation of state lead agencies
regarding what constitutes employer's
implementation of the WPS. And if those
lead agencies don't fulfill the expectation, I
think that it would behoove the EPA to
identify another entity within the state that
would take the job seriously.
I believe that the EPA holds a unique and
a central charge when it comes to the health
and safety of rural communities—specifically,
farmworkers and their families. Keep in mind
that, unlike other workers in other hazardous
occupations like mining and construction of
which agriculture is one, farmworkers have
very limited or no protection in the area of
health and safety, field sanitation, worker
compensation, overtime pay, health insurance,
or paid time off for illness and injury or the
right to bargain effectively. Most importantly,
there are extremely low wages and the
imperative to work means that farmworkers
are often willing to take unnecessary risks and
not to complain to the employers for fear of
reprisals regarding such complaints. The WPS
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is the only vehicle currently in place to
safeguard the health and safely of farmworkers
and their children who live, and often work
side-by-side with them on farms across
America. Not until we can honestly answer
with a resounding and unqualified "yes" to one
simple question—that being, would I allow my
son or daughter to work under these
conditions?—can we rest assured that our job
is done. And until that time, I challenge all of
us to stop looking at the obstacles and start
thinking beyond the confines that the
farmworker's gain is the farmer's loss, to
assure a healthy, safe working and living
environment for the whole of the farming
community. Thank you. [Applause]
Susan Richards: Can I show my tape?
Fred Whitford: Yes, Ma'am, you can show
your tape, but you have five minutes, five
minutes is your tape and you show it as you
see fit.
Susan Richards: My name is Susan
Richards and I am a student and an assistant
this summer, and one of my jobs was to get
farmworker testimony of people who couldn't
be here. [Discussion of getting the videos
running] They can give you the message better
than I can.
Videotape, 1st Speaker [via English
interpreter]: ...All of a sudden we heard
something around the orchard. We had just
finished having lunch and all of a sudden we
heard the sprayer spraying the apple trees and
he was coming towards us. We picked up
everything real fast and moved a little far away
from where they were spraying. It wasn't
right in the orchard, but it was near where we
were working. We went back to work on the
trees, but we couldn't stand it, so we moved
from there all the way over to the other side
of the orchard because of the pesticides. We
have been learning about pesticides and how
dangerous they are. We didn't know what
kind of pesticide that was, we just played it
safe. That's why we moved. My husband and
I, both, at first I thought nothing of it, but
then I started having headaches and when we
got back home my husband said his head was
hurting and then [Inaudible]... One day they
sprayed and they know that there is pesticide
in the spray...
2nd Speaker: My name is Jessica. I have
worked in a 5&10 store for 10 years. Since I
first started working there we haven't received
any training in pesticides or fertilizers. The
foreman is the one who applies the fertilizers,
but he never informs us that he will be
spraying. He doesn't want to move us to
another place. The smell is really strong.
About one hour after spraying we begin
having headaches. When he began working
there he said we had to wear gloves, and we
started wearing them, but after a while we
used all the gloves in those boxes and he
refused to order more boxes of gloves.
About the bathrooms, there's water for
us to wash our hands, but the only problem is
that they put fertilizers and pesticides and they
don't tell us. [Inaudible]... In reference to the
water for washing our hands in the bathroom,
everything is all right. The only problem is
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the spraying with fertilizer and that we don't
get notification when they will be doing it.
The sign is there only when there is a strong
pesticide. However, when he is spraying with
the one I just mentioned, after one hour I
begin having headaches.
3rd Speaker: I am Marta Guzman and I
have worked in the camp for three years and
we have never received classes about
pesticides, about fumigation or anything like
that. And another thing is that there is none
of the things that one needs for work in the
camp, such as bathrooms, or water. They
never give us any information concerning re-
entering since this is bad for us. They keep us
working and they don't care what may happen
to people there.
4th Speaker: My name is Margaret and I
live in the farm in Illinois. I migrated from
Texas. As far as I know, where my husband
works on the farm they have all those trays
they need for pesticides and when they have
to go out into the fields that have been
sprayed, they have signs posted. They have
bathrooms for these people when they are out
in the fields. They are fully equipped with
soap, with towels; they have water when they
are outside. Everyone is trained within five or
10 days [after] starting to work about the
pesticides and that's all.
5th Speaker My name is Adan and I work
for Canosha. My experience is that my farmer
has given me classes about all pesticides and all
kinds of chemicals. This has helped me to
teach other workers while at the same time he
is complying with the law. There is another
worker who is my brother. He was sent to
school and he became educated for everything
and he has helped us because our salaries have
been raised and the sales have increased 50%.
This happened because he has educated
people to do the job. I have also been
selected for school. I think everybody should
receive an education. They think that they will
spend more money, but with sales increases
over the years they are making more money.
So far, after 10-15 years that the business has
been in existence, nobody has been injured
because everybody does the kind of work that
must be done.
We have given very important opinions
for the business which have brought
production increases and worker less workers.
We run a business of more than 80 hectares
which are handled by only three workers full
time and only one works the full year. It is
very advantageous to have educated people
handling this work. Like I said before,
nobody has been injured, therefore the
insurance gets lower through the years. Also,
the workers provide many ideas because they
feel obligated because of what the farmer has
done for them. That's all.
,6th Speaker: My name is Maria Cristina
Garcia. I came from Texas with my family
and we live in the farm but my husband
works out in the field. They haven't had any
pesticide training because I became one of the
health aides and I had been in the fields when
I was younger. I worked in the fields since
then. I don't see any restrooms out in the
fields like we saw in the movie [Inaudible]... If
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we don't cany our own water we wouldn't get
water from the farm. We need to get more
training because we really don't know what the
Workers Protection Standard is. They don't
have any shirts, long sleeves, sometimes when
they go to work in the fields they need to wear
long pants and they wouldn't do it because
they say it's too hot. If it's too cold in the
morning they wear coats, by noon they will be
throwing out their clothes, short sleeves and
everything. I think we should learn more
about pesticides, [Inaudible]... where they have
the signs they have the pesticides they sprayed,
they have to put the name of the pesticide up
there; they have to write the day that was
sprayed, the time, what day they are supposed
to go back in the fields to work. I don't think
there is any sign—only once my husband saw
a sign by the cornfield but as far as I know
that's the only one that I remember him
seeing one, but I don't know what farm it was
whether in the cabbage, corn, and all that, I
don't know.
[Inaudible]... they'll go out and work in the
fields. They still go out because they want to
work and I tell him, get out of work when
they are spraying, and they just stay there
and... See, they don't spray out in a plane; they
spray out with a tractor, that's how they do it.
I don't know if this could affect them, but it
will affect them because they are out there in
the fields and the pesticides are also in the
ground. So I say it's very dangerous for them
to be out there in the fields.
They also need to have restrooms, they
need to have clean water to drink, they need
to have paper towels, soap, when they go to
the bathroom they don't have restrooms out
in the fields, they have to come out to the
farm to use the restroom and then go back
out in the fields. It is not so close from where
they work. They go around the farm but it's
far. They have to drive to come to the farm
and drive back to the field where they are
working and they have to come up here. It is
their right to ask the farmer to have a
restroom for them out there because it is
necessary for them to have restrooms and
soap, water and paper towels because this is
kind of dangerous for them. My husband had
an itching right by his leg and he itches a lot
every time he works out in the fields. I think
it's because of the spray but he says no, it is
just the mosquito bites, but only that part
itches a lot, he itches and itches and he peels
his skin, his pants are dirty he scratches even
with the pants on. They need to talk to the
fanner. They have to make the farmer have
all those things available in there, out in the
fields. Thank you.
The farmer should provide to the people
who are working out in the fields, they should
provide gloves, overalls for them, because
when they go out in the fields early in the
morning it is moist and wet and their clothes
get all wet. I think it is his obligation to give it
to the workers. They have to pay for that. If
they are working for him, he should provide
those things for them. He doesn't do that.
They work all day and they get all wet and
they will dry up all day with the same clothes
[Inaudible]... He doesn't think they need those
things. It's him that has to provide those
things for them.
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Maria Castillo: Good evening, everybody.
I am Maria C. Castillo. I come from Texas.
I'm a migrant parent My husband works out
in the field. We've been coming to Illinois to
work out in the fields for about 15 years
already. All that time since we've been
working out there the farmers on the farm
we're staying on don't provide the restrooms
and the water and paper towels to take out in
the fields. People might have restrooms where
we're living but not out where they work.
I started working at the [Inaudible]
Company and I did talk [Inaudible]... about
pesticides. So I've been training my people
where we are staying at the farm about
pesticides and the WPS law so they will know
more about that. So it's helping a little bit
because I talk to the farmer and I told him
what the right thing is to do for the people
there. So he first said it was like a joke for me
to tell him all this stuff. So I told him I would
come to this meeting and talk about it here
and I would say that people were welcome to
visit the farm and see how things were going.
So he started putting tanks out and all this
stuff [Laughter], so he knows more about
water and soap, so I would say to train them.
Because all these years that we've been out
there, he doesn't train people or tell what's the
rights of the workers. And I was working 15
years already—they don't have gloves; they've
been picking in the corn plus early in the
morning they pick up cabbage, tomatoes,
summer vegetables, and in the corn fields they
go early in the morning, they get all wet. By
the middle of the day the sun comes out, they
dry off their clothes on their bodies. And at
the end of the day they go home. My
husband gets all this itch on his neck because
of all the chemicals they have. Not while he's
in attendance, while he's working there...!
would say that it's good for us to go to the
farmer and tell them more of the stuff and
what the rights of the workers are so they can
start to do even more for their protection.
Thank you. [Applause]
Tom Sachs: Thank you. My name is Tom
Sachs and I carry two hats. I'm a farmer in
Freeman, Ohio, a town in northwest Ohio. I
farm 1,850 acres as well as processing
cucumbers. There are some migrant workers
from Texas and Florida. On the other hand,
I work part time for Ohio State Extension in
the area of conflict resolution, education for
farmers and workers as far as educating them
so that when they do have problems, they
communicate, get their problems solved so
that we have sort of a win-win situation for all
parties.
Northwest Ohio is a bit different, at least
it sounds like it, from Illinois, especially in the
processing cucumber industry. Probably most
of the workers come into northwest Ohio
because of processing cucumbers. Most
workers are under union contract and I guess
we've got a lot of farmers who have been in
the business for a long time, and when WPS
was implemented several years ago, a lot of
questions about that. We wondered where the
support was going to come from. I guess
what I'd like to say is some of the things that
do work that we feel very comfortable about
are that we got very good support as far as
bilingual personnel, as far as doing the
training. Most workers now when we bring
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them up we process them. When I say
process them, we bring into our offices and
we go through the 1-9, W-4, and most of us
are trying to also work on the WPS training to
make sure that everybody's been trained.
But I think one of the areas of
improvement is in the training aspect. While
most farmers do have a private applicator's
license, not very many are bilingual. And I
think, in reference to the video, the video's
fine but when we do have questions, if the
farmer only speaks English there is a problem
as far as answering questions. So, what I'd like
to see is maybe something better done in
verification, maybe putting some of this
responsibility on the worker. What I'm talking
about there is that the training can be done
very easily in Texas and Florida. And I would
think that we could have some kind of a
verification process similar to what they have
when we process them for the 1-9, specifically ,
through some kind of laminated card such as
we would use for INS [Immigration and
Naturalization Service]. At that point, they
would be trained in the proper way, hopefully,
at a certified center, say the [Inaudible] Valley
of Florida or wherever the workers come
from. I realize that this won't cover them all
but it would definitely cover a good share of
them. I think they should have a picture ID,
when and where and who trained them, when
the expiration date is so that we know when to
retrain them. I think that INS is now trying to
put together a database where we can call in to
verify training.
I don't see any reason why we couldn't do
the same thing with worker protection
training. This way, a worker could become
precertified. Because typically they may come
to my farm or stay in my camp. They may
work for me; they may go work for another
farmer for several days. There may be two
days they work for one farmer, then they
work for another farmer, and if you get into
this and have to retrain them when they go
from one party to another and you only work
one or two days, it's going to be very
redundant. And pretty soon, the worker is
going to lose any kind of enthusiasm—it's just
like crying wolf too many times. He's not
going to see any validity in that. So I guess at
that point the biggest thing I'd like to see is
something done on the state of standardized
verification. Thank you. [Applause]
Dr. Lynn Goldman: This has been raised
before, this issue that you have three sets of
pre-employment requirements that you need
to worry about. That's verification,
Department of Labor in terms of wage and
hours, and now the WPS. This has been
raised before in a different context, but it
sounds like what you're suggesting is that we
define this as more of a national program; that
we have a national certification....
Tom Sachs: Right. Right now we have
workers come in and they'll have a WPS card
from Florida and Texas. What I see, there's
no picture ID and I was discussing that with
some of the Department of Agriculture
people and they're a little bit reluctant to say,
yes, that'll take care of all your liability
obligations. Well, we've had people come into
our training; we know they've had the
training—we've forced them into it—and you've
Indiana 331
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never seen such bored people in your life
because they say, "Look, Tom, we've done
that before, do we have to do it again." But I
do have to protect myself from liability and I
think it's a lot of wasted resources.
Francisco Espinoza: Good evening. I
also work with Tom Sachs in the farm
relations program and the thing I would like to
address here is that I request that the EPA
continue to recognize the value and work with
agriculture and labor to educate the farmer to
comply with these EPA WPS regulations. The
program I work under, the Education of Farm
Labor Resource Program, is under the
auspices of Ohio State University Extension
and it was also [Inaudible]... with the Task
Force of the [Inaudible]... Farmworkers Union
at Ohio State University. Some of the goals
we have in the program, the main one is
education and training. And this includes
WPS. The goals here are to improve
communication skills of growers, middle
managers and farmworkers; improve the
nature of the environment of the vegetable
industry; improve the skills of growers and
laborers to meet the required rules and
regulations; and improve the quality for
migrant farmworkers.
Our mandate is kind of broad; still, you
can see that^ within the context of these goals,
WPS fits right in. As far as efforts in the
industry, the Department of Education and
Training is interested in seeing the growers
and the workers deal with compliance. One of
the main goals that we have for the industry is
the sustainability of the industry; thus
[Tnaudible]...so a lot of it has to do with
compliance but a lot of it has to do with
communication of the goals and regulations
and what each sector has to do with the goals.
Certain parts of the industry must have a
union—I work with the Farm Labor
Organizing Committee, which is a union—on
contract farms. Some of the farms that have
labor have this union and they have contracts
with the growers and industry. Within some
of those contracts they try to address some of
the WPS and pesticide issues. For the growers
and workers, it's important to see that the
EPA rules are followed. My specific area is to
try to work with the farmworkers to make
them understand the rules are there for their
own safety and health risks. And also there's
the economic thing. The compliance issue is
not just the growers' issue. The growers went
wild [about WPS], but the farmworker taking
his or her part and seeing that compliance is
there can help the sustainability of the
agriculture and see that the compliance is
there for programs such as they do in support
of grower compliance efforts and education of
the trainers and workers, especially to improve
the quality of communications.
Tom mentioned the language problem.
Well, sometimes it's an EPA language problem
trying to get this stuff at a communicative
level that people can understand. With our
workers, a lot of time it is the language,
Spanish and English.
So the training that goes on—the
AmeriCorps group, a social service agency—
what we do there, we try to support anything
and everything that will help the growers deal
with compliance issues. Whether it's our
program, the AmeriCorps people, or grower
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training, again, we would ask that the EPA
continue to work with us to try and get these
compliances going and be receptive to
anything such as tonight for suggestions.
Thank you. [Applause]
Steven Poncin: I'm Steve Poncin from the
Minnesota Department of Agriculture and
serve as contact for the WPS within our
department Through that position I have had
the opportunity to meet and talk to many
employers and employees that have been
affected by the WPS. So I'm basing my
comments on those comments I received and
also the observations I've made in my
position.
Two items that I'd like to raise up tonight,
where I can see there's a problem. One is
information exchange. In Minnesota, as in
other states in the Midwest, commercial
application is a big business and it's growing.
And commercial applicators, for the most
part, are trying to comply with the WPS.
However, when they try to give the
information exchange to the growers, the
growers are not receptive to the information
or they don't know what to do with it once
they have it.
Another consideration is the weather
conditions. They play a major role. There is
a 24-hour time period in which information as
to what application is going to be made and so
on needs to be given. Specifically, wind
conditions can delay the pesticide application
and the result is that this 24-hour time period
is breached. The result is that the commercial
applicators are obligated to contact the grower
and this isn't real easy a lot of times. Most
business done by commercial applicators is via
the telephone. And so to get hold of the
grower and tell them what the new times are,
then the weather kicks up, and it goes on and
on and on. And so, the decision the
applicator has to make is to make the
application and forget about the notification
within that 24-hour period. We've had
situations where a commercial applicator was
telling a client about the information
exchange, the grower hung up on him. They
didn't want to hear about it.
Another example I'd like to share:
another applicator indicated that he lost a
client because the weather kicked up and he
was not able to apply, so he had to wait until
things calmed down to contact the grower and
so on. Finally the grower said "the heck with
it" and went to another applicator that said
"I'll put it on" and didn't provide him with
worker protection information for
information exchange. So I see that this 24-
hour time limit for information exchange is
causing problems for our growers. And the
other thing with information exchanges that
has been reported to me is that very seldom
does the farmer ever give information to the
commercial applicator. It all seems to be a
one-way street with the commercial
applicators giving it to the farmer, but the
farmer doesn't share any information back.
The second item I'd like to raise is in
regard to the pesticide safety training. I
perceive that this training is really a key to
making the WPS a success. The workers or
the handlers that are trained need to come
away from the training with a sense of respect
and caution for pesticides. Too often have I
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seen that the training has not been adequate
and the workers are coming away with the
attitude "Am I glad that's over!" Now, the
growers typically are using the EPA-approved
materials. They are certified applicators
although they qualify as trainers in this
situation. Unfortunately, many of our growers
have had little experience as instructors and
they're not real interested in becoming
instructors. As a result, they play a video;
that's the training. And so I think the workers
are coming away not understanding: what's
that "information in a central location?"
What's that information all about? Why does
that pertain to me? What's a decontamination
site for? Who's supposed to use that? And, as
a result, the workers are getting that
information [Inaudible]... The growers, in turn,
see that and they in turn become very
frustrated and say, "Why in the Sam Hill are
we doing this, if they're not using it?"
So those are the two comments that I'd
like to share with you tonight on the
information exchange and the pesticide safety
training. [Applause]
Fred Whitford: I'll ask you, if you have
written comments, to please submit them to
the back. We will be here to 10:00 pm, that's
what is scheduled, from 7:00 to 10:00, so if
you'd like to speak, we have a few more
people, but we'd like you to speak.
Nancy Erickson: Good evening. My
name is Nancy Erickson and I'm Director of
Natural and Environmental Resources for
Illinois Farm Bureau based in Bloomington,
Illinois. The Illinois Farm Bureau is a
nonprofit grassroots organization whose
membership includes about three-fourths of
the farmers in the State of Illinois. We do
appreciate the opportunity to express our
views about the WPS and we thank the EPA
for organizing this meeting to gather input
from agriculture regarding implementation of
the Standard.
The Illinois Farm Bureau supports best
management practices regarding the
application, crop protection products, and
education on how to properly use these
products. Over the past few years, we have
sponsored or organized about 20 statewide or
regional meetings plus countless county
meetings; established displays at those
meetings; distributed several hundred
booklets, posters, and other pieces of material
to help inform our members about the
standard. Illinois Farm Bureau has also urged
EPA over the last few years to make the rules
more practical for agricultural employers while
still protecting agricultural workers.
The concepts behind the standard are
good ones. Those positive objectives are to
ensure that people who work with pesticides
are protected from exposure to chemicals and
to educate people about safety procedures.
However, sections of the standard are very
complicated and confusing and do not make
common sense for those who have to comply
with the rules. The rules were written for the
entire United States and they do not fit in all
agricultural situations across the country. One
section of the rule that has been a problem for
Midwest farmers is how the rules are applied
during the planting season for grain farmers.
The interpretation of the procedure that the
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farmer has to go through to ensure their
protection from pesticide exposure when
there is a breakdown or a mechanical problem
in the field during planting does not make
sense.
Another part of the rules that needs
changing involves the decontamination site.
EPA recently announced the requirement
requiring decontamination facilities for
pesticides with a 4-hour REI to be shortened
from 30 to seven days. This means that the
decontamination facility should only need to
be provided up to the expiration of the REI
for those chemicals with 4-hour REIs. For
those pesticides with greater than a 4-hour
REI, producers are mandated to provide the
decontamination site 30 days after the
expiration of the REI. This fixed 30-day
requirement does not create an incentive for
farmers to use pesticides that would have a
lower toxicity. (Taping suspended while tape
was changed]
...We also question whether the central
posting requirement of the rules achieve what
they are intended to do. In agriculture the
planned activities of one day may be changed
due to weather or other unforeseen circum-
stances. There should be simpler options that
could be used to ensure that workers have up-
to-date information rather than to post it in a
central location. A positive aspect that has
surfaced from the WPS involves the training
and education element. The rules are
extremely complicated, but many farmers have
appreciated the worker booklet and the flip
charts produced to help farmers train their
employees.
In summary, we encourage the EPA to
continue to look for ways to simplify the
regulations, making compliance easier while
continuing to protect workers. The main
objective of the rule, to protect workers, is a
good one. If the rules, however, do not make
common sense for those who have to comply
with them, they should be changed to fit "real
world" circumstances as long as that main
objective of protecting pesticide workers and
handlers remains in focus. Thank you for the
opportunity to express our views.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: You mentioned that
there is an issue about how to apply the rules
during the planting season, particularly for
grain farmers. Could you just enlarge on that
a little bit, because I wasn't sure that I
understood what the comment was.
Nancy Erickson: Well, I'm going to give
you my interpretation of what the
interpretation is. It's my understanding that if
you're a grain farmer and you have certain
simple things that you need to do, you're in
the midst of planting season and you're
applying pesticide, you need to get out and
check seed or whatever. I believe that is a
fairly common interpretation that you folks
have given to what a farmer would need to do.
If there's a breakdown in the field, a farmer
either has to remove the equipment from the
field to fix the equipment or put on protective
equipment and then fix the equipment. If
they put on protective equipment, go out into
the field, fix the equipment, and then head
back to the cab of the tractor, they have to
take off the contaminated equipment. The
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contaminated equipment has to be stored
someplace in the cab of tractor that will not
contaminate the cab of the tractor, like some
sort of container. If they find that they still
have a mechanical failure, then when they get
out of the cab they have to put on the overalls
or whatever, which is now contaminated, and
go about their work. So that doesn't seem to
make a whole lot of sense for producers.
The other part of it is that if you remove
the equipment to fix it and you remove the
equipment from the field, you think you have
it fixed and you move it back into the field and
it is not fixed, then you're going to have to
remove the equipment from the field again to
get out of the tractor cab to do that. So, it's
just cumbersome. Now that's my
interpretation of the interpretation.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: I actually see that this
is one of those situations that we were talking
about when we did our limited contact
exemption—that's exactly what our limited
contact exemption applies to. Maybe what we
need to do, specifically for farmers in your
region, is to make sure that that's
clear—because I think we have provided
common sense regulatory—Obviously and
unfortunately it's one of those things where a
thousand different things can happen, and I
understand why people would ask the question
and want to be sure that they are complying.
Josh, is there anything you want to add to
that?
Josh First Sure. That's an issue that came
up during limited contact and other stuff we
were doing to try and make the WPS more
practical. There's some genuine issues, I think
Dr. Goldman stated there's a thousand things
that come up, there's a thousand things that
can go wrong; and, yes, the WPS may or may
not fit all one thousand things. But, overall,
we think we have come up with a really
practical, workable way, common sense way to
deal with problems that can came up. One of
the things we've noticed is that we get a lot of
questions like that, like, "What is this? What is
that?" I'm not entirely sure that those are the
biggest problems that most farmers face most
of the time. And yes, some of these questions
do pose real problems. We think that what
we have come up with addresses 98% or 99%
of the problems that most people are going to
encounter, and we think we have done it in a
common sense way. If you have comments
or you have suggestions, please come talk to
me during the break and I'll be glad to write
them down, and Dr. Goldman will certainly
appreciate it.
Nancy Erickson: Thank you, I do
appreciate the information and common sense
is something we look forward to.
Mike Pullins: My name is Mike Pullins
and I represent the Ohio Farm Bureau, the
Ohio Fruit Growers Society, and the Ohio
Vegetable and Potato Growers Association
and I thank you for this opportunity to share
with you some of the concerns that Ohio
producers have experienced in trying to
implement the WPS. In spite of extensive
coverage by the agricultural press, the
Extension information, and industry sessions
presented annually at the Ohio Vegetable and
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Potato Growers Association meetings and
Congress and the Farm Bureau meetings,
there is still considerable frustration and
confusion in attempting to implement the
regulations.
Ohio agriculture consists of many small
producers with small numbers of employees
or no employees. In Ohio, pesticides are
handled and applied by the owner/operator
and his family, who also serve as the trainers
and also supervise directly, in most cases, the
employees. Producers are frustrated by the
complex and confusing regulations which they
sometimes find unrealistic and unreasonable,
while not contributing to worker safety.
Producers fear that they can never be in total
compliance with the complex regulations. This
situation reduces the credibility of EPA in the
eyes of producers and the perceived value of
the regulations. Unreasonable regulations
have also reduced compliance among some
producers. If regulations were made more
reasonable and flexible, this would contribute
to producer understanding, compliance, and,
ultimately, worker safety.
Some specific concerns expressed to me
by Ohio producers include, first, double
notification (oral and central posting) is
unnecessary and unworkable in many
situations. In Ohio, few workers report to a
central location at the beginning of each day.
Seldom, if ever, do workers see or check the
central records. Numerous work crews
working in numerous locations makes this
requirement a logistical nightmare and
sometimes causes growers to forego the use of
chemicals requiring double notification. Also,
frequent changes in the WPS have caused
confusion among producers and a burden on
organizations attempting to inform and
educate growers. The producers recommend
a one-time comprehensive update to clarify
and simplify the regulations. In the interim,
state enforcement agencies should be allowed
flexibility in enforcement.
Also, the rule should be flexible enough to
address "real-world" situations such as reduced
posting length, for example, on a 21-day
radish crop. Decontamination units and
posting for a past crop and chemical
application on previous crops is excessive. In
a radish example—perhaps one of those
examples that Dr. Goldman was referring to-
rn a radish example, the third crop could be
growing in the field before the requirements
expire on the first crop. Ridiculous or
unrealistic requirements such as these cause
confusion, frustration, and a reduction in
compliance.
Labor turnover causes an excessive and
constant of training new workers. In Ohio,
•workers, as Tom Sachs mentioned, are moved
frequently from one farm to the next
following the season and crop labor needs.
Constant retraining of workers is unnecessary
and inefficient with each move. Workers
being trained every two or three days or every
week is certainly unnecessary and causes some
of the problems that Tom referred to.
Producers have experienced difficulty in
getting required information from commercial
applicators in a timely manner. The 1996
planting season was very hectic for producers
and for the commercial applications due to
weather. Commercial applicator requirements
which mandate the same reporting for row
Indiana 337
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crops (row crops which usually involve no
employees, require no in-field follow-up or
hand labor) impede the ability of applicators
to provide timely information to specialty crop
producers who need the information to
protect their workers. The reporting
requirement for commercial applicators
applying pesticides to corn or soybeans is
burdensome, excessive, and again, impedes
timely information transfer to producers that
do need and will use the information.
Producers resent the lack of accountability by
workers who commit insubordination and fail
to utilize personal protective equipment.
Field decontamination requirements—that
was mentioned here before, tonight—should
reasonably reflect the toxicity and degradation
of the pesticide and characteristics of the crop.
A 30-day requirement is unnecessary for some
situations, with such requirements contributing
to a perception of unreasonableness and
regulatory excess. For example, decontam-
ination: unnecessary if a crop has been
harvested and no follow-up field labor is
planned.
In conclusion, valid pest management
decisions can be determined to be violations.
Producers in fields miles from central posting
and record location can determine the need
for different or additional chemicals. The
unreal-istic requirement that the producer
return to central posting location and
complete the records prior to spraying, is
another example of the unreasonable nature of
the regulations. Thank you. [Applause]
Fred Whitford; Folks, we still have a
crowd here, plus we have people from many
different parts of the state, in case you wonder
where or who some of these other people are.
Will the Michigan Department of Agriculture
from Michigan—if you don't know who your
folks are...if the Department of Ag is still
here—there is your representative if you have
questions tonight about things here in the
state. Also, Michigan Cooperative Extension
Service is here. Sandy, if you'll stand up so
that people can see your face if they happen
to be from your state. Thank you. Minnesota
Department of Ag—will you stand up? Again.
Stand up. Please, stand up, you never know.
And then also from the Ohio Department of
Ag and Ohio Cooperative Extension Service--
am I missing other state folks and
Departments of Ag? So, if you have questions
specifically for them, they are here.
Joe Miller: My name is Joe Miller. I'm
with the Indiana Farm Bureau. I want to
compliment EPA for the initiative and time to
have these meetings and listen to various
comments on these regulations. Rather than
hit a lot of the points, I do just want to
reemphasize the last two speakers and some
growers' points that have been made, that we
also have the same concerns. Many of the
problems are the same in Indiana as they are
in Ohio and Illinois. I just want to reiterate
that.
I do want to emphasize one or two things,
however. Number one is the training time.
You mentioned earlier about farmers having
various regulations to comply with. For
instance, just dealing with migrant
farmworkers, they've got at least three
agencies to deal with; they've got INS, DOL,
338 Indiana
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and WPS. I've also heard, even tonight, that
these are somewhat common sense (or,
hopefully, they've got common sense involved
with them), they are fairly simple regulations.
But yet the EPA book itself is 140 pages thick
just to explain what a farmer's supposed to do.
In other words, what I'm saying is that these
aren't completely simple regulations or it
wouldn't take 140 pages to explain what they
are. These are not just the only regulations
farmers have to comply with. Farmers have
various regulations to comply with. In Indiana
we have put together a book with just 25 main
regulations that farmers—not even regulations,
but statutes—the farmers have to deal with on
a daily basis. This book is over 400 pages
thick. And this is just simply summaries and
explanations of some of the regulations the
farmers have to comply with. And these are
just 25 of them. This has nothing to do with
taxes, employment law, or anything else.
My point being is that while we are
focusing on WPS tonight; I want to emphasize
that the average farmer dealing with these
regulations has a multitude of regulations they
have to comply with and that it's imperative
for farmers to be able to comply with all these
statutes. There needs to be some system
developed wherein these regulations are
brought together, and farmers can do it
without hiring people to help interpret the
interpretations of the law.
Along with that, I'd also like to emphasize
that it is imperative, in our opinion, that the
states that are regulating and are required to
enforce these standards have a lot of latitude
to be able to enforce these standards. It's very
hard, and for a lot of states, impossible, for
one regulation to cover every situation in the
United States. Therefore, the regulators in
each state should have latitude and as
situations come up (and it's been mentioned
tonight that no matter what you write,
something's going to come up that doesn't fit
exactly into that neat little pocket), states
should have the authority and be allowed to
decide what's going to work to protect
workers.
That's all the points I'm going to make at
this time. Again, thank you for your efforts
helping from state to state. [Applause]
Fred Whitford: I failed in my duties, I
forgot Dave Scott of the OISC. In case
there's someone here from Indiana who
doesn't know about OISC, they can see you
with questions,
Dave Scott: We also have Joe Becovitz
here and he's our primary WPS point person.
John Graf: Thank you very much for
allowing us to present our side of the story
here tonight. I'm probably going to have to
read a lot of mine because I'm not a public
speaker. My name is John Graf; I'm with
Graf Growers in Akron, Ohio. We are a
greenhouse, farm market, vegetable farms, and
we have a garden center [Inaudible]...
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is John
Graf. I'm co-owner of Graf Growers. I also
serve as Chairman of the Ohio Vegetable and
Small Fruit Regional Development Program
and past Board member [Inaudible]... Graf
Growers is, as I said before, a greenhouse,
farm market; which is owned and operated by
Indiana 339
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my daughter, two sons, my wife, and myself.
The operation is somewhat typical of Ohio, a
moderate-sized diversified operation,
employing from five to 25 migrant and local
seasonal workers. Our operation is located
just south of Cleveland. Part of our farm is
within the city limits of Akron, Ohio, and
we're along the interstate highway providing
easy access for any government agency
inspectors that have to go down Interstate 77.
We have signs by the highway, but at the farm
we haven't seen them, so let's go have a ball!
Over the past three years our operation
has invested significant time and money in
doing our best to implement the EPA WPS.
In order to protect our workers and to comply
with regulations in good faith, our family has
attended numerous training sessions presented
by the Veg Growers Association, Extension,
and others to help us understand
implementing the WPS regulations. We have
also acquired and utilized some of the
excellent materials available to assist producers
in implementing the regulations. In our
operation we attempt to do all the required
training ourselves and complete record
keeping. That was part of the reason we put
the computer system in, so that the various
and many chemical applications on our farm
could be kept track of. We even subscribed to
a compliance consulting service. We attempt
to use the safest chemicals available for each
application.
In spite of these good faith efforts, we
find ourselves confused by the complex
regulations that seem to be constantly
changing. We are frustrated, knowing that
some of the regulations are unreasonable and,
due to oversight or honest error, we might be
found technically in violation. For example,
we do not understand why decontamination
units are needed in the field even after a crop
has been harvested. In our case, as Mike
spoke with the radish situation, sweet corn
could be picked today, mowed this afternoon,
plowed tomorrow, and planted tomorrow
evening, pnaudible]... Some of these things
don't really make sense. We don't understand
why the decontamination has to be there so
long, because crops go on and we're already
into another page of history.
Double notification seems unnecessary in
most situations. Our workers do not ever
report to a central area in the morning to
begin the work day. Workers seldom, if ever,
check the central posting records. There's
records posted by the time clocks (we have
two time clocks, one in the farm and one in
the garden center). I was up the other
morning and I didn't see but one man look up
at the records.
According to my son, Craig, one of the
most worrisome aspects of worker protection
occurs in our greenhouse conditions.
Specifically, we feel that there are in many
cases unreasonable re-entry times for many
products that we do rely on heavily. For
example, products such as V-9, Exotherm,
[Inaudible], Orthene and even the
[Inaudible]... fungicides have 24-hour re-entry
periods. To put this in perspective, you must
understand that during the month of May we
do over 30% of our whole year's business.
For this reason, the loss of a whole day's
potential sales would be disastrous,
devastating. Naturally, we do what we can to
340 Indiana
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use products that have as short a re-entry
period of time as possible, but there are some
times when these products just simply don't
do the job. For example, this spring, like last
spring, was colder and foggier than any of us
would have liked. As you can imagine,
diseases such as [Inaudible],., ran rampant in
many greenhouses. In this situation we
commonly use a very effective product called
Exotherm. But, due to the nature of our
business cycle, our hands were tied.
Another aspect of the WPS we have found
to be difficult has been training. We have
found this particularly difficult during peak
seasons. Certainly we try to minimize the cost
by having training on a weekly basis.
However, during busy times we often have a
high turnover rate of employees. This can
make training and record keeping involved
with it a real challenge. The premise for the
WPS seems so simple: to prevent workers
from exposure to toxic chemicals. Achieving
this simple goal should not result in such
complex and inflexible regulations.
Frustrations over these regulations have even
caused some Ohio growers to convert their
operations to agronomic crops not requiring
employees. We believe the Agency gives up
credibility for the whole program by requiring
so much detail and regulatory excess. I
encourage the EPA to embark on a one-time
comprehensive effort to simplify the
regulations and include more flexibility to
accommodate innovative industry compliance
with the above goals. This might even include
an opportunity for safety enforcement
agencies and growers to work together to
develop compliance guidelines for the
situations unique to the local industries. I
believe that this would improve grower and
worker understanding of the regulations and
compliance in ultimate worker safety.
Thank you for the opportunity to express
my viewpoints. I run into an awful lot of
negative attitudes toward worker protection.
But I feel that we all have to work together to
make this thing work, and we want you to
know our side of it. Thank you. [Applause]
Fred Whitford: Would people like to
receive tapes?
Dr. Lynn Goldman [Discussion of tapes]
Terry Henderson: Good evening, good
evening, Dr. Goldman and friends at EPA,
welcome to Indiana. I'm Terry Henderson of
Dow Elanco. Our formal headquarters is in
Indianapolis and we're very proud of our crop
protection industry. We research and
manufacture crop protection products. For
the last several years, we have worked closely
with industry counterparts. I notice back here
it says "partnership" and I think that's the key.
[Inaudible]... protection standards
[Inaudible]... very important if we
acknowledge this is a partnership. And the
partners [Inaudible]... and continue to need
flexibility to make sure that it works for all of
us in this room.
With that in mind, I would like to
acknowledge a few things that have gone on
between industry and EPA that, I think, are
worth recognizing. The first thing would be
the efforts that have gone on [Inaudible]...
also speak for the crop protection industry.
Indiana 341
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Back in 1993 and early 1994 when the
requirements were set forward...the How to
Comply Manual was provided... There was a
booklet put out called "New Worker
Protection Standard Guideline; How to
Comply" that EPA provided. We provided it
to our entire sales force. It was not an
inexpensive venture by any means, but we
didn't stop there. Furthermore, we provided
and made it available to all dealers and
distributors directly from EPA. One thing I
would like to acknowledge in mentioning that
is that the booklets were very hard to come
by. In fact, I spent months just trying to get
my hands on copies of that free booklet.
After those efforts, I did finally get hold of it
[Inaudible]...immediately provided it to our
sales force and customers. But the important
thing is that we looked at it and felt that it was
still somewhat complex. It was that important
and more needed to be done. So we took a
very proactive approach to that, making sure
that what we did, what we provided from
Dow Elanco was at least what EPA provided.
We wanted to make sure that everything was
correct and as EPA had set forward. What we
did was we provided (Inaudible]...from Dow
Elanco with worker protection guidelines,
which essentially was a shorter version of that
booklet. We provided that literally to every
one of our customers, our entire mailing list,
over 7,000 customers. We provided that to
give them some guidelines, some education to
ensure adherence to these important
guidelines.
Then, in addition to that we also got down
[Inaudible]... affecting our new products, to
write another version for that. So in total
there were a number of materials that Dow
Elanco and the industry worked on. In fact,
Dow Elanco produced six different materials
just to help with the education. In light of this
partnership, I think that deserves the
acknowledgment that industry and everybody
in this room, for the most part, have worked
very closely with the EPA and others to
ensure these important guidelines were
adhered to. At the same time, we have
needed some flexibility.
There's something here that deserves
some comment. Back over a year ago,
October 1995,1 was here and it was very clear
that there was a large quantity of inventory
product that was out there that needed WPS
language and that was in scope, but which did
not have the language on it. Bill Jordan of the
EPA worked very closely with myself and
others in the industry in a task force to come
up with away to allow dealers and distributors
and farmers to comply with these important
regulations and yet not increase the overall
exposure. Because if we were to have had to
recall all those products [Inaudible]... it would
increase the overall exposure because every
dealer and distributor would have had to have
gone into a warehouse and identified product
and somehow figured out how to handle
individual packaging and containers
[Inaudible]... in one centralized location and
then bring it back to the location potentially
for disposal. Of course, none of us had a
[Inaudible]... what product to dispose of, or
how to dispose of it, without increased
exposure to our environment....But anyway,
the point being, I think the acknowledgment
of Bill Jordan at EPA deserves the
342 Indiana
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recognition. And I think, likewise, if you look
at what industry's done through [Pesticide
Regulation Notice] 95-5, there has been an 800
service that has been set up, numerous
communications have gone out to dealers and
distributors about the deadline of October in
1996.
I will leave by telling you this: I've had
numerous calls and letters acknowledging the
quality of the materials that we've provided to
help EPA comply and to educate the growers
and dealers and distributors working with this
law. Those people in state Departments of
Agriculture and their representatives that are
working specifically with WPS, they deserve to
be acknowledged and also, at least from our
standpoint, we have worked very closely with
them in seeing that this law is understood. So
we've had Dr. Goldman from the EPA, it's
nice to have you in Indianapolis and it's also
good to have EPA staff from Washington,
DC. So thank you. [Applause]
Fred Whitford: [Introduces EPA staff
from Region 5]
Clinton Goins: Good evening, everyone.
I am a farmer over in Adams and I just read
about this meeting a couple days ago. I
decided to come over. I'm interested in
everything that the different speakers talked
about. I can see they got a lot of problems
today they didn't have when I was a teenager
on a farm. My parents had a garden and
planted a produce farm here in Tipton
County. We raised a wide variety of plants
that were sold in front of hardware stores,
grocery stores in this part of Indiana. And we
raised up to 200 tons of a wide variety of
vegetable crops every year. My parents knew
a lot of things about raising vegetable crops
that a lot of vegetable growers hadn't learned
yet.
Back then we used no chemical fertilizers,
no synthetic nitrogen, no poison sprays. In
fact, they weren't made. I worked in industry
for 16 years and used to do contract work but
I started buying farmland and I decided I'd
operate farmland like my parents did. We
raised a lot of tomatoes, as a business crop.
And we, my parents, didn't have to hire
Mexicans to pick them because there was 10
of us children, five boys, and we picked
tomatoes. I picked 200 [Inaudible]... in one
day's time many times. But the tomatoes were
large. Now they're small. And those
[Inaudible] weigh around 38 pounds. Even
after I got up 16, 17, 18 years old, my three
older brothers were married but they'd come
back home and help Dad pick tomatoes
because they could make good money at it. If
I could have picked tomatoes year round, I'd
have bought a farm a lot sooner.
I cultivate all my farmland, just 180 acres
on 43 [Inaudible]... I use no chemical ferti-
lizers, no synthetic nitrogen, no poison sprays.
Vegetable growers and those that raise
watermelons, cucumbers: There's a little
striped bug that killed them vines, specially in
dry weather when the vines were small. But I
can't find one thing in my garden and you'll
never see this bug in my garden. I can go in
the barn lot and pick up a burdock leaf and
there may be 40 or 50 of them bugs in there,
but you don't see them in my garden when the
vines get started. I eat what I plant. I don't
Indiana 343
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know why, but those bugs don't like that
vegetable crop.
I'm the only poison-free farmer, I expect,
in Madison County and at one time in Indiana.
And I've had a lot of visitors, which I
discourage because I'm just operating by
myself now. I put in the first
|Tnaudible]...fodder and had a herd of Holstein
dairy cattle. And dairy farmers tell me
nowadays they're having breeding problems.
When I had my herd of 125 Holstein, I had no
breeding problems whatsoever. And I like
cattle so then I rotate my crops, which is
important, and I buy Holstein heifers around
400,500,600 pounds. Every year I have more
heifers that will not breed. If I'd buy baby
calves on my farm, they'd all breed. But these
baby calves, you lose half of them to
|lnaudible]...diseases; the veterinarian tells me
they don't have the immunity they used to
have.
For years, when I was in industry, I just
told my foreman I was planning on quitting to
farm. I was already living on a farm, was
farming then, and they cut them (Inaudible]
...today on a salary. But I could have made a
lot more money if I'd have stayed in industry.
Or I used to do contract work. When I built
a house I did the carpentry, plumbing, and
electric wiring, plastering and built the kitchen
cabinets. But I wanted to stay all the time on
the farm. I think, right now, I planted my
soybeans late like everyone else, way up in
June. The last field I planted was about the
20th of June. I was out in the bean field this
evening and I didn't know whether to come
over here or not but it come up a rain so I
decided to come over...but I waded around in
my beans, and they're all up to there [hand
motion to torso]. You see any beans that tall?
I had a man drive up to my farm one time, he
said, "I've been driving by your farm two or
three times a week and I'm sure interested to
know what kind of fertilizer you use." He
says, "Your crops are all green in color and no
signs of disease—you have more dairy cows
out in the field eating plenty of grass than you
normally see." He said, "I'd like to know what
kind of fertilizer you use." I said, "Well,
mister, you may be surprised, I don't use any."
"Well, what do you use?" He asked me
questions for three hours and then he finally
said, "I'd like to see your soil tested." I said,
"Well, I know how my soil tests." I said I
never had it tested but once, but I said my test
will show I've got more NPK than all the
other farmers in the county.
Well, he questioned that. He said, "I'll
bring the container by and we'll save your soil
and give it a test and it won't cost you
anything." I said, "Well, my county agent
made a trip out to my farm a few years ago; he
got out of his car with his container in his
hand and he said, 'Mr. Goins, I hope you
wouldn't mind knowing that I had your soil
tested. Do you know that your soil's higher in
NPK than all of the other farms in the
county?'" And that shocked him because he
knew I didn't buy any fertilizer. Now I'm still
farming and if I'd hang an organic sign out at
the end of my lane, I could get all kinds of
pretty business, but I'm 89 years old and
[Applause] raising vegetables is a lot of work.
But I still like to farm and I farm 180 acres
and soybeans is the main crop and I'm getting
$15 a bushel and they go to Japan. [Applause]
344 Indiana
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Cris Gomez: I'm going to need about 15
minutes for this. My name is Cris Gomez.
I've been a migrant or working with migrants
for, I'd say, about 25 years. I know a bunch of
you growers. I've worked with them, worked
for them sometimes, sometimes worked with
50,60,70, 80, sometimes with 100 people out
in the fields.
The general consensus from most of the
growers: they realize the number one
commodity in any farmer's farm is their
workers. So this stuff about they don't care
about the workers, they neglect them~I don't
know how it is in Illinois, but I have two quick
comments. Number one, you should come to
Indiana, because we promise to treat you
better. Number two, I would say that if you
have those kind of problems on a farm, I'd say
just go on to the next grower. It would be just
as easy and maybe you guys wouldn't have
those kind of problems.
But I don't say that every grower or every
farmer is a saint or does do the best they
probably could. But I would say that in this
area, in central Indiana, thanks to Fred
[Whitford] and Joe [Becovitz], I see a lot of
familiar faces in some of the meetings that you
gentlemen have put on for a lot of the growers
in the area and I see a genuine effort made by
a lot of these growers and I think it's going to
be a continuous role on everybody's part to
better the lives of these migrants. I'm
included; I'm out there, too. I'm out there just
as much as they are. My hands get dirty, I'm
out there eating with them. I'm not only their
teacher, I'm also their co-worker. So, here in
Indiana, in central Indiana and the southern
part of Indiana, I see a lot of cooperation on
both sides. And, with that, I'd be more than
glad to answer any questions that anybody has
as far as working on a farm. Thank you very
much. [Applause]
Linda Rios: Good night, I mean good
evening! My name is Linda Rios and I work
with the Michigan Employment Institute out
of [Inaudible], Michigan. I am a former
migrant worker. I've been with the State of
Michigan for six years. I wasn't planning to
say anything tonight^ but the videos motivated
me to say something. And maybe someone
out in the audience can help me with this
confusion. I deal with over 30 employers/
growers in the area. I'm the migrant seasonal
outreach worker. And out of those maybe 30
growers that I deal with, I've established a
good rapport between myself and the growers
and, of course, •with the migrant workers. But
then we have those few, maybe one or two
growers, that they're kind of hard to deal with.
I don't know if it's lack of understanding
or communication or what it is, but my
concern is that we have a couple of growers in
my area that I have been trying to deal with
over and over again. I believe that if these
growers were in compliance with everything,
they wouldn't get upset when people, like the
ones that you've see in the video, come to
myself as an advocate and express their
concern about drifts of pesticide or other
concerns regarding their health. And then the
employer gets upset because they have been
talking to me. The grower will tell them that
if they continue talking to me, they will either
get fired or [Taping suspended while tape was
Indiana 345
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changed] ...that the workers were talking to
you.
Then the grower will say something like,
"Well, I work out in the fields and I'm
spraying out in the orchard and nothing's ever
happened to me." Well, I'm sorry that you're
not concerned about your health, but I am
concerned about the health of other human
beings and, as a former migrant worker myself,
I know what it is and it's hard to express,
sometimes, the lack of communication or
language barriers and the people can't really
relate to the employer. Maybe it's just lack of
communication. But employers shouldn't get
upset when they try to relate that to other
advocates. That's just my concern and maybe
somebody in the audience can help me, you
know, with this confusion. Why do employers
get upset when someone comes to you and
relates this to you? Remember, this is
America. Thank you. [Applause]
Jose Perez: Hi, my name is Jose Perez. I
work at the Indiana Health Centers. The
Indiana Health Centers is a primary health-
care facility; we administer [Inaudible]...and
supply services year round throughout the
state, as well as approximately eight seasonal
sites, because one of the big populations we
administer to is the farmworker population.
I'm glad to have the opportunity to speak with
the panel and there are a lot of folks I know
around the room, the Hoosiers in the room,
and the other folks I know some. I guess,
being 20th, I won't go on and on, I hope I
don't need my five minutes, I'm really glad to
get the opportunity.
As I said earlier, we're here to talk about
the WPS and how it affects and protects
people. We've got to talk about our
knowledge and experiences. That's what we
bring to the podium. My focus and
information, if I have any knowledge, is on
farmworkers. It's the topic in my organization
that's my responsibility and... is the outreach
component of the agency. Indiana has a little
over 100,000 farmworkers in our state
[Inaudible]... it's a statewide program as far
southwest as melon country, as far southeast
as Grange County where there are gladiola
crops. So apart from cucumbers, tomatoes,
corn, there are lots of crops [Inaudible]...
I heard several themes, the theme of
common sense kept repeating itself, and the
concerns about how comprehensive the book
is. I'd like to share a little bit of our
observations from our interactions with the
farmers and growers, whatever term you want
to use, and agricultural workers and their
experience in Indiana. We are not the lead
agency on WPS but we have staff out there so
we have some good information that we can
contribute to the conversation. It is not
surprising to see several farmers and growers
in this room with whom we dialogue. And we
dialogue ongoing, year round. We do see
EPA standards out in the field, the manuals,
the re-entry signs, those kinds of things. The
growers are very concerned in general about
making sure that the farmworkers receive the
training. I'll touch on part of the training in a
moment. Two things I'd like to highlight that
kept coming out are...I think some of it is
regulatory [Inaudible]... and different
regulatory entities are involved.
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There's an example, if I may illustrate. As
a good employer, those of us that have the
responsibility to make sure that those I-9s are
in place. We have so many para-professional
and professional people that walk through our
doors for employment that can't even produce
a Social Security card. So the WPS card is a
real hard monster to find. I think that, if we
had something in place, that there was some
reciprocity for that system in place, that would
be very helpful to many in Indiana. Indiana is
a receiving state, so are our surrounding states,
Ohio, Illinois, the rest. The majority of our
folks are from Texas and the southern Rim
Valley of southern Florida. Fifty percent are
from south Texas. The important part about
that is, 98% of the folks that come to Indiana
are Hispanic. And they are monolingual.
Statistically, 50% of those folks are
monolingual in nature. Which gets me to ...
I think that Indiana is doing what it can
with what it has. I think we are lacking some
resources collectively that we don't have. I've
heard tax incentives mentioned earlier and I
want to let you know that this is very
complicated. I'm getting an education here,
because my focus is farmworkers and that's
what I know. I've been educated by several
people in this room this evening and I have an
opportunity...! am blessed, many of this
audience are too: I speak two languages, I get
confused in two languages. It's .very, very
important that the concept is done by a
qualified trainer. And I've heard that theme
different ways, but I think the panel has heard
the same thing I have. We need quality
training. And in Indiana growers are doing
that. I'm generating a little bit here, pardon
me for doing so, we want to make sure that
folks are covered. You know, you talk about
the ones that come out of the training bored,
it's because they've sat in three or four but
can't show that they have participated in
worker training. And I can assure you from
my experiences, again generalizing from 17
staff workers that we have in the state, that
growers here are saying "we're going to do it"
and they are getting the training. So, that's
what we've got to work with. But I think that
reciprocity is important, the quality of the
training is the issue. Because I say "Buenas
noches" it does not mean that I'm bilingual.
But I can guarantee you, some of those
pesticides I can't pronounce in English, let
alone translate them into Spanish for you.
So, I think that those are my comments.
I just think it's real key, and I haven't heard no
different, and I'm glad, that we're talking
about the WPS, as some of the other speakers
said, it took us many years to get to this point
and I think it's a good premise that we're on.
Thank you. [Applause]
Yoss Sieber: Good evening. My name is
Yoss Sieber and I'm an AmeriCorps pesticide
safety trainer. You were just talking about
training. I work with Transit Resource
Corporation in Indianapolis. For those of you
who haven't heard about AmeriCorps, it's a
nationwide community service program that's
designed to help communities across the
United States meet their education, public
safety, human, and environmental needs. Our
particular program, the National Pesticide
Safety Training Program, has been developed
by growers as a free and easy way to comply
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with the WPS. I emphasize that it's free. It's
also developed to educate farmworkers on
pesticide safety, of course.
What I'd like to say is that this year we've
been very successful; growers across Indiana
have allowed us to train around 650 workers
this summer, and that's pretty good for our
first year in this program. I encourage you to
pick up some pamphlets that we have back
there on the table if you are a grower. Like I
said, this is a free way to comply with the
WPS. My partner and I are bilingual and I
encourage you to pick up those brochures.
They have our phone numbers.
I'd like to talk a little bit about what I've
seen in the fields and the camps. Because, of
course, we go out to the camps and I've seen
a lot of things. It seems like, by listening here
today, some of the problems have to do with
exceptions. Every grower has their particular
problem with the WPS. But I think that, since
this is relatively new, these things, problems,
will eventually be ironed out. Another thing,
I've seen several problems with the WPS when
I go out to camps and farms: many growers,
particularly smaller growers, greenhouses, and
the small nurseries, are not well informed
about the WPS. They don't know how to
properly train the workers, who can train
them. And this means that they don't know
the distinction between workers and the
handlers, which means that untrained
agricultural workers are sent out to mix or to
load pesticides or to enter into REI places or
restricted entry fields that have been applied
with pesticides.
Another problem that I see is that there
are three main points that aren't being applied
correctly for agricultural workers. The first
one is that trainings aren't being performed.
That's the most important thing. The second
one, washing facilities and decontamination
supplies are consistently not being supplied to
the workers on the field, and there's a reason
for that. In most cases, pesticide names,
application areas, and re-entry times are not
being posted in a central location. I think that
part of the reason for this is that the
farmworkers don't use these facilities when
they are provided. So this all goes back to
training. So if they don't see that there's a
safety issue with the pesticide thing, then
farmworkers won't take the opportunity to go
look at the central location and check the
pesticides or follow these other safety rules.
Or even use the washing facilities, for
example, the decontamination supplies. So I
think it's very critical to have the workers
trained, first of all.
Next of all I'd just like to recommend one
change to the WPS. I think that a sign should
be required to be posted where a restricted
entry interval is in effect or pesticides have
been applied. I don't think a verbal warning is
very effective for a couple reasons. First of all,
a verbal warning would be given only to the
agricultural worker, not to their children and
for families that a lot of times enter these
fields, especially the children. They will go
into a field that has just been applied with
pesticides. And these signs could prevent
that Those that do not have signs should be
supplied at very low cost so that this doesn't
become an economic issue for growers. I
can't see a big problem with the compliance in
this case, with mandatory use of the signs
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because of the low cost and the little effort
involved in placing them. Of course, I'm not
a grower and I don't see personally much cost
or effort involved in placing these signs.
Once you check out what the training
consists of—the brochures are here on the
table—and if Fred helps us out and if our
program doesn't get put down by Congress
next year, we'll still be here next year. Thank
you. [Applause]
Vicente Rosales [Speaking in Spanish via
English interpreter]: Good afternoon. My
name is Vicente Rosales. I work in the fields
here in the state of Ohio. I work in the
morning in the fields picking cucumbers and
in the afternoon, I am a volunteer community
worker for FLOG [Farm Labor Organizing
Committee].
I have had several experiences in the fields
in reference to herbicides, insecticides, and
other foliates that they spray on cucumbers.
I have noticed that the laws concerning
pesticides are not enforced as required by the
law. Many times the farmers do not notify the
workers that they cannot re-enter the fields
after spraying because insecticides and
pesticides over the fields are dangerous. Right
now I am working in the cucumber fields and
my boss applies the pesticides sometimes, but
he doesn't post the announcements in public
places where people can see them. Therefore,
the workers are unaware that my boss has
sprayed from airplanes or tractors. Many
times the tractor gets into the fields and that is
why later, the workers complain about
different illnesses, including skin rashes and
genital deformities. All of this happens
because the law is not enforced. The farmers
don't notify, but now with the new
information that FLOC has been giving us
and that has reached the fields, the people are
more aware about protecting themselves from
their own working conditions. They know
they should protect their children so they
don't get contaminated with the herbicides.
I have been working here in this state for
the last three years and I have noticed that we,
the farmworkers, the migrants are exposed to
many dangers right here in the fields.
Furthermore, the same way we are exposed to
the natural elements, we the farmworkers are
exposed to all kinds of elements. Also, the
insecticides and the pesticides that are applied
from the airplane and that the farmer says are
not dangerous, they are chemical components
and we have no knowledge about them. Only
laboratories know the mixture content in
them. They are applied over the fields and the
farmers say that immediately after spraying we
can go back to pick the product. Just
yesterday I was in a camp and I asked this
worker how often his farmer sprays the
cucumber fields and what method he uses.
He told me that sometimes he sprays from the
airplane. Then he told me that sometimes the
plane goes over the homes where people live
and then he said that the farmer is not posting
the signs in the appropriate places so that the
workers can see and read them. Also he said
that one day the farmer told the workers to
leave the field for a few minutes while the
plane was spraying. Half hour later he told
the workers that they could start working
again. The workers also told me that the
leaves still had a white colored substance over
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them, but the farmer said that this was not
dangerous for people. What happens is that
they are aware of the danger, but they need
them to go back to work. However, the
consequences come later in time.
I also talked to people in another camp in
reference to pesticides. They told me that one
day the airplane spraying had been done at 6
p.m. and another day at 6 a.m. People started
to work without being made aware by the
farmer what had been sprayed on the fields.
He only told them that the spray was not
dangerous for human beings. These are some
of the testimonies that I have about my
experience in the camps. I have also seen that
there are trucks and trailers parked and over
their platforms there are half-empty herbicide
containers. Some other time I went by a place
where I saw a trailer parked and I went to look
at what was under its platform cover. Actually
there was an opened sack containing foliage
that had been mixed with a the big deposit
that contained the irrigation mix. This opened
sack was there exposed to children who are
outside playing around the camp.
Many times children are curious and they
climb to the truck's platform and then they
could start playing with things that are
dangerous for them. They cannot be aware
because they will never understand the risk
that certain actions represent for them. This
time I was able to verify that in a half-empty
gallon of poison for which I wrote the name,
but I don't remember now, I don't remember
the acronym, I don't remember the label, I
just don't remember what it said. But I think
that if the farmers had more awareness of the
hazards for people, they would not put them
near the camp and the homes where people
live.
I have had many experiences and I would
like the farmers to have more conscience and
that they know that they should not leave
those residues, those poisons near the camps.
I would like for people to have more
awareness that these poisons near them that
they are breathing in at night, are hazardous
for them and their children. Well, such as this
one, there are many testimonies, right? But
this is only one part of the many testimonies
that exist, I think that the persons who live
near those poisonous areas should be more
knowledgeable so that they don't continue
getting affected with those chemical
substances. Well, that is all I have to say.
Thank you for listening to me. [Applause]
Fred Whitford: For the record, the last
tape was not doing too well. I did allow a
couple extra minutes as I've done most of the
speakers, so I appreciate it. That will be made
a part of the public record [Inaudible]...
Susan Bauer: I was asked to step up again
because there were a couple of comments that
Susan Richards wanted to make and she had
to get back to Chicago. This was in
conjunction with the videos that we showed
earlier from Illinois. I do want to thank the
EPA and the staffers, especially in the regional
office, for making this vehicle possible. As
you know, for farmworkers to travel these
kinds of distances and to get time off from
work is virtually impossible this time of year,
so we do appreciate this because it allows
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voices to be heard that would otherwise have
not have been heard.
We did have a transcription but nobody
could hear. I just wanted to read to you what
those words were: "When they sprayed there
in the camp and if you had your windows
open it would come in. The danger signs are
always in the field, even if they have sprayed.
Some of the guys are swollen or have rashes
because they get into the tree and think it's
poison ivy but sometimes you don't really
know. It might be pesticides because they are
under the trees sitting right there when they
spray the trees."
I want to say that it was a very, very
difficult task that was given to the translator
here to try to do this simulcast with the
television. But there were a couple of changes
in meaning in the tapes that I think were lost.
Two of the women that spoke, the translation
was that they had worked for particular farms
three years or six years ago. The actual
translation of that would be for the last three
years and for the last six years.
And one of the comments from ...
Espinoza was talking not about the
farmworkers themselves, making more money,
but the growers earning more money as the
result of a productive work force.
So I know this will be clarified in the final
record and I appreciate the opportunity to
make that clear for those of you who are at
the meeting. Thank you. [Applause]
Fred Whitford: Well, we've come to the
end of the program. A few comments: I'm
with the Extension Service and so I believe
that as facilitator I can make one quick
comment. True or false? True!
I feel that we have a very unique situation
here as most of the people who spoke, be it
Chris Gomez, be it Jose Perez, be it the Office
of Indiana State Chemist, the Extension
Service, and our growers; it is very unique that
we all do work together. I would second what
Mr. Perez said: If there were ever a goal we all
shoot for, it's that we work as a team, we can
make it work here. Like Yoss and other
resources, we have a pretty good team here.
So if there's ever a possibility that we can
apply collectively for some funds to make this
work, we would appreciate it...We talk about
partners—we can make it work here
[Inaudible]...
So, with that, Dr. Goldman, I think you
had a few closing remarks. Thank you very
much for your attendance, for your patience
and being very kind and, with that, I'll let you
close the program.
Dr. Lynn Goldman: Starting with thanks
again, I think we ought to give a hand both to
the moderator and the interpreter for doing a
wonderful job tonight. [Applause] Very
difficult to interpret video—I thought that was
very impressive. I also thought very
impressive was the participation of some of
the younger people here, especially from the
AmeriCorps folks. I really appreciate that.
[Applause] I'll tell you, we hear so many
negative things about young people today and
it's wonderful to see young people
constructively engaged in helping to solve
these very difficult problems and I'm very,
very impressed by that.
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I've heard a lot of things here tonight that
we're going to need to go back and think
about. One of the tilings that really impressed
me is that there is a desire among many of the
growers for change and at the same time it is
tempered by the Agency making a lot of little
incremental changes, and that's confusing.
And I think that one of the things that we
need to go back with is the concept that there
probably are improvements that we can make,
but there's a price to pay if we make those
improvements in a lot of little tiny steps
instead of in bigger steps. And I hear the need
for some stability, as well, for us to address,
and the need for flexibility. We're going to
have to find a way to balance—not an easy act
here to balance these concerns since they
compete with each other, but I think that we
can do that.
The other thing that I've heard here,
which is really unique compared to some of
the other meetings that we've heard, is this
idea that there needs to be more of a national
focus of the training, some sense of
reciprocity, between the states in a way that
you can have more trust in a card. [Applause]
You've made that very clear. I think that's
another thing that we need to go back and
look at. Is there a way that we can pool
together the resources to make that happen?
I will say that there is reason historically for
why the program was developed the way that
it was. There was a lot of desire to
decentralize it. But I'm also hearing, especially
in an area of the country where there's not a
lot people who are bilingual, who speak
Spanish, that this creates a real problem in
needing to get the full training. All the
comments people made about that are right
on point: it's not just a matter of the
opportunity to view a videotape but also to be
able to get your questions answered in a
language that you understand. And you just
don't have the ability to pull that together
easily.
The issue of how to best notify people
about the pesticide application site has been a
recurrent theme in many of the places where
we've held meetings—and that is, we have the
training and the verbal notification, but also
the simple posting requirement, and how do
we make that central posting requirement
work. It's an issue that comes up over and
over again and I think that's something we're
going to have to go back and talk about, pull
together all the comments that we've had. I
will tell you that where that came from
originally wasn't so much an idea that every
morning every worker would want to read the
central posting and that's how they would get
their information. It was more the idea that
some of them on some occasions might want
to have that information and might feel
intimidated about going to their employer to
ask for it. They didn't want to be placed in a
position of having to ask for the information
if they were in a situation where there was
someone who didn't want to give it to them.
That was the intent of it initially, and I can see
where that is still an awkward situation when
workers are not necessarily in those central
locations.
I also heard very clearly the concern in
this region of the country about the REI for
chlorothalonil, or Bravo (as the gentleman
here wants me to use the brand name), on
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melons and that is an issue that we want to
continue to work with you on over the next
year. You know that the request for the
exception was withdrawn, but I think we view
this as still being very much an important issue
and one that we would like to see more data
on so we can continue to work on the issue.
I would say, overall, I've heard a lot here
tonight to be encouraged about. I heard from
a number of the grower representatives a real
desire to make this thing work and that where
we have problems, the problems have been
encountered because people are trying to do
the job. And I think that's very important.
I've run into very few people who just don't
want to do this job, and I think that that is
very encouraging. I also saw a lot of listening
and heard a lot of very constructive
suggestions that we can take back to
Washington.
Again, I want to thank you all for taking
the time to be here, especially the diehards
who stayed here for the entire meeting! There
are, as you know, a lot of representatives here
from EPA and from state agencies, who I
know are willing to hang around and answer
some questions. I will say that there's still a
lot more educating that needs to be done. I
think we all heard some things, some places
where people would like to interact some
more. Thank you so much. Good night.
(Meeting adjourned]
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Registered Participants in the Public Meeting
Herman Acosta
U.S. Department of Labor
Ramona C. Alvarado
Community Health Partnerships
Susan Bauer
Community Health Partnerships of Illinois
Jim Beaty
Agronomy Research Center,
Purdue University
Sonny Beck
Becks Hybrids
Joe Becovitz
Office of the Indiana State Chemist
Jane Boetwick
Kokomo Tribune
Nancy Erickson
Illinois Farm Bureau
Francisco A. Espinoza
Farm Labor Relations Program
OSU/Extension
John R. French
ISK Biosciences Corporation
Clinton R. Coins
Long Lane Farms
Cristobal Gomez
Ray Bros. Farms
John B. Graf
D.B.A. Graf Grower
Dr. Alan Hanks
Office of the Indiana State Chemist
Douglas H. Carter
Hartford Packing Company
Terri Cast
Red Gold
Terry Henderson
Dow Elanco
James Henry
Indiana Agri-News
Maria C. Castillo
Community Health Partnership of Illinois
Antonio Castro-Escobar
Worker Protection Program
Michigan Dept. of Agriculture
Jill Heuser
Chris Craft Industrial Products
Cynthia Hines
NIOSH
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Joanne Kick-Raack
Ohio CES
Stuart Kline
E&HS Policy Administration
Purdue University
Shawn Lambert
AgBest Co-op
Maria Leija
Indiana Health Centers
Jim Love
Beck's Superior Hybrid
Joe Miller
Indiana Farm Bureau
Tim Mogle
State Dept. of Workforce Development
Scott Monroe
Grower/Consultant
Jeanine Moran
Transition Resources Corporation
Barb Mulhern
Gempler's, Inc.
Nancy Nickell-Press
Pesticide Toxic Chemical News
John Nidlinger
Senator Richard G. Lugar's Office
Ray E. Noble
Ray Bros. & Noble Canning Co. .
Dan A. Noble
Ray Bros. Farms, Inc.
Doug Payauys
Florists' Mutual Insurance
Jose M. Perez
Indiana Health Centers, Inc.
Sandy Perry
Michigan State University CES
David Petritz
Purdue University CES
Ann Piechotn
Purdue PUSH
Steve Poncin
Minnesota Dept. of Agriculture
Mike Pullins
Ohio Farm Bureau
Kirk Reese
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.
Gary Reichart
Grower
Susan Richards
CHP of Illinois
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Linda Rios
Michigan Employment & Security
Commission
Glenn Roesler
Environmental Management Institute
Paul Rogers
ISK Biosciences
Tom Roney
Grower
Vicente Resales
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
(AFL-CIO)
Joan Roscher
Twixwood Nursery
Tom Sachs
OSU Farm Labor Relations Program
Wayne T. Sanderson
NIOSH-Centers for Disease Control
David Scott
Office of the Indiana State Chemist
Yoss Sieber
AmeriCorps-Transition Resources
Joe Stull
Pioneer Hi-Bred International
Mark Thornbury
Purdue CES
Ron Weeks
Ray Bros. Farms Inc.
Bob White
Indiana Farm Bureau
Fred Whitford
Purdue University CES
Justin L. Wolfe
ISK Biosciences
John Wollam
Bayer Corporation
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Site Visits and Small Group Discussions
Indiana Health Centers, Inc., Kokomo, IN
• April 22, 1996, 8:00 a.m.
• IHC is a non-profit, 24-hour a day, health care group with seven permanent clinics and 13
field staff, serving about 9,000 core migrant farmworkers annually who work on 24 different
crops. IHC has a bilingual staff at every clinic, and is open weekend and late weekday hours.
EPA staff toured the Center with Jose Perez, one of the company's managers and a
farmworker specialist, and spoke with Gene Brown, a nurse practitioner at the clinic.
• Among the issues discussed at the meeting were:
— IHC attempts to contact most of the farmworker population each year. Field
workers stay in contact with all known labor camps, and pay courtesy calls on
agricultural employers to maintain relationships.
— Increasingly, growers are providing less on-site migrant housing because of complex
regulations. As a result, more workers are living in slum conditions.
— Undocumented aliens make up about 17% of the migrant work force; most are
Mexican males who rarely seek assistance or health care services.
— The health center encounters numerous cases of farmworker dermatitis every year.
It is unclear how much is related to pesticides or to contact with plants.
— Documented and serious pesticide-related poisonings are referred to the Office of
the State Chemist, the Poison Control Centers, and other organizations, such as the
Sheriffs office. The Office of the State Chemist's color-coded crop sheets have
been useful to workers in warning them of pesticide hazards in the fields.
Ray Brothers & Noble Canning Co./Farm, Hobbs, IN
• April 22,1996, 9:30 a.m.
• EPA staff met with owners Ray and Dan Noble, and toured their 2,000-acre farm and
tomato canning process. EPA staff briefly visited the migrant labor housing provided by the
owners; few workers were present at the time.
• Among the topics discussed at the meeting were:
Indiana 357
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r eye goggles and bandanas over their mouths because o
The owners noted that there is very little turnover of labor, and that most return to
the farm every year. Portable toilets, soap, towels and water are made available to the
workers at the work site. A properly maintained central posting site was available to
all workers within the labor camp.
Fungicides are used, including copper sulfate, chlorothalonil, and Mancozeb.
However, there is a lot of pressure not to use Mancozeb because some companies
will not accept Mancozeb-treated crops.
"Mid-America Tom Cast," an electronic, computerized, weather system aimed at
reducing fungicide use, has been widely used since 1991 and is now required by
Campbells and Heinz as a condition of purchasing tomatoes.
Sharpview Farms, near Tipton, IN
• April 22,1996,1:00 p.m.
• EPA staff met with owner Scott Smith, a third-generation farmer, and toured his 600-acre
farm (cucumbers/pickles, tomatoes, corn, grain and soybeans). Including rented land, total
area farmed is about 1,200 acres, with 200-300 workers a year. Many workers who are
employed are from one extended family.
• Among the topics discussed at the meeting were:
The owner emphasized the need for harvesting cucumbers during a window of six to
seven days to ensure that cucumbers are the right size for pickles. Otherwise, the
cucumbers are discarded.
Despite the farm's policy of no child labor, the grower sometimes finds children
working in the fields with their parents.
Farmers today spend more time on management than in the field. The grower
stressed the need for coordination across Department of Labor, child labor laws,
OSHA, Health & Human Services, Indiana Department of Environmental
Protection, and EPA laws and regulations, to cut down on administrative burden.
The owner has created his own training verification cards for Sharpview Farms, but
will accept other training verification cards as well. AmeriCorps conducts the
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training for the owner. The crew leader also does training in English and Spanish,
and has received handler training.
— Training all workers on the first day and training new workers in mid-harvest are
problematic. However, 70% of Sharpview employees return annually so the grower
believes there is less turnover here than at other farms. The grower stated that
his workers are his greatest asset and without them his farm would fail.
— Maintaining the washing/decontamination site is difficult. Towels quickly get wet and
ruined or are rolled out in the field.
— Pesticide application records are kept in the owner's card index system in the office.
This system is color-coordinated and lists applicators, application records, pesticides
used, date, acres. Box holders are provided in each cab as well.
— Central posting is done in the office break room. The information includes a safety
poster and is posted behind hard plastic on the wall.
Migrant Labor Camp, Sharpview, IN
• April 22, 1996, 3:00 p.m.
• Jose Perez and Maria Leija led a tour of this camp, which houses 200 workers and their
families in 30 houses of 16' x 20.'
• EPA staff met with 20 farmworkers. Among the issues discussed were:
— Participants pointed out the noticeable differences in quality between newer and
older housing. Housing is assigned by the troquero; single males usually are assigned to
older structures.
— The camp is located on the edge of the fields. Workers said that they are advised to
go into their houses before spraying occurs.
— Workers present at the meeting had few complaints. They had received pesticide
safety training and were aware of pesticide safety principles. When asked what they
remembered most from training, one woman said that they should not have contact
with workers upon return from the fields until the worker has showered and changed
clothes. The women also mentioned the need to wash used work clothes separately
from the rest of the family clothes.
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Workers said they enjoyed the work and had been mistreated only once eight years
ago in Colorado, and it was resolved.
Written Comments
John Graf
Graf Growers
Nancy Erickson
Illinois Farm Bureau
Steven Poncin
Minnesota Department of Agriculture
Mike Pullins
Ohio Farm Bureau, Ohio Fruit Growers Society,
Ohio Vegetable Growers Association
360 Indiana
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STATEMENT FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY'S
PUBLIC COMMENT MEETING
ON THE WORKER PROTECTION STANDARD
August 21,1996
Tipton, Indiana
Presented by Nancy Erickson
Illinois Farm Bureau
Good evening. My name is Nancy Erickson, Director of Natural and Environmental Resources
for the Illinois Farm Bureau in Bloomington, Illinois. Illinois Farm Bureau is a non-profit,
grassroots organization whose membership includes about three-fourths of the farmers in the
state of Illinois.
We appreciate the opportunity to express our views about the Worker Protection Standard (WPS)
and thank the Environmental Protection Agency for organizing this meeting to gather input from
agriculture regarding the implementation of the standard.
Illinois Farm Bureau supports best management practices regarding the application of crop
protection products and education on how to properly use these products. Over the last few
years, we have sponsored or organized about 20 statewide or regional meetings plus helped with
numerous county workshops, established displays at meetings, and distributed several hundred
booklets, posters, and other material to inform farmers about the WPS. IFB has also urged EPA
to make the rules more practical for agricultural employers while still protecting agricultural
workers.
The concepts behind this standard are good ones. Those positive objectives are to ensure that
people who work with pesticides are protected from exposure to chemicals and to educate people
about safety procedures. However, many sections of the standard are too complicated and
confusing, and do not make common sense for those who have to comply with the rules. The
rules were written for the entire United States, and they do not fit in all agricultural situations
across the country.
One section of the rules that has been a problem for Midwest farmers is how the rules apply
during a planting season for a grain farmer. The interpretation of the procedures that a farmer
has to go through to ensure they are protected from pesticide exposure when there is a
breakdown or a mechanical problem in the field during planting does not make sense.
The options a farmer has whenever he has a mechanical problem while in a treated field during
the planting process and will have substantial contact with treated soils are not logical. One
option he has is to pull his equipment out of that field to work on it and then to pull it back into
the field when the problem is fixed. Another option is to put on personal protective equipment
(PPE) each time he gets out of the cab of the tractor to work on his machinery. The PPE must be
removed when he gets back into the cab of the tractor and placed in a container so the rest of the
cab is not exposed to the used PPE. If the farmer has to put PPE on again, does that mean that he
has to have another set of clean PPE? Neither of these options makes sense.
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Another part of the rules that heeds changing involves the decontamination sites. EPA recently
announced the requirements providing decontamination facilities for pesticides with a four-hour
•restricted entry interval (REI) would be shortened from 30 to 7 days. It seems that the
decontamination facility should only need to be provided up to the expiration of the REI for
chemicals with four-hour REIs. For those pesticides with a greater than a four-hour REI,
producers are mandated to provide the decontamination site 30 days after the expiration of the
REI. This fixed 30-day requirement does not create an incentive for farmers to use pesticides
with lower toxicity.
We urge the agency to allow decontamination kits to be brought closer to treated areas for all
agricultural workers. This would make the kits more readily available to those who need them.
Farmers should be permitted to furnish decontamination kits in the field or at the nearest access
area, whichever is more convenient.
We also question whether the recordkeeping and central posting requirements of the rules
achieve what they were intended to do. In agriculture, the planned activities of one day may be
changed due to weather or other unforeseen circumstances. There should be simpler options that
could be used to ensure workers have up-to-date information rather than to post it in a central
location.
A positive aspect that has surfaced from the WPS involves the training and education elements.
The rules are extremely complicated, but many farmers have appreciated the worker booklets and
flip charts produced to help farmers train their employees.
In summary, we encourage EPA to continue to look for ways to simplify the regulations making
compliance easier while continuing to protect workers. The main objective of the rules—to
protect workers—is a good one. If the rules, however, do not make common sense for those who
have to comply with mem, they should be changed to fit real world circumstances as long as that
main objective of protecting pesticide workers and handlers remains in focus.
Thank you for the opportunity to share our views with you.
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August 21, 1996
Comments by John Graf, Graf Growers, 3678 Minor Rd., Copley, Ohio 44321
Comments presented at the U.S. EPA Region 5 hearing on EPA Worker Protection
Standards held at Tipton, Indiana.
Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is John Graf and I am a co-owner of Graf Growers. I also
serve as chairman of the Ohio Vegetable and Small Fruit Research and Development
Program and past board member of the Ohio Vegetable and Potato Growers Association
board. Graf Growers is a greenhouse, farm market, garden center and truck crops operation
owned and operated by my daughter, two sons, wife and myself. The operation is somewhat
typical of Ohio's moderate sized diversified operations employing five to twenty-five migrant
and local seasonal workers. Our operation is located just south of Cleveland along the
interstate highway thereby providing easy access for every government agency inspector.
Over the past three years our operation has invested significant time and money in doing our
best to implement the EPA Worker Protection Standards in order to protect our workers and
to comply with the regulations in good faith. Our family has attended numerous training
sessions presented by the Ohio Vegetable and Potato Growers, Extension and others to help
us understand and implement the Worker Protection Standards regulations. We have also
acquired and utilized some of the excellent materials available to assist producers in
implementing the regulations. In our operation we attempt to do all of the required training
ourselves and complete all record keeping. We even subscribe to a compliance consulting
service. We attempt to utilize the safest chemical available for each application.
In spite of these good faith efforts we find ourselves confused by the complex regulations
that seem to be constantly changing. We are frustrated knowing that some of the regulations
are unreasonable and that due to oversight or honest error we might be found technically in
violation. J
For example, we do not understand why decontamination units are needed in the field even
after a crop has been harvested. Nor do we understand why the 30 day field
decontamination requirement is necessary for all chemicals even those with a re-entry
interval as short as 4 hours. These unreasonable requirements are expensive and call into
question the credibility of the agency and the regulations in general.
Double notification seems unnecessary in most situations. Our workers do not generally
report to a central area each morning to begin the work day. Workers seldom if ever check
the central posting and records.
According to my son, Craig, one of the most burdensome aspects of WPS occurs in our
greenhouse division. Specifically we feel that there are, in many cases, unreasonable reentry
times on many products that we rely heavily on. For example products such as B-Nine,
Exotherm Termil, Orthene and even cooper fungicide have 24 hour reentry times. To put
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this in perspective you must understand that during the month of May we do over 30% of
our whole years business. For this reason the loss of a whole days potential sales would be
devastating. Naturally we do what we can to use products that have as short of a reentry
time as possible, but there are times when these products just simply will not do the job.
For example this spring, like last spring, was colder and cloudier than any of us would have
liked. As you can imagine diseases such as botrytis ran rampant in many greenhouses. In
this situation we would commonly use a very effective product, Exotherm Termil, but due to
the nature of the business cycle our hand were tied.
Another aspect of WPS that we have found to be difficult has been training. We have found
this particularly difficult during peak season. Certainly we try to minimize it's cost by
handling training on a weekly basis. However, during busy times we often have a high
turnover rate on employees. This can make training and the record keeping involved with it
a real challenge.
The premise for the Worker Protection Standards seems so simple: to prevent worker
exposure to toxic chemicals. Achieving this simple goal should not require such complex
and inflexible regulations. Frustration over these regulations has even caused some Ohio
growers to convert their operations to agronomic crops not requiring employees. We believe
the agency gives up credibility for the whole program by requiring so much detail and
regulatory excess. I encourage the EPA to embark on a one time comprehensive effort to
simplify the regulations and include more flexibility to accommodate innovative industry
compliance with the above goal. This might even include an opportunity for state
enforcement agencies and growers to work together to develop compliance guidelines for
situations unique to the local industry. I believe that this would improve grower and worker
understanding of the regulations and compliance and ultimately worker safety.
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As the lead contact for the Working Protection Standard for the Minnesota Department of
Agriculture, I have the opportunity to communicate with a variety of employers and employees
that are affect by the WPS. Through observations and comments I have identified what I
perceive are two problem areas.
1. Information exchange:
Custom applicators for the most part are
attempting to supply the grower with the
required application. However, some
growers are not receptive to the
information and some growers don't
know what to do with the information
when they have it.
Weather conditions play a major role in
the information exchange. Specifically,
wind conditions can delay a pesticide
application resulting in the 24 hour limit
be breached. The result is a recon-
tacting of the grower to establish time of
application as required by the infor-
mation exchange. If windy conditions
prevail postponement of the application
may occur several types.
Much of the commercial applicator
business is conducted by telephone. It
has been reported to our office that in at
least one instance a grower has "hung
up" on the applicator when the infor-
mation exchange was being given.
Another applicator has indicated a loss
of a customer due to the delay in
making the pesticide application as the
applicator was unable to contact the
grower and provide the application
information. The grower allegedly went
to another commercial applicator that
"didn't bother" with the information
exchange.
It has been reported to me as well, that
seldom do the growers provide any
pesticide application information to the
commercial applicator.
2. Pesticide safety training:
The pesticide safety training is the key
to the worker protection standard.
Workers/handlers need to come away
from the training with a sense of respect
and caution for pesticides. It appears
that the lesson is not being learned. The
quality of the instruction varies greatly.
The growers typically utilize the EPA
approved materials for instruction. But,
unfortunately, too many training's
consist of only watching a video.
Growers, even though they are certified
pesticide applicators, for the most part
are not "good instructors".' They also
are conducting learning sessions in less
than ideal settings and conditions. The
results is the students with less than
adequate training and as a result they
do not understanding the information at
the central location or why they should
use a decontamination site and so on.
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August 21, 1996
Comments by Mike Pullins, Vice President Business Services and Commodity Relations for
the Ohio Farm Bureau and Executive Director for the Ohio Fruit Growers Society and the
Ohio Vegetable Growers Association, P.O. Box 479, Columbus, Ohio 43216-0479.
Comments presented at the U.S. EPA Region 5 hearing on EPA Worker Protection
Standards held at Tipton, Indiana.
On behalf of the members of the Ohio Farm Bureau and the Ohio Fruit Growers Society and
the Ohio Vegetable and Potato Growers Association, I thank you for this opportunity to share
with you the concerns of Ohio producers attempting to implement the EPA Worker
Protection Standards.
In spite of extensive coverage by the agricultural press,Extension information and industry
training sessions presented annually at the Ohio Fruit and Vegetable Growers Congress,
producers continue to experience considerable frustration and confusion in attempting to
implement the regulations. Ohio agriculture consists of many small producers with small
numbers of employees or no employees. In Ohio pesticides are handled and applied by the
owner/operator and his family who also train and supervise employees.
Producers are frustrated by the complex and confusing regulations which they sometimes find
unrealistic and unreasonable while not contributing to worker safety. Producers believe that
they can never be in total compliance with the complex regulations. This situation reduces
the credibility of the EPA in the eyes of producers and their perceived value of the
regulations. Unreasonable regulations also reduce compliance among some producers. If
regulations were made more reasonable and flexible this would contribute to producer
understanding, compliance and ultimately worker safety.
Specific concerns expressed to me by Ohio producers include:
—Double notification (oral and posting) is unnecessary and unworkable in many situations. In
Ohio, few workers report to a central location at the beginning of each day. Seldom if ever
do workers see or check the central records. Numerous work crews working in numerous
locations make this requirement a logistical nightmare and sometimes cause growers to forgo
the use of chemicals requiring double notification.
—Frequent changes have caused confusion among producers and a burden on organizations
attempting to inform and educate growers. Producers recommend a one-time comprehensive
update to clarify and simplify the regulations. In the interim state enforcement agencies
should be allowed flexibility.
—The rules should be flexible enough to address real world situations such as reduced posting
length for a 21 day radish crop. Decontamination units and posting for a past crop and
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chemical application on previous crops is excessive. In the radish example the third crop
could be growing in the field before requirements expire on the first crop. Ridiculous or
unrealistic requirements such as these cause confusion, frustration and a reduction in
compliance.
-Labor turnover causes an excessive and constant burden of training new workers. In Ohio
workers move frequently following the season and crop labor needs. Constant retraining of
workers is unnecessary and inefficient with each move.
-Producers have experienced difficulty in getting required information from commercial
applicators in a timely manner. The 1996 Planting season was very hectic for producers and
commercial applicators due to weather delays. Commercial applicator requirements which
mandate the same reporting for row crops (which usually involve no employees and require
no in field follow up or hand labor) impede the ability of applicators to provide timely
information to specialty crop producers who need the information to protect their workers.
The reporting requirement for commericial applicators applying pesticides to corn or
soybeans is burdensome and excessive and impedes timely information transfer to producers
needing the information.
-Producers resent the lack of accountability by workers who commit insubordination and fail
to utilize personal protective equipment.
-Field decontamination requirements should reasonably reflect the toxicity and degradation
of the pesticide and the characteristics of the crop. A 30 day requirement is unnecessary in
some situations with such requirements contributing to a perception of unreasonableness and
regulatory excess. For example, decontamination units are unnecessary after a crop has been
harvested and no follow up hand labor is planned.
-Valid pest management decisions can be determined to be violations. Producers in the field
miles from the central posting and record location can determine a need for a different or an
additional chemical to protect the crop. The unrealistic requirement that a producer return to
the central posting location and complete the required records prior to spraying is viewed as
another example of the unreasonable nature of the regulations.
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I i" i H , If HiM'l" < »I 11 "i'r< P"
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EPA Participants in the WPS National Dialogue
Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances
Lynn R. Goldman, M.D., Assistant Administrator
Susan Wayland, Deputy Assistant Administrator
James Aidala, Associate Assistant Administrator
Office of Pesticide Programs
Dan Barolo, Director
Penelope Fenner-Crisp, Deputy Director
Anne Lindsay, Director, Policy and Special Projects Staff
William L. Jordan, Acting Director, Field Operations Division
Cathleen Kronopolus, Chief, Certification and Occupational Safety Branch (COSB),
Field Operations Division
Kevin Keaney, Deputy Chief, Certification and Occupational Safety Branch
Sara Ager, COSB
Don Eckerman, COSB
Joshua First, COSB
Jeanne Keying, COSB
Ameesha Mehta, COSB
Carol Parker, COSB
Conchi Rodriguez, COSB
Judy Smith, COSB
Michael Walsh, COSB
Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
Jesse Baskerville, Director, Toxic and Pesticides Enforcement Division,
Office of Regulatory Enforcement
Maureen Lydon, Associate Director, Toxics and Pesticides Enforcement Division,
Office of Regulatory Enforcement
Delta Figueroa, Office of Environmental Justice
Amar Singh, Office of Compliance Assistance
EPA Region 3
Stan Laskowski, Deputy Regional Administrator
Tom Maslany, Director, Air, Radiation, and Toxics Division
Don Lott, Chief, Pesticide and Asbestos Enforcement Section
National Dialogue 361
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Magda Rodriguez-Hunt, Pesticides & Asbestos Enforcement Section
EPA Region 4
Jane Horton, Pesticides Section, Air, Pesticides and Toxic Management Division
Richard Pont, Pesticides Section, Air, Pesticides and Toxic Management Division
EPA Region 5
Norm Niedergang, Director, Waste, Pesticides and Toxic Division
John Ward, Chief, Pesticides Section
Don Baumgartner, WPS Coordinator/Indiana Project Officer, Pesticides Section
Edward Master, Indiana Project Officer/Tribal Affairs, Pesticides Section
John Forwalter, WPS, Pesticides Section
EPA Region 6
Allyn M. Davis, Acting Deputy Regional Administrator
Van Kozak, Chief, Pesticides Section
Jerry L. Oglesby, Worker Protection Coordinator, Pesticides Section
EPA Region 7
Kathleen L. Fenton, WPS Project Officer, Pesticide Program Development Section
David Ramsey, Missouri Project Officer
Glen Yager, WPS Coordinator
EPA Region 9
Laura Yoshii, Director, Cross-Media Division
Deanna Wieman, Deputy Director, Cross-Media Division
Kathy Taylor, Chief, Pesticides and Toxics Branch, Cross-Media Division
Kay Rudolph, Pesticides Section, Cross-Media Division
Mary Grisier, Pesticides Section, Cross-Media Division
Norman Calero, Office of Environmental Justice, Cross-Media Division
Gerardo Rios, Office of Environmental Justice, Air Division
Jeannie Cervera, Office of Regional Counsel
EPA Region 10
Marie Jennings, Chief, Pesticides Unit
Allan Welch, Worker Protection Coordinator
Jed Januch, Pesticides Unit
Lyn Frandsen, Pesticides Unit
362 National Dialogue
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Michele Wright, Pesticides Unit
Dan Heister, Pesticides Unit
Joyce Kelly, Environmental Justice
Susan Morales, Environmental Justice
State Participants
California
Doug Edwards, Agricultural Commissioner's Office, Fresno
Dick Nutter, Agricultural Commissioner's Office, Salinas
Francis Pabrua, Agricultural Commissioner's Office, Monterey
James W. Wells, Director, Department of Pesticide Regulation, CAL-EPA
Bob Chavez, Enforcement Branch, Department of Pesticide Regulation
Dan Lynch, Department of Pesticide Regulation, Fresno District
Karen Stahlman, Department of Pesticide Regulation, Pajaro Office
Steve Satter, Cooperative Extension Service, Fresno County
Pat Marer, University of California-Davis Cooperative Extension Service
Howard Rosenberg, University of California-Berkeley Cooperative Extension Service
District of Columbia
Alvin Harris, WPS Contact, Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs
Florida
Steve Rutz, Director, Division of Agricultural Environmental Services,
Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DACS)
Dale Dobberly, Chief, Bureau of Compliance Monitoring, DACS
Marion Fuller, Chief, Bureau of Pesticides, DACS
Dr. Mari Dugarte-Stavanja, Environmental Manager, Bureau of Pesticides, DACS
O. Norman Nesheim, Pesticide Information Coordinator,
Florida State Cooperative Extension Service
Idaho
Bob Hays, Idaho Department of Agriculture
Fred Rios, Idaho Department of Agriculture
Gene Carpenter, Idaho Cooperative Extension Service
National Dialogue 363
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Indiana
Fred Whitford, Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service
Dave Petriz, Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service
James Wolf, Tipton County Extension Service
Dr. Alan Hanks, Office of the Indiana State Chemist
Joe Becovitz, Office of the Indiana State Chemist
David Scott, Office of the Indiana State Chemist
Michigan
Antonio Castro-Escobar, Michigan Department of Agriculture
Sandy Perry, Michigan State University Cooperative Extension Service
Minnesota
Steve Poncin, Minnesota Department of Agriculture
Mississippi
Robert McCarty, Director, Bureau of Plant Industry, Mississippi Department of Agriculture and
Commerce (DACS)
Harry Futon, Bureau of Plant Industry, DACS
Tommy McDaniel, Bureau of Plant Industry, DACS
Michael Quart, State Program Leader for Agriculture and Natural Resoures,
Mississippi Cooperative Extension Center
James McPhail, Delta Area Director, Mississippi Cooperative Extension Center
Missouri
John Saunders, Director, Missouri Department of Agriculture
Joe Francka, Director, Plant Industries Division, Missouri Department of Agriculture
Jim Lea, Bureau of Pesticides Control, Program Administrator, Missouri Department of Agriculture
Paul Andre, WPS Program Coordinator, Missouri Department of Agriculture
Paul Bailey, Certification Program Coordinator, Missouri Department of Agriculture
Alan Uthlant, Missouri Department of Agriculture
New Mexico
Sherry Sanderson, New Mexico Department of Agriculture
Ohio
Robert DeVeny, Ohio Department of Agriculture
Joanne Kick-Raack, Ohio Cooperative Extension Service
364 National Dialogue
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Oregon
Chris Kirby, Oregon Department of Agriculture
Myron Shenk, Oregon Cooperative Extension Service
Marilyn Schuster, Oregon OSHA
Ron Preece, Oregon OSHA
Pennsylvania
David Bingaman, WPS Contact, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
Joe Uram, Enforcement Specialist, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
Roger Dressier, Regional Supervisor, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
Walt Blosser, Plant Inspector, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
Phil Phitzer, Agronomic Products Inspector, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture
Dr. Winand Hock, Director, Pesticide Education Program,
Pennsylvania Cooperative Extension/Pennsylvania State University
William Kleiner, County Extension Director, Adams County Cooperative Extension
Scott Harrison, Senior Extension Associate, Pennsylvania Cooperative Extension Service
Kerry Hoffman, Pesticide Education Coordinator, Pennsylvania Cooperative Extension Service
Texas
Larry Soward, Deputy Commissioner, Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA)
Mary Jane Manford, Associate Deputy Commissioner, TDA
Donnie Dippel, Assistant Commissioner, TDA
Randy Rivera, Director, Worker Protection and Applicator Certification & Training, TDA
Jose Sanchez, Inspector, TDA
Virginia
Don Delorme, WPS Contact, Virginia Department of Agriculture
Washington
John Daly, Washington State Department of Agriculture
Jorge Lobos, Washington State Department of Agriculture
Margaret Tucker, Washington State Department of Agriculture
Anne Wick, Washington State Department of Agriculture
Carol Ramsey, Washington State Cooperative Extension Service
Vicki Skeers, Washington State Department of Health
Ginny Hamilton, Washington State Department of Labor and Industries
National Dialogue 365
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West Virginia
Wayne Casto, WPS Contact, West Virginia Department of Agriculture
Interpreters
Angel Castro (Missouri)
Horencio Diaz (Indiana)
Jose Jimenez (Pennsylvania)
Beatriz Rubio (California)
Frances Sergile (Florida)
Susanna Stettri (Washington)
Jorge Trevino (Texas)
366 National Dialogue
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For More Information
For additional copies of this report, contact:
Office of Pesticide Programs (7506C)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
401 M Street SW
Washington, DC 20460
Tel: 703-305-7666
For more information on the Worker Protection Standard, contact EPA at the above address
or the WPS Coordinator in the EPA Regional Office for your state (see list of contacts on next
page). Information on the WPS is also available on EPA's home page on the World Wide Web
(http:/www.epa.gov).
National Dialogue 367
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EPA Regional Offices
EPA Region 1
Andy Triolo
Pesticides Section (APP)
John F. Kennedy Federal Bldg.
Boston, MA 02203
(CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT)
EPA Region 2
Fred Kozak (MS-240)
Pesticides and Asbestos Section
2809 Woodbridge Ave. Bldg. 209
Edison, NJ 08837
(NJ, NY, PR, VI)
EPA Region 3
Magda Rodriguez-Hunt
Pesticides Section (3AT-11)
841 Chestnut Building
Philadelphia, PA 19107
, MD, PA, VA, WV, DC)
EPA Region 4
Jane Horton
Pesticides Section (4API)
12th Floor AFC
100 Alabama St. SW
Atlanta, Georgia 30303-3104
(AL, EL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, TN)
EPA Region 5
Don Baumgartner
Pesticides Section (DRT-14J)
77 West Jackson Boulevard
Chicago, Illinois 60604-3507
(ZL, IN", MI, MN, OH, WI)
EPA Region 6
Jerry Oglesby
Pesticides Section (6PD-P)
1445 Ross Avenue, Suite 1200
Dallas, Texas 75202-2733
(AR, LA, NM, OK, TX)
EPA Region 7
Kathleen Fenton
Pesticides Section (WWPD-PS)
726 Minnesota Avenue
Kansas City, Kansas 66101
(TO, KS, MO, NE)
EPA Region 8
Margaret Collins
Pesticides Section (8ART-RTI)
999 18th Street, Suite 500
Denver, Colorado 80202-2405
(CO, MT, ND, SD, UT, WY)
EPA Region 9
Katherine H. Rudolph
Pesticides Section (A-4-5)
75 Hawthorne Street
San Francisco, California 94105
(AZ, CA, HA, NV, American Samoa, Guam,
Trust Territories)
EPA Region 10
Allan Welch
Pesticides Section (AT-083)
1200 Sixth Avenue
Seattle, Washington 98101
(AK, ID, OR, WA)
368 National Dialogue
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