Report: Farm workers plagued by pesticides Legal aid group
alleges laws violated
Coleman Cornelius
The farm workers said they knew they had breathed poison moments
after a crop-duster buzzed nearby, spraying a field of sweet corn
with pesticides to kill mites and worms.
Most of the 20 migrant farm workers, in an adjacent lettuce
field in Olathe, said they felt sick immediately: They gasped for
breath, had pounding headaches, irritated eyes and swollen, numb
tongues. Some vomited as a cloud of white chemicals settled on
fields around them.
The farm workers in the western Colorado community said they
left the lettuce field when sprayed, but a foreman ordered them to
continue working, saying the crop-duster had released a harmless
solution of soap and water.
A new study by Colorado Legal Services, the first of its kind in
the Rocky Mountain region, says such migrant workers at farms
statewide are regularly exposed to hazardous pesticides in
violation of federal laws.
The company that hired the workers for the Olathe farm and the
farmer whose land they were working have denied any role in making
the workers sick.
The lettuce workers, talking about their incident last week,
said their experience illustrates the problems.
'We were cutting lettuce, and we saw the plane coming. It was
spraying, and the wind was blowing, so it blew toward us,' said
Blanca Chavez, 44, who sought shelter in a portable toilet. 'We
ingested it. It was like a fog.'
Another farm worker, 22-year-old Marcelina Lopez, was five
months pregnant during the reported Olathe spraying incident on
June 29. She developed stomach cramps and a rash on her belly and
arms, Lopez said as she and six others on the lettuce crew
discussed the incident last week.
Lopez saw a doctor three days after the spraying, but that
heightened her concern.
'The doctor couldn't tell if the baby was affected,' her husband
said in Spanish. 'We worry a lot because we don't know if the baby
will be affected.'
Jim Dorsey, an officer of Cactus Produce - the Scottsdale,
Ariz., farm-labor contractor that employs the crew - said company
policy requires that incidents of pesticide exposure be reported
immediately. He said crew supervisors did not report what workers
described. Lacking field or physician reports, he questioned
whether the incident occurred.
Grower Tom Humphrey also was skeptical.
'I think this is a crock,' said Humphrey, a vegetable farmer for
30 years. 'You're listening to somebody who wants money for
nothing.'
Nevertheless, Chavez took her case to Colorado Legal Services, a
nonprofit law firm that represents low-income clients in civil
cases around the state. She and the other farm workers said they
agreed to publicly discuss the Olathe incident to illustrate the
hazards laborers face in the fields and to push growers to abide by
pesticide-safety laws.
Chavez's case mirrors the findings of the survey by Colorado
Legal Services, which reports that migrant workers at farms
statewide are regularly exposed to hazardous pesticides in
violation of federal laws.
The exposure comes from chemical residue on plants in farm
fields and from pesticide drift, such as the incidents lettuce
workers described, according to the survey.
Legal Services conducted interviews with 88 farm workers in some
of Colorado's most abundant agricultural regions last year and
found that half of those surveyed had experienced symptoms of
pesticide exposure. The symptoms included skin rash, inflamed eyes,
headaches and irritation of the nose and throat.
Those surveyed worked in Weld County, the Arkansas Valley, the
San Luis Valley and the Western Slope and took part in 30-minute
interviews at farm-labor housing in those regions.
Kimi Jackson, author of the Colorado Legal Services study, said
the surveys were detailed and the responses consistent across the
state.
'It's striking that so many farm workers report experiencing
symptoms of pesticide exposure,' said Jackson, director of the
agency's pesticide project. 'Imagine in your own office if half the
workers had experienced symptoms like that. That's very high.'
Ray Christensen, executive vice president of the Colorado Farm
Bureau, said growers on the state's 20,000 farms consider pesticide
safety important for themselves and their employees, in part
because they want to maintain a productive workforce and avoid
liability.
'Pesticides can be very injurious if they are not handled
properly. I think farmers across the United States realize that,'
Christensen said.
Yet the Legal Services report faults growers, farm-labor
contractors and crop-dusters for routinely failing to abide by
federal regulations meant to protect worker health.
The study also demands that the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency and Colorado Department of Agriculture better enforce the
10- year-old laws, collectively called the Worker Protection
Standard.
The laws require that farm workers be prevented from entering
fields treated with pesticides until recommended times have
elapsed. The laws also mandate that workers be trained in pesticide
safety, are notified of fields that have been sprayed, have fresh
water to wash chemicals from their skin and receive emergency
medical help in cases of pesticide exposure or illness.
EPA records show employers regularly fail to follow the
rules.
Last year, the agency's regional office inspected 23 Colorado
farms, and 20 failed to fully comply with federal laws meant to
protect farm workers from pesticides, said Tim Osag, an enforcement
coordinator. Those farms got warning letters and will be inspected
again, he said.
'Workers were not being trained. There was no central location
where the required information was being posted, and several of
them did not have decontamination supplies,' said Britta Campbell,
an EPA enforcement officer who conducted most of the farm
inspections.
'Obviously we have a regulation which is not being followed,'
Osag said. 'There is a potential that we're exposing workers to
increased health risks.'
Migrant farm workers - 16,000 to 40,000 in Colorado, according
to the U.S. Department of Labor - are critical to the state's $1.23
billion agriculture industry. They travel from farm to farm,
tending and harvesting fruits and vegetables.
Farm workers earn an average of $5.15 an hour for jobs that
often require fieldwork from sunup to sundown during the growing
season, Jackson said.
Many migrant farm workers are reluctant to report pesticide
problems because they fear they will lose their jobs, laborers
said.
'We do the work in the fields because we don't have a lot of
education, and in this country you need to have an education to
have a good job. We don't feel like we have any options,' said
Maria Figeroa, 54, a member of the lettuce crew reportedly overcome
by pesticide drift in Olathe.
She and other crew members spoke in Spanish through an
interpreter.
Pesticides, widely used to increase crop yields, have become a
leading health concern among migrant farm workers. Coloring books
distributed to the children of farm workers in Weld County warn
youngsters to run when they see crop-dusters spraying
'pesticidas.'
In 1998, Cesar Chavez fasted for 36 days in California to
underscore the dangers of pesticides to farm workers and their
children. It was the last and longest fast for the 61-year-old
civil-rights activist.
The following year, Chavez's organization, United Farm Workers,
released a seminal study addressing the health effects of
pesticides on farmworkers. The report, 'Fields of Poison,' found
that California farmworkers face greater risk of pesticide
poisoning than any other segment of the population and are not
adequately protected.
Like the Colorado report, it called for stronger enforcement of
existing laws.
Little research has been conducted on the long-term health
effects of pesticides on farm workers.
But some research points to danger: A study published earlier
this year in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine found that
migrant farm workers in California, most of them Hispanic, have a
59 percent higher risk of developing leukemia than other Hispanics
in the state.
Field laborers have a 69 percent higher risk for stomach cancer.
Male workers also have a higher chance of developing brain cancer,
while female workers have a higher risk for uterine cancer,
according to the study, which linked the risks to pesticide
exposure.
Researchers compared farm worker data from United Farm Workers
with that from the California Cancer Registry.
It is hard to prove that worker illness is a result of pesticide
exposure in the field because other things, both on and off the
job, can trigger physical symptoms, said Dr. Suzanne Wuerthele, an
EPA toxicologist in Denver.
Yet dozens of chemicals commonly used to kill weeds, fungus and
insects on agricultural crops can cause immediate sickness in
people who inhale, swallow or absorb them through skin contact,
Wuerthele said.
Recent research raises questions about the connection between
pesticide exposure and long-term health problems, such as chronic
headaches, sleep disorders, vision problems, nerve damage, cancer
and birth defects, Wuerthele said.
'These chemicals are always dangerous to humans. That's why they
have to be used correctly,' she said. 'They are designed to kill
things, and they can be toxic to humans.'
Chavez said she called Colorado Legal Services because she felt
sick and did not know where to turn.
'They're not worms,' said Guierrmo Othon, Chavez's husband, who
is also a lettuce worker. 'These are human lives.'