Alleging that a government contractor sprayed an herbicide on their property as part of transmission-line maintenance, the owners of a state-certified organic beef farm in Skagit County, Washington, have sued the U.S. government and the contractor for damages incurred by the contamination of their property. Benson v. United States, No. 11-1619 (W.D. Wash., filed September 28, 2011). According to the complaint, the plaintiffs have a contract with the government “with regards to all maintenance on the power lines and providing recovery of any resulting damages.” In 2008, the plaintiffs were allegedly notified that spraying would take place, and they spoke with a government representative explaining that their property could not be sprayed. They were allegedly assured that this would be noted in the paperwork and that no herbicide would be sprayed on their property. Despite the assurances and despite a “no spray” sign on the access gate to the plaintiffs’ property,…
Tag Archives pesticide
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has granted, in part, the petition for review filed against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), challenging its risk assessments for the pesticide dichlorvos. NRDC v. EPA, No. 08-3771 (2d Cir., decided September 16, 2011). The court agreed with the Natural Resources Defense Council, (NRDC) that EPA’s failure to explain why a children’s safety factor less than 10X was applied to pesticide risk assessments derived from the “Gledhill study,” which involved six adults who consumed dichlorvos daily for three weeks, was arbitrary and capricious. When EPA sets tolerances for the maximum level of dichlorvos residue on food products, it is required, under the Food Quality Protection Act, to apply a tenfold children’s safety factor. Vacating the portions of EPA’s order assessing the risk of dichlorvos based on the Gledhill study, the court remanded the matter to the agency for further proceedings. EPA has registered a…
A federal court in Maryland has permitted groups representing environmental and fishing interests to intervene in litigation filed by Dow AgroSciences LLC and two other pesticide manufacturers against the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), seeking to overturn the agency’s opinion that three insecticides threaten the Pacific salmon. Dow AgroSciences LLC v. Nat’l Marine Fisheries Serv., No. 09-00824 (D. Md., order entered August 23, 2011). In March 2011, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that NMFS’s biological opinion on the effects of chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion was judicially reviewable action under the Administrative Procedure Act, thus allowing the companies, which hold registrations for the insecticides from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to challenge the action before the district court. NMFS apparently provided the biological opinion to EPA in 2008 as part of EPA’s process of reregistering the insecticides for sale and use; they were first registered in the 1950s and…
A Finnish study has allegedly confirmed an association between adult-only exposure to certain pesticides and type 2 diabetes. Riikka Airaksinen, et al., “Association Between Type 2 Diabetes and Exposure to Persistent Organic Pollutants,” Diabetes Care, August 4, 2011. Researchers reportedly analyzed data from 1,988 adults born in Helsinki during 1934-1940, finding that just over 15 percent had type 2 diabetes. The results evidently indicated that “for participants with the highest exposure to oxychlordane, trans-nonachlor, 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis-(p chlorophenyl)-ethylene (p,p’-DDE), and polychlorinated biphenyl 153, the risk of type 2 diabetes was 1.64-2.24 times higher than that among individuals with the lowest exposure.” In addition, “the associations between type 2 diabetes and oxychlordane and trans-nonachlor remained significant and were strongest among the overweight participants.” According to the authors, these findings suggest that organochlorine pesticides and body fat “may have a synergistic effect on the risk of type 2 diabetes.” Although lead author Riikka Airaksinen also…
Hundreds of individually named Philippine banana plantation workers alleging physical and mental injury from exposure to pesticides have filed suit against a number of agricultural and chemical companies in a California state court seeking compensatory and punitive damages. Macasa v. Dole Food Co., No. BC467134 (Cal. Super. Ct., Los Angeles Cty., filed August 8, 2011). The plaintiffs allege that 1,2-Dibromo-3-chloropropane (DBCP), sold under the brand names Nemagon® and Fumazone®, is a “highly toxic and poisonous pesticide” that purportedly causes “sterility, testicular atrophy, miscarriages, congenital reproductive outcome, liver damage, asthma and various forms of cancer in humans when absorbed by the skin or inhaled.” They claim that DBCP continued to be used in the Philippines despite being banned in the United States by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1979. The complaint alleges that the U.S. Department of Agriculture advised the chemical company defendants as early as 1961 “to place precautionary warning…
A Minnesota appellate court has ruled, as a matter of first impression, that “a trespass action can arise from a chemical pesticide being deposited in discernable and consequential amounts onto one agricultural property as the result of errant overspray during application directed at another.” Johnson v. Paynesville Farmers Union Coop. Oil Co., Nos. A10-1596 and -2135 (Minn. Ct. App., decided July 25, 2011). The plaintiffs were organic farmers who alleged that the defendant, a commercial pesticide applicator, repeatedly sprayed adjacent farms on windy days, in violation of the law, resulting in contamination of their crops from drifting chemicals. Despite the plaintiffs’ specific requests that the defendant avoid overspraying pesticide onto their fields when treating adjacent fields, the defendant contaminated their crops in 1998, 2002, 2005, 2007, and 2008, causing them to sell their products at lower prices or destroy some crops, and forcing them to take acreage out of production…
California EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has announced that its Carcinogen Identification Committee will discuss whether 39 chemicals should be prioritized “for possible preparation of hazard identification materials” during the committee’s October 12-13, 2011, meeting. While no decision will be made at this meeting about adding the chemicals to California’s Proposition 65 (Prop. 65) list of substances known to the state to cause cancer, the process OEHHA is following could ultimately lead to their inclusion. Public comments on the 39 listed chemicals are requested by September 20, 2011. Among those chemicals under consideration is bisphenol A (BPA). According to OEHHA’s supporting materials, which include references to numerous carcinogenicity and genotoxicity studies, billions of pounds of BPA are produced each year in the United States, and most human exposure occurs “through the diet.” Other chemicals under consideration are those used in agriculture, such as the fungicides chloropicrin, dicloran,…
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has released its “2011 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce” updating “pesticide loads” on 53 conventional fruits and vegetables. EWG analysts reportedly reviewed U.S. Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration data from 2000 to 2009 that detailed the amounts and types of pesticides found on sampled produce, most of which was washed and peeled before testing. Providing “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15” lists, the guide replaces celery with apples as the worst offender, with pesticides found on 98 percent of more than 700 apples tested. Cilantro was tested for the first time since EWG started tracking data in 1995, with 33 unapproved pesticides showing up on 44 percent of samples—“the highest percentage of unapproved pesticides recorded on any item” since tracking began, according to EWG. EWG claims that consumers who eat five fruits and vegetables daily from its clean list can lower their…
According to a news source, Dole Food Co. has tentatively agreed to settle the pesticide exposure claims of more than 5,000 former banana plantation workers in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Honduras. They are represented by Provost Umphrey, whose lawyers apparently ensured that the workers had actually been employed on the plantations and experienced personal injuries from exposure to dibromochloropropane. Similar claims filed by other trial lawyers and involving hundreds of other plaintiffs have been dismissed due to alleged legal wrongdoing, including falsified medical records, client coaching and the intimidation of Dole investigators. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals determined in March 2011 that a $97 million judgment reached in a Nicaraguan court against Dole and several other companies could not be recognized under Florida law. The terms of the preliminary settlement have not reportedly been disclosed. See The National Law Journal, June 14, 2011.
More than 200 farm workers from Ecuador, Panama and Costa Rica have reportedly filed seven lawsuits against commercial banana growers and pesticide manufacturers, seeking to recover damages and medical monitoring costs for health conditions allegedly related to dibromochloropropane (DBCP) exposure. Aguilar v. Dole Food Co., Inc., No. __ (E.D. La., filed June 1, 2011). The complaints argue that defendants used DBCP from approximately 1960 to 1985—“and possibly into the 1990s”—in banana growing regions outside the United States, which banned the nematocide in 1979 after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) listed it as a suspected carcinogen. Plaintiffs claim that because they were not informed of the danger or provided with protective clothing, they injected DBCP into soil without the use of gloves, protective covering or respiratory equipment to prevent skin absorption or inhalation. “Many workers absorbed so much DBCP each day that their urine would give off the smell of the chemical…
