In Brief: Farmworkers are especially vulnerable when applying poisons to farm fields -- and the government too often fails to provide the protection they need.

04/15/04

According to the National Center for Farmworker Health, there are approximately three million migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the United States. They are the backbone of a multi-billion dollar industry dependent on the manual labor of some of the poorest people in the country. Well over half of these farmworkers have incomes below the poverty level and few have regular access to health care.

For over a decade, Earthjustice has worked to protect U.S. farmworkers from exposure to dangerous pesticides. We have given particular attention to migrant and seasonal workers, who often live near fields treated with pesticides and have the highest levels of exposure due to contamination of their clothing, food, and water. Children of migrant workers are especially vulnerable because they eat, drink, and breathe more pesticides per unit of body weight than their parents.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that about half the insecticides used in the U.S. (an estimated 60 million pounds applied to about 60 million acres) are organophosphates. Organophosphates were derived from nerve agents developed in Germany during WWII and work by interrupting the nervous systems of pests. Not surprisingly, they aren't good for humans, either. Inhalation, ingestion, or skin contact can result in headache, nausea, loss of consciousness, seizures, and death.

In mid-January, Earthjustice filed suit in the federal district court in Seattle seeking to reduce or eliminate farmworkers' exposure to two common but toxic organophosphate pesticides, azinphos methyl (AZM) and phosmet, and to reform the EPA's one-sided process for addressing the risk workers face from pesticides.

AZM and phosmet are used on a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, berries, and nuts, mostly in Washington, Oregon, California, Michigan, Georgia, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. EPA regulates the sale and use of pesticides through a registration process. It is allowed to re-register pesticide use on an interim basis if it has not yet determined whether standards for composition, labeling, and adverse environmental effects have been met. While making such "interim reregistration eligibility determinations" for AZM and phosmet, EPA determined that both pose unacceptably high risks to workers in fields treated with the pesticides. EPA then proceeded to ignore its own findings. The chief federal agency charged with protecting the environment and public health permitted the continued use of AZM for four years or longer and certain uses of phosmet for five years or, in some cases, indefinitely.

Earthjustice is challenging EPA on three main issues. First, the agency concluded that the economic benefits outweighed the risk if mitigation measures were used, but its one-sided risk-benefit analysis did not calculate the harm to workers, their families, or the environment. Second, EPA ignored scientific articles showing that non-toxic substitutes would allow production of certain crops, like apples and pears, to remain at the same levels even if the use of AZM and phosmet was ended. Third, EPA estimated workers' exposure based on data from the industries that profit from pesticide use and did not disclose that data to the public.

This is a classic example of how, despite its clear mandate to enforce certain environmental laws created to repair damage to the environment, the Environmental Protection Agency often caves to bureaucratic malaise or pressure from politicians and corporate interests. If we win our case, it will be another example of how Earthjustice's legal expertise can benefit both the environment and human health.

Vawter "Buck" Parker, Executive Director
buckparker@earthjustice.org