Earthjustice Works To Protect Farmworker Communities From Toxic Pesticides
Earthjustice has worked for a decade to increase protections for farmworkers who are exposed to dangerous pesticides. Earthjustice continues to advocate for such protections by:
- Requiring the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect farmworker children, who are especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of hazardous pesticides,
- Challenging EPA's decision to allow thousands of workers to suffer unsafe levels of exposures to two extremely toxic pesticides,
- Demanding that Washington State mandate growers to monitor the health of farmworker who handle extremely toxic forms of OP and CB pesticides and,
- Reducing or eliminating the use of particularly dangerous pesticides
Hazardous Pesticides Threaten the Health of Farmworker Communities
About four million farmworkers live in the United States. Migrant and seasonal farmworkers, their families, and communities are disproportionately exposed to high levels of pesticides. They live near fields where pesticides drift and settle, touch and wear contaminated clothing, bath in tainted water, and eat contaminated food.
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| Migrant farmworker children are often at risk for pesticide poisoning |
| Photo: EPA |
Pesticides particularly threaten the health of farmworker children. Children are more vulnerable than adults to effects of pesticides because they eat more food, drink more water, and breath more air per unit of body weight. Additionally, farmworker children as young as 6 years old work in fields and others accompany parents into these areas because there are no viable day care options.
Federal laws provide farmworkers with far weaker protections than other workers. The Occupational Safety and Health Act protects millions of people from dangerous workplace conditions, but not farmworkers.
Instead, the Federal Insecticide Fungicide Rodenticide Act mandates exposure levels for pesticides based on a risk-benefit analysis. EPA uses this analysis to set exposure levels that value the appearance of produce more than the health of humans. Federal and state governments also fail to enforce laws designed to reduce levels of exposure.
A Decade of Working To Increase Protections Against Dangerous Pesticides
Since 1993, Earthjustice has worked to reduce or eliminate exposures to toxic pesticides and to hold pesticide manufacturers and distributors responsible for producing dangerous products that poison farmworkers.
- Increasing Protections for Farmworker Children
In 2003, Earthjustice joined with the Natural Resources Defense Council, Farmworker Justice Fund, and other organizations to challenge EPA's failure to implement protections in the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), including protections for farmworker children.
The FQPA requires EPA to set pesticide residues standards for food at a level that protects people who are especially vulnerable to the adverse effects of these poisons. Farmworker children are among the most sensitive and highly exposed members of society. Earthjustice is suing EPA for failing to use farmworker children as a vulnerable population when setting pesticide residue standards for food under the FQPA. While the case was dismissed on juridictional grounds, Earthjustice is appealing.
- Eliminating Exposures to an Endocrine Disrupting Fungicide in Food
In 2000, Earthjustice represented the Natural Resource Defense Council, Environmental Working Group, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, and the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides in a challenge to EPA's decision to allow dangerous levels of Vinclozolin -- a highly toxic fungicide -- on food.
Vinclozolin is associated with numerous adverse health effects, including birth defects impacting sexual organs. Earthjustice challenged EPA's decision to allow unsafe levels of vinclozolin on food. EPA's analysis showed that a pregnant women's one-time exposure to vinclozolin on snap beans could cause birth defects. In 2002, EPA settled Earthjustice's challenge and agreed to phase out most uses of this dangerous fungicide.
- Challenging EPA's Decision to Allow Thousands of Workers to Suffer From Unsafe Levels of Exposure -- Every Year -- to Two Extremely Toxic OP Pesticides
In January 2004, Earthjustice, Farmworker Justice Fund, and the Natural Resources Defense Council sued EPA for allowing the continued use of two of dangerous pesticides. Federal law requires EPA to determine that a pesticide will have no "unreasonable adverse effects" on the environment prior to registering it for use. EPA's analysis of AZM and phosmet found unacceptable health risks from their use, but the agency re-registered these pesticides based largely on their benefits to crop producers. EPA also failed to adequately assess the magnitude of the harm caused by these pesticides to farmworkers, their children, endangered species, and the environment, while ignoring data on safe and cost-effective alternatives to these highly toxic pesticides. The result was EPA's authorization of continued use of pesticides that poison workers, contaminate streams, and expose farmworker children and communities to harmful contamination.
EPA responded to the lawsuit by adopting a phaseout of one of the pesticides but over six years, which is far too long given how acutely toxic this pesticide is to workers and their families. EPA has proposed to continue to allow use of the other pesticide without the safeguards it previously deemed necessary to protect workers.
- Preventing Farmworkers Poisonings
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| Field workers harvest lettuce |
| Photo: EPA |
In 1997, Earthjustice represented farmworkers throughout Washington State who were poisoned by extremely toxic forms of OP and CB pesticides. Farmworkers petitioned the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries to mandate medical monitoring for workers who handled such pesticides.
L&I has mandated monitoring for other workers exposed to toxic substances, but the Department refused to give farmworkers the same protection. Earthjustice challenged L&I's failure to create regulations as a violation of the Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act. In 2002, the State Supreme Court ruled for the farmworkers and required L&I to initiate proceedings for a mandatory medical monitoring rule.
Earthjustice continues to collaborate with farmworker organizations to create a strong medical monitoring program. Earthjustice advocates for enhancements to the proposed program as a member of L&I's stakeholder advisory committee, in comments on L&I's rulemaking documents, and through dialogue with agency officials. Medical monitoring began in 2004, and showed that workers are being exposed to unsafe levels of poisons.
- Preserving the Right to Compensation for Injuries
In 1993, 29 workers reported poisonings from exposure to phosdrin. Phosdrin, an OP pesticide, is acutely toxic to humans in extremely small quantities. Manufacturers and distributors of phosdrin failed to provide required educational material or ensure that mandatory training occurred following sales of this pesticide.
Earthjustice represented three poisoned farmworkers who did not receive the necessary training and who required hospitalization following exposure to phosdrin. Earthjustice successfully litigated the case, which preserved farmworkers' right to sue pesticide manufacturers and distributors under state law for producing unreasonably dangerous products and negligently failing to educate and train people on ways to reduce exposures. This victory paved the way for a settlement between workers poisoned by phosdrin and manufacturers and distributors of this pesticide.
Earthjustice has filed a friend of the court brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case Bates v. Dow Agrosciences, that will determine whether federal pesticide law closes the courthouse doors to people injured by pesticides.
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