New policy aims to correct decades of wrongdoings
Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency put itself on a path to right several wrongs of the past decades done to this nation's farmworkers and their families.
EPA announced a new policy that will apply the same science in assessing risks to workers and their families as it uses to protect children generally from pesticides in our food. In 1996, Congress mandated that EPA protect children from the risks posed by the combined exposure to pesticides in our foods, drinking water and environment. Congress also directed EPA to account for children's special vulnerabilities to toxic pesticides and gaps in our knowledge about their full risks.
EPA reviewed thousands of pesticides under these standards, but it carved out exceptions for some of the most vulnerable children—children who go with their parents in the fields and children who are exposed to pesticides that drift into their homes, schools, day care centers, and playfields.
Applying a callous double standard, EPA ignored these children. EPA even ignored risks to fetuses of pregnant workers who are exposed to pesticides in utero on the theory that the risks were to the workers, not the fetuses. EPA now plans to apply the same science and the same standards to these children.
EPA's announcement also commits to apply the same science in assessing risks to workers as it uses to assess the risks posed by pesticides in our food supply. Our laws afford workers less protection to the workers in the field than to the general public exposed to pesticides in food. However, as EPA's policy concludes, science is science. There is no justification for using weaker science when it comes to identifying the risks to workers. EPA is appropriately now poised to put an end to this practice.
EPA is also responding to a petition filed by Earthjustice in October on behalf of farmworkers and health advocates. Our petition focused on EPA's utter failure to protect children from pesticide drift. The new policy indicates that EPA intends to fill this void and address the risks posed by drift to children and bystanders. However, EPA plans to develop methods for doing so over the next 6-18 months and then to apply these new methods to the thousands of pesticides on the market.
In the meantime, children are regularly being poisoned and exposed to pesticides that impair their brain development or cause cancer just by playing outside or going to school. Congress gave EPA a 1996 deadline to protect kids from pesticides, including from pesticide drift. The Bush EPA failed to do so. These children should not have to breathe in poisonous pesticide dust for several more years, while EPA studies the problem. EPA should take bold steps now to protect these children by creating buffers around schools, homes, playfields, and day care centers where toxic pesticides cannot be sprayed.
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To say that organic farming is out of the question, after claiming, America's mission is to feed the globe, is out of whack. If a farm has gotten to big to regulate, and farmers are going ape wild, working overtime, while cutting back on skilled labor (as in fumagators), then I say they need to reevalute their positon as farmers. Is their mission really to feed the globe, while neglecting the average farm employee, and Nation, as a whole? Too many pesticides affect everything about US, not just the Farm Workers. The entire food chain is affected by these over sprayed pesticides, besides the environment being poisoned, the farm workers show up with high levels of toxins sometimes worse than black lung.
If we focused more on providing America, almost exclusively, with the food grown, there'd be less a need for over farming tired, worn out soil. There would be less need for pesticides. If more cheap farm labor was added, instead of more pesticides, we'd have a decrease in cancers of anywhere from ground water to food to mouth transference. We'd have better conditions for who we are, a Nation of Human Rights records, for all to see.
Ultimately, we should prepare to cut down on at least some of these pesticides. Besides, pesticides are for pests, not humans! There is no excuse. The EPA has an obligation to assist the people in fighting for safer conditions. If the law can not be upheld as we would expect with an immediate reponse, as when someone calls the police because of a societal disturbance or hazard, then who can we rely on? Why have one agency only? Why not set up another one made up of some of the workers themselves. They are in the trenches, after all. You could arm them with camera cell phones and probably get away with not paying them more than a small amount for each report, or so.
To say, don't blame the EPA is like saying, don't blame the police, if and when no one responds when you call them. If they do that too many times, rest assured, they will be disciplined, etc. They have a law to uphold, be clear on that. Also, what of the children?
There is no argument that toxic pesticide drifts, be they from aerial applications or fumigant volitalization that drifts off target, are unacceptable and should carry stiff fines for the offenders. However, making the EPA responsible for a pilot who sprays in windy conditions, just isn't fair. The EPA drafts, oversees and enforces some of the most stringent and safe pesticide regulations in the world. If we didn't have pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, food would be priced sky high because diseases and insects would have a field day munching on all these unprotected crops. Organic farming can't feed the globe solely because it is too expensive and labor-intensive. Therefore, doing away with pesticides and fertilizers all together, is what it seems you are espousing, is totally ridiculous, uninformed and dangerous. Please remember, farmers and their families live on these ranches and farms and it makes little sense to poison your employees as well as the people you love. I am all for protecting people from toxic chemicals, but application and label rules must be followed to avoid accidents, and people who do hurt other people and damage the environment must be held accountable. If you would like to read more about our nation's food supply and the benefits of crop protection agricultural tools, visit my blog at www.healthyplants.org (And California already has safe buffer distances for its schools.)
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