New pesticide rules ignore concerns about worker health

By Don McIntosh, Staff Reporter

The names of the chemicals ‹ Atrazine, methyl bromide, carbamate, chlorpyrifos, diazinon ‹ make them sound sinister, nothing you∞d want in your air, water, or food supply. These five, among as many as 9,000 pesticides registered for use in Oregon, are designed to kill insects, weeds, or other pests. In acute exposure cases, they∞re also toxic to humans. But the long-term health effects of chronic environmental exposures, on workers or the public, are less well known. That∞s because very few long-term health studies exist.

Joan Rothlein, a pesticide researcher at the Center for Occupational and Environmental Toxicology at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), would like to be able to investigate the health effects of pesticides on workers. But she needs data to do it.

That∞s where Oregon AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Brad Witt comes in. Witt has long been concerned that large numbers of workers are being exposed to pesticides on the job. Workers subject to occupational pesticide exposures include: road crews, landscapers, farm workers, janitors, construction workers, sawmill workers, flight attendants, teachers, office workers, retail clerks, restaurant workers, warehouse workers and workers in grain storage and forestry, to name a few.

øThere is not a job out there that organized labor represents that we don∞t have the possibility of significant and adverse pesticide exposures,Ó says Witt. øWe need information that contains who, what, where, when and why, so we can develop safety protocols, and so workers can take necessary precautions should they find evidence of exposure.Ó

Right now, no information of that kind is available to researchers. So several years ago, Witt and other labor leaders joined environmentalists and public health advocates to push a pesticide-use reporting law in Oregon that would arm doctors, scientists, and water quality experts with the information they need to be able to determine whether pesticides are harming human and environmental health.

Almost immediately, they ran into opposition from pesticide users, particularly those organized by a timber-chemical-agro-industry front group known as Oregonians for Food and Shelter, which succeeded in quashing the first pesticide tracking bill of the 1999 legislative session.

But a threat by environmentalists to take the issue to voters with a ballot initiative convinced the industry group to agree to a compromise bill that session.
The bill required pesticide users to report the location, type and amount of pesticides used, but guaranteed that their identities would be kept confidential.
The program was to be paid for by an increase in the pesticide registration fee paid by users and an appropriation from the state∞s general fund. These reports wouldn∞t be available to the public, but they WOULD be available to researchers, who would use them to identify populations at risk, target educational efforts, and determine which water bodies are vulnerable to pollution and what chemical residues government agencies should monitor.
The AFL-CIO and its allies bought into the compromise law, which left many details to be decided by the Department of Agriculture. In developing the reporting program, the department was supposed to consider technical suggestions from nine state agencies, an analytical review conducted by researchers at OHSU and Oregon State University, the recommendations of a governor-appointed work group composed of representatives from all sides, and public comment at a series of hearings around the state.

At a cost of $187,000, the analytical review was produced. The work group met for a year and a half and hammered out recommendations. The agencies gave their comment. And last fall, a series of nine public hearings were held to gather final input.
 
 

Burned by the Department of Agriculture

Under the new program, once a year, users will report the name, amount, purpose, and approximate date of pesticide use. The location of use will be identified only to the nearest square mile for agricultural uses, and to the nearest 5-digit zip code for urban uses, despite repeated testimony by researchers that for the information to be useful, it would be necessary to know more precisely where pesticides are used.

Zip codes describe very irregular areas, vary in size enormously, and change their boundaries as needed by the Post Office. They∞re designed to be useful to the U.S. Postal Service, not to scientific researchers.

øThis will not help me to manage any urban water quality,Ó said Mark Yeager, principal utilities engineer for the City of Albany.

To make matters worse, funding for the new program may now be in jeopardy. The Republican-controlled 2001 Legislature had already weakened the program by refusing to fund it well enough to enable pesticide users to report using paper forms. As a result there is some doubt as to whether farmers who lack computers will be able to comply with the reporting law. Now, the recessionary economy is dealing the state a $700 million revenue shortfall. Responding to a call by the governor for cost-cutting suggestions from each state agency, the Department of Agriculture proposed that the pesticide-use reporting system be scrapped altogether. The governor, who supports the program, did not include it in his list of proposed cuts. But the program must still make it through a special budget-crisis legislative session expected to convene in early February.

Witt and the others now accuse the department, and the pesticide lobby, of bad faith, and they∞re so unhappy with the details of the new program that they∞ve filed three versions of a ballot initiative and are considering mounting a campaign for the November 2002 ballot that would scrap this law and replace with a more effective pesticide reporting system.

© Oregon Labor Press Publishing Co. Inc.