EPA rules will strengthen pesticide safety on farms

The Environmental Protection Agency is strengthening 20-year-old rules designed to protect farmworkers from toxic pesticides.

New rules announced by the EPA on Monday will bar almost anyone younger than 18 from handling pesticides and require buffer zones around treated fields to protect workers from drift and fumes. Farm owners and their family members would be exempt from the rules.

Under the new standards, workers would have to be trained annually on the risks of pesticides, including how to protect their families when they return home with potentially contaminated clothes and shoes. Currently they only have to be trained every five years. Farms would also be required to post signs when the most toxic pesticides are applied.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the rules are “a long time coming” and would affect millions of agricultural workers across the country.

“Farmworkers deserve to be healthy and safe while they are earning a living,” she said.

The new rules will have little impact in California, which already has many protections in place for the 600,000 or so farmworkers. Charlotte Fadipe of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation said the state will have to make some tweaks.

For example, the state bans laborers younger than 18 from mixing or loading harsh pesticides that require full-body chemical-resistant clothing or respiratory protection. That rule will expand to include all pesticides.

Another rule establishes specific amounts of water for routine washing, emergency eye flushing and other decontamination. Fadipe said California farms provide water but might have to adjust how much.

“I don’t think California should be surprised at all about the things that are now being put in place,” she said.

The EPA says that between 1,800 and 3,000 cases of pesticide exposure are reported each year at farms, nurseries and other agricultural operations covered by the current standards. McCarthy said those rules haven’t been working and that many cases of exposure aren’t reported.

Fewer of these incidents would mean healthier workers and fewer lost wages, medical bills and work absences, the agency says. EPA also said it is concerned about low-level, repetitive exposure to pesticides that could contribute to chronic illness.

Farmworkers are unique in that many of the workplace protection standards issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for other industries do not apply to them. Many farmworkers are migrants who move from farm to farm, making it difficult to track health problems from pesticide exposure that can develop over time.

Other new rules include that employers retain pesticide application records for two years, workers and their representatives have easy access to hazardous chemicals records and whistleblower protections for pesticide abuse reporting.

U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez said nonprofits, employers and other regular sources of communication will help spread the word to farmworkers.

“It’s impossible to exercise your rights if you aren’t aware of their existence,” he said.

Arturo Rodriguez, president of United Farm Workers, said he has seen the consequences of farmworkers not being afforded the protections extended to laborers in other industries. In the 1980s, the union exposed cancer clusters in McFarland.

Last weekend, UFW celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Delano grape strike that led to its formation. Rodriguez said Monday’s announcement is a dream come true for those who fought hard to protect farmworkers back then.

“It is never too late to do the right thing,” he said.

Read more about the new farmworker protections at www2.epa.gov/pesticide-worker-safety (also in Spanish).

This story was originally published September 28, 2015 at 5:15 PM with the headline "EPA rules will strengthen pesticide safety on farms."