After a pesticide cloud drifted over the town of Earlimart in 1999, sickening 250 people, the state fined Wilbur-Ellis, the company found liable in the case, $150,000, but since then, hundreds of people have been poisoned by pesticide drifts in Kern County. The incidents often occur in the same towns and involve the same companies.

In the Central Valley you see the pesticides being sprayed everywhere, whether it’s by tractor or through the air with a crop duster. On many occasions I will be driving through back roads lined with orange groves and suddenly the car windshield will get sprayed with moisture. You then realize that you have just driven through a pesticide cloud or at least the residue of a recent spraying.

Three years ago, a pesticide cloud wafted from potato and carrot fields into homes near Arvin, sickening dozens of residents. The state fined the applicator $60,000, but angry residents felt that wasn’t enough. After taking the rare step of suing the farm and fumigator involved, a group of Arvin residents won $775,000 last week in one of the largest court settlements of its kind. It came as state pesticide regulators pledged to step up enforcement of pesticide drifts in hopes of deterring future incidents.

Unfortunately, many more residents of the Central Valley do not take action when their health is put at risk due to the irresponsibility of some agricultural companies that care more about their crop production than the residents that live nearby. Now, if the residents of nearby cities are being affected by these pesticides can you imagine the people that work in those fields? There have been numerous occasions when farm workers working the fields get sprayed with pesticides. Where’s OSHA when you need them? Where’s the outcry from the politicians?

Via / Fresno Bee