OSHA is further proposing that when highly volatile pesticides are sprayed, workers and their families evacuate their houses to locations 150 feet away and wait 15 minutes before returning. Peer-reviewed studies show that substandard and crowded farmworker housing does not adequately protect these workers and their families from contact with pesticide drift and fumes. Instead, the agency recommends that workers and their families stay inside their poorly sealed shelters when pesticides are being sprayed, euphemistically calling this practice “sheltering in place.” In contrast to its mission and contrary to the recommendations of the EPA, Oregon OSHA is proposing a “compliance alternative” that eliminates the 100-foot application exclusion zone around worker housing when people are present. The agency has a particularly important duty to protect the state’s farmworkers and inspect the quality of an estimated 309 farm-labor camps in Oregon where more than 9,200 people reside.
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Oregon OSHA’s mission is to advance and improve workplace safety and health. The EPA concludes that the exclusion zone will help reduce health risks for workers and their children, especially through pesticide drift from fields and orchards onto farmworker housing. The EPA chose a 100-foot zone after a lengthy evaluation of medical and economic data. The exclusion zone spans a radius of 100 feet in all directions from an air blast or aerial spray of pesticides. Environmental Protection Agency, these standards represent the first improvements in federal farmworker protections in a quarter of a century.Ī pesticide application exclusion zone is a key provision of these new standards.
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The state Occupational Safety and Health Division, or Oregon OSHA, is considering how to implement new federal protection standards for farmworkers. This history is worsened by agricultural employers’ tendency to locate housing among orchards and fields, away from public roads. The public rarely sees the dilapidated shacks, with their open cinder-block kitchens, showers and laundry facilities, where Oregon farmworkers live due to a well-documented history of community opposition to safe and affordable farmworker housing. Harmful pesticides also accumulate in substandard farmworker housing, posing additional risks to workers and their families.
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Two studies by researchers at Oregon Health & Sciences University concluded that low doses of pesticides over time can cause measurable loss of memory and other brain functions. Many pesticide applications occur near farmworkers and their families, including young children, putting them at higher risk of health problems such as infertility, birth defects, neurological damage, cancer and death. University of Oregon environmental studies scholar Sarah Wald puts the number of farmworkers exposed to toxic levels of pesticides closer to 300,000, more than 10 times the official number.Ī 2008 report by the state Department of Agriculture showed that 15.5 million pounds of pesticides were applied on Oregon farms. More than 1 billion pounds of poisonous pesticides are applied on farms annually in the United States, resulting in as many as 20,000 physician-diagnosed poisonings annually among agricultural workers. By Lisa Arkin, David Vázquez and Raoul Liévanos