Everett, Wash.
Published: Saturday, February 23, 2008

Farm group asks judge for pesticide protection

By Gene Johnson
Associated Press

 SEATTLE -- One day in 1995, Juan Angulo arrived for work at an Eastern Washington apple orchard only to begin vomiting. A terrible headache gripped him and his eyes and nose began to run. The same thing happened to the rest of his work crew, all from exposure to a pesticide called AZM, Angulo believed.

Citing his case and others, lawyers for the United Farmworkers argued to a federal judge Friday that the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to allow the use of AZM until 2012 was unconscionable. The EPA did not consider harm to farm workers, their families, or to rivers, lakes and salmon, they said, and the agency should be forced to reconsider.

"There are workers getting sick," Patti Goldman, of the environmental law firm Earthjustice, told U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez. "This isn't just hypothetical."

AZM, or azinphos-methyl, was derived from World War II-era nerve gas agents and has been used as a pesticide since the late 1950s. Because of its danger, the EPA in 2001 barred growers from using AZM on two dozen crops.

In 2006, the EPA decided to phase out all uses of the pesticide by 2012 -- two years later than it had initially proposed.

Cynthia Morris, a Justice Department lawyer who argued on the agency's behalf, told the judge that the short-term benefits of allowing growers to keep using AZM for the next five years outweigh the potential harm. She also said the phase out gave farmers time to come up with mitigation plans.

Goldman responded that the mitigation measures are far from adequate; for example, she said, they include no requirements that children be protected from AZM that drifts onto nearby fields during application. In its cost-benefit analysis, the EPA did not weigh harm to the environment or long-term health effects.
© 2009The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA