Court increases fine for pesticide company

Kern County residents win settlement

By JULIANA BARBASSA

SAN FRANCISCO - Three years ago, a pesticide cloud wafted from potato and carrot fields into homes near Arvin, in Kern County, sickening hundreds 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 settlements of its kind. It came as state pesticide regulators pledged to step up enforcement of pesticide drifts in hopes of deterring future incidents.

"We don't want the reputation of the industry ruined by a few bad apples or careless acts," said Glenn Brank, a spokesman for the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, many of them farmworkers, said they were gratified by the settlement and hope it will encourage other pesticide users to follow the law.

Janie Gonzalez, 18, attended the court hearing where the deal was approved with her mother and father.

"I hope they'll be more careful next time," said Gonzalez, who was home with her parents on July 8, 2002, when the pesticide metam sodium floated into their home. The family said the chemicals burned their eyes and throats and left Gonzalez with a headache that lingered for months.

Under the settlement reached Friday, Kirschenmann Farms will pay $275,000, and Western Farm Service, the Fresno-based applicator hired by the farm, agreed to pay $500,000, said their San Francisco-based attorney, Michael Fox. The funds will be divided among 84 residents.

A judge still has to determine how much of the money will go to 32 minors in the group. Because the case is not technically closed, lawyers for the farm and the pesticide applicator said they could not comment on the settlement.

In the small farmworker towns that dot the San Joaquin Valley, the Arvin pesticide drift case is rare only because Gonzalez and other residents sued and received a substantial settlement.

During 2003, the last year for which numbers are available, 175 million pounds of pesticides were used in California. Most applications were safe, but officials still identified 802 cases of pesticide-related illness, about half of them in agriculture.

Drift incidents are investigated by the county agricultural commissioner, or by the Department of Pesticide Regulation, if there are a lot of victims.

But the process doesn't require companies to acknowledge wrongdoing, and the fees assessed go to the investigating agencies, not to the victims, Brank said.

After conducting its own investigation of the Arvin case, the state fined Western Farm Service $60,000, which will be divided between the state and the county agricultural commissioner, Brank said.

Teresa DeAnda became a community activist, traveling the valley to educate rural residents on the dangers of chemical exposure after she had to pile three kids, two uncles and two dogs into a van in 1999 to escape the pesticide cloud that wafted over her hometown of Earlimart, sickening 250 people.

Wilbur-Ellis, the company found liable in that case, was fined $150,000 -- the largest state-imposed penalty to date.

DeAnda had hoped that case, which received widespread media attention, would have encouraged farms and chemical applicators to follow the law and reduce accidents.

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.