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February 13, 2008
State to rethink 271 charges in Ag-Mart case
Tomato grower's fight far from over
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Staff Writer
The state revived its ailing case against tomato grower Ag-Mart on
Tuesday, when the Pesticide Board voted to reconsider 271 serious
charges against the company.
An administrative law judge had previously recommended throwing out the
charges without a full hearing.
Now, the company will likely have to spend many more months fighting
allegations that it forced its workers to illegally labor in fields
freshly sprayed with chemicals.
"Those issues should have been addressed in a hearing," Pesticide Board
member Robin Smith said.
The decision means that the three-year-old case, which is the largest
pesticide case in state history, is far from over. The details of a new
hearing have yet to be worked out.
After reviewing the case for nearly eight hours Tuesday, the
seven-member board agreed to continue reviewing the Ag-Mart case next
Tuesday.
Ag-Mart attorneys could not be reached for comment after the meeting.
Ag-Mart has denied exposing workers to pesticides and argued that the
state's case was based on flawed documentation that gave conflicting
reports about where workers were picking vegetables on any given day.
Ag-Mart, based in Florida, farms about 700 acres in Brunswick County,
about 125 miles south of Raleigh, and employs several hundred migrant
workers. Until recently, the company also grew tomatoes in nearby Pender
County. It sells tomatoes under the brand names Santa Sweets and Ugly
Ripe, as well as under several store brands.
Between December 2004 and February 2005, three Ag-Mart workers bore
babies with severe birth defects. One child had no arms and legs, and
another had no visible sex organs and died soon after birth. The birth
defects touched off an investigation of the company's practices in North
Carolina and Florida.
$184,500 fine sought
In 2005, state pesticide officials charged Ag-Mart with 369 violations
of state pesticide law and asked for a fine of $184,500 -- the largest
ever levied.
The company has been fighting the case ever since.
Daunted by the case's complexity, the Pesticide Board sent it to the
Office of Administrative Hearings for review. The state's case was
greatly weakened when two administrative law judges recommended dropping
all but 17 of the charges and fining the company only $6,000.
The biggest blow came when one of the judges, Beryl Wade, threw out 271
of the most serious violations without a hearing, saying the state had
based all of those charges on field documents that were erroneous,
sometimes logging one worker in several fields across two different
counties on the same day.
But the judge's ruling was not binding, and final authority on the case
rests with the seven-member Pesticide Board. The board is appointed by
the governor and includes employees of several state agencies, farm and
pesticide industry representatives and at-large members.
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