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PALM BEACH POST
January 31, 2009
Ag-Mart fined $931,000 in
Ag-Mart, the Plant City produce firm that has been fined for violating
pesticide regulations in Florida and North Carolina in recent years, has
now been assessed a record $931,000 fine by the New Jersey Department of
Environmental Protection on similar charges.
New Jersey charged Ag-Mart, producer of SantaSweet and Ugly Ripe
tomatoes, with "hundreds of violations that include denying state
environmental inspectors access to facilities, losing track of a highly
toxic insecticide, failing to properly ventilate areas during pesticide
use ... and using forbidden mixtures of pesticides."
"Ag-Mart has repeatedly shown a stunning disregard of laws and
regulations intended to protect the workers who harvest their tomatoes,
the people who consume them and New Jersey's environment," said Mark
Mauriello, acting environmental protection commissioner.
"Ag-Mart's pesticide violations are the most serious DEP inspectors have
ever uncovered," Mauriello added.
The company did not return phone calls Friday requesting comment.
In 2005, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
accused Ag-Mart of violating pesticide regulations after a series of
articles appeared in The Palm Beach Post. The articles reported
on birth defects suffered by three children born to Mexican migrant
worker families in Collier County in late 2004 and in 2005.
State and county health investigators later said they could not
establish a link between the infractions and the birth defects. Last
year, Ag-Mart settled a civil suit brought by the parents of one child,
Carlos Candelario, who was born without arms and legs. The amount of the
settlement was not revealed, but it was believed to be in the millions
of dollars.
In 2006, the Florida agricultural investigators on the case stated that
Ag-Mart had committed 88 pesticide violations and proposed fines of
$111,200.
In 2007, a Florida administrative law judge, Lawrence Stevenson,
overturned most of the violations and lowered the fine to $8,400.
The judge said that while the state required that firms keep a record of
what was sprayed on a field and when, it did not insist that the firms
also document the whereabouts of workers at the time. Hence, it was
impossible to determine whether workers had been exposed during the
alleged violations.
Stevenson recommended stricter record-keeping requirements for growers.
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