Investigators said the company improperly sprayed the chemical because it used a nozzle that violated the pesticide company’s label guidelines. It had applied Vulcan to a number of seedless tangerine fields starting the evening before the workers got sick. Sun Pacific was fined $30,250 for violating five pesticide laws. Lab tests on those samples confirmed that Vulcan, a pesticide with the controversial chemical chlorpyrifos, and Cosavet DF, which contains sulfur, had drifted a half-mile away, into the area where the cabbage-harvesting employees were working. Officials say five of them sought medical treatment.Īgricultural officials took foliage samples from fields in the area. That morning, as many as 37 employees complained of an odor that made them sick. The fieldworkers who became ill were harvesting cabbage for the Dan Andrews Farms. “Integral to this is agricultural safety.”
“We want to do everything we can to protect the public and the environment,” Fankhauser said. The penalties are the most expensive fines issued by the county in several years, according to Glenn Fankhauser, Kern County agricultural commissioner. The Kern County fines are the result of an investigation by the county agricultural department that found the companies’ use of two pesticides near Maricopa on May 5 violated state law. News of the penalties comes as agricultural commissioners in three California counties investigate several other chemical drift incidents that sickened some three dozen agricultural workers over the summer. The firms facing penalties are Sun Pacific, the produce company behind the popular Cuties mandarins and clementines, and Grapeman Farms. Both companies have operations throughout the Central Valley and Southern California. Kern County agricultural officials announced Tuesday that they are issuing more than $50,000 in fines against two companies for violating pesticide rules in connection with an incident that sickened 37 farmworkers in May.
Produce Company Behind Popular ‘Cuties’ Fined Over Pesticide Drift Cornucopia recommends eating only certified organic produce that do not involve the use of these dangerous pesticides. It is only the spraying method, which caused the toxic pestides to drift, that was against pesticide rules. Alarmingly, the pesticides that made 37 farmworkers ill can legally be sprayed on the company’s Cuties mandarins and clementines. Cornucopia’s Take: Kern County fined Sun Pacific and Grapeman Farms in California for illegal pesticide application.
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