"Registered" POISONS In The Water
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"Registered" POISONS In The Water
Date:
Thu, 5 Dec 2002 07:07:15 -0500
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
- Charlottetown Guardian Alberton council demands farm chemical be banned Town
officials and residents want immediate action on chemical discovered in four
local water wells
By Wayne Thibodeau and Jim Day
Environment Minister Chester Gillan speaks to reporters outside the legislative chamber Tuesday on the issue of pesticides contaminating some drinking water wells in West Prince.
Alberton town council wants the potentially cancer-causing chemical that contaminated the drinking water of a handful of its residents banned.
"Council has voted in favour of having Health Canada and the government of Prince Edward Island doing away with this product,'' Alberton Mayor David Campbell told The Guardian Tuesday.
Campbell said he has told Environment Minister Chester Gillan that the council now considers unacceptable the use of the fumigant pesticide telone-c17, which is used on a strawberry operation in the town.
Four private wells have tested positive with dichloropropylene - a chemical found in the fumigant.
"It's a serious situation,'' Campbell said following an emergency meeting of Alberton town council Tuesday.
"One well is one too many . . . This is a concern for everybody.''
He said one family of six and another family of four can't use their water because it is contaminated with dichloropropylene.
"It's not something that you say? well, let's look at it tomorrow.' We should look at it today.''
Elda Getson is the mother in the family of six. She was also one of about 20 residents who showed up at the town council meeting Tuesday to vent frustration over being left in the dark.
"We're all just full of questions because we haven't been getting any answers from the (provincial) government,'' Getson said.
"I don't want this to happen to anyone else. It's an awful feeling. I want the government to fix it so it doesn't happen again. I want them to be more aware and to give a damn.''
As for banning the chemical, Environment Minister Chester Gillan said that’s not something he's prepared to do at this point. He said the province is studying the matter.
"With the Department of Agriculture, we are attempting to gather all of the information, all of the studies, the health literature that accompanies it as well," Gillan said at the provincial legislature Tuesday.
"I can't indicate that we're moving towards a restriction or the ban but we're collecting the information and we'll continue to move ahead until we can find out with some type of assurance what we should do.
"We are not running away from our responsibility of banning or restricting, but again it's not our top-most concern at this moment. The only reason why I say that is there is no more of the fumigant going into the soil because of the winter conditions."
Opposition Leader Ron MacKinley accused the provincial government of dropping the ball.
He said alarm bells should have gone off and the water should have been tested immediately after several farm workers and a girl who had been waiting for a school bus fell ill after being accidentally sprayed by farm chemicals last year.
Wells were only tested in November, more than a year after that incident.
"Reading the information I had on that particular chemical, it should never have been used that close to wells," said MacKinley.
"The field is right next to people's houses."
Alberton-Miminegash MLA Cletus Dunn said area residents are scared.
Dunn said residents are worried about the unknown factor because a lot of the officials, including those from Health Canada, don't know what impact the chemical may have on human health.
"It's quite disturbing," said Dunn.
"There are a lot of unanswered questions that have to be dealt with right away. I have compassion for those who have wells that tested positive. It's a scary thing when you don't know the impacts of what is there."
Whether the chemical found in the Alberton wells could be a cancer-causing agent seems to be unknown.
On Friday, Gillan suggested that it was.
Four days later, the environment minister said it wasn't.
When questioned by the media, Gillan said: ". . . as far as it can be determined it may be (cancer-causing) and there's no one that will definitely state that."
"We're treating it with the utmost of respect," said Gillan.
"It's an extremely volatile substance and we're giving it the due respect that it demands. It's a very serious chemical. We don't want it where it is. We want it contained to where it's supposed to be in the soil."
ALBERTON RESIDENTS RATTLED BY DISCOVERY OF PESTICIDE IN WELLS By Jim Day - The Guardian
ALBERTON -Residents here could be excused for developing paranoia over pesticides.
First, something rotten was in the air for people living near the Westech Agriculture Ltd. strawberry operation when pesticide was improperly sprayed on Oct. 15, 2001.
Several Westech workers became ill, showing symptoms compatible to pesticide poisoning, including respiratory problems and numbness.
A 13-year-old girl also became ill from exposure to pesticides at the nearby strawberry operation on the day in question. The girl had symptoms similar to those of the sick farm workers.
Health Canada imposed a $4,000 fine when it determined Westech contravened the federal Pest Control Products Regulations. The fine was later removed when Westech reached a "compliance agreement'' to adopt prevention measures to avoid a reoccurrence.
The incident fuelled a petition that called on town council to establish a one-kilometre pesticide-free zone from any occupied residences, building, school, church, hospital and manor.
No such zone has been established but after the more recent scare, some residents here are talking about seeking a complete ban on pesticide use in their community.
Ron Flynn said residents are rattled over the detection of the pesticide chemical dichloropropylene in the water of four private wells near the strawberry operation.
"It was bad enough putting up with it in our air but now it's in our water,'' he said.
"There's a feeling of anxiety. Residents are distraught and upset . . . I think we are very scared.''
Elda Getson's private well is one of the four that tested positive. She wants to know if anyone in her family of six has - or will - suffered ill effects from the water contamination.
"They (environment officials) can't tell me how long this has been in our water system so I just assume we've been drinking this all along,'' she said. "Not even the officials know what the long-term effects might be.''
Environment Minister Chester Gillan said his department expects further advice from Health Canada this week on the health effects of dichloropropylene in drinking water.
"Unfortunately there are no quick answers in situations like this,'' he said.
"Much of the available information relates to acute exposure to the chemical by people who apply it. It is not often found in groundwater.''
While there is no Canadian drinking water quality guideline for dichloropropylene, Gillan said Health Canada has advised his department to use the California Environmental Protection Agency guideline at this time.
NDP deputy leader Ken Bingham said Tuesday the pesticide contamination of the drinking water in Alberton has residents here reeling.
"There are people concerned about their health, that it may be affecting their family. They are concerned with how wide-ranging this contamination may be.''
Bingham said the province's Health Department should have the strongest say in how, where and when pesticides are used.
In the Tory throne speech last month, the government promised to move administration of the Pesticides Control Act from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Environment to avoid a potential conflict of interest.
Bingham, however, would like the Department of Health to wield the greatest legislative power in dealing with pesticide use.
"They should have the final say in what happens because it has to do with the health effects on people,'' he said.
Getson is comfortable with the Department of Environment calling the shots as long as they are on top of the situation.
"I don't want this to happen to anybody else,'' she said.
"It's an awful feeling. I want the government to fix it so it doesn't happen again. I want them to be more aware and to give a damn.''
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WATER FOR HEALTH DECLARED AS A HUMAN RIGHT GENEVA, Switzerland, December 4, 2002 (ENS) - Safe and secure drinking water is a human right, a United Nations committee has declared formally for the first time. "Water should be treated as a social and cultural good, and not primarily as an economic commodity," the committee said, siding with those who object to the privatization of water supplies. http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2002/2002-12-04-01.asp
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