Street Roots • July 6-12, 2018
News
Page 7
Oregon OSHA adopts new farm worker protection standards
While advocates say new rules don't go fa r enough, growers say they're too restrictive
BY EM ILY GREEN
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
fter nearly two years of factious
debate between Oregon’s agriculture
sector and farmworker advocates, the
state’s Occupational Safety and Health
Administration has adopted new protections
for workers during the application of
pesticides.
The state agency charged with regulating
workplace safety saw an unprecedented level
of participation in the rulemaking process
leading up to its decision, announced July 2,
with close to 1,100 individuals weighing in.
Oregonians who commented either
thought Oregon OSHA’s proposed rules
Were too restrictive or did not go far enough
to adequately protect farmworkers and their,
families.
Comments in favor of more stringent
rules to protect farmworkers outnumbered
comments opposed to the rules by at least
two to one, according to OSHÂ
spokesperson Aaron Corvin.
“To my knowledge we have never had
more than 1,000 people participate in an
Oregon OSHA rulemaking,” said the
agency’s administrator, Michael Wood.
Although, he said, evaluating many of the
comments was a challenge because there
was “the clear sense that a number of the
people commenting actually, hadn t react £hy
rule and didn’t have a clear sense of what
was in it.”
He also said that two-thirds of the
comments that came in, on both sides, were
form-emails or postcards with a pre-written
message.
The debate began in 2016 when the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency issued its
updated Agricultural Worker Protection
Standard. Most new rules went into effect in
January 2017, with others slated for
implementation at the beginning of this
year. The rules were intended to further
protect farmworkers from pesticide
poisoning, and adopted portions included
increased training requirements for
pesticide applicators/
Oregon OSHA, however, delayed the
adoption of one of the new rules after
strong opposition from farmworker
advocates who thought it didn’t do much to
protect workers as it was written, as
previously reported in Street Roots.
The EPA rule created Application
Exclusion Zones around areas where
pesticides are sprayed. The law requires a
100-foot zone around the pesticide-spraymg
equipment that people must vacate during
application as the equipment moyes across
't h e field. Before this rule, no such exclusion
■
zone existed.
. '
When farmworker housing lies within the
100-foot application exclusion zone, Oregon
OSHA proposed workers in that zone could
go inside the housing to avoid coming into
contact with pesticides, should they drift.
Drift, which is illegal, happens when
pesticides move through the air to areas
that are outside the intended application
area.
,
In 2017, there were 314 registered
agricultural labor housing sites across the
A farm er sprays pesticide on apple trees in flood R ive r Valley.
state with 9,216 occupants, plus roughly
1,000 more occupants living in labor
housing that is not required to register, said
Corvin.
Advocates and attorneys who represent
farmworkers, including representatives of
Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste
(PCUN) and Oregon Law Center, argued
that due to the shoddy construction of some
farmworker housing and outdoor cooking,
eating and play areas being located near
crops that are sprayed, the proposed rule
would not protect workers and their families
from pesticides that may drift
In response, OSHA convened an advisory
committee of stakeholders, including
farmworker advocates, growers and farm
industry lobbyists, to assist in drafting a
stronger rule that Oregon would adopt in
place of the EPA’s protection standard.
What followed was more than a year of
contentious meetings in which advocates
and growers often engaged in heated
exchanges over what the new rules should
be.
The health impacts from pesticide
exposure in farmworkers, their children and
pregnant women are well documented, with
links to miscarriage and birth defects from
prenatal exposure, neurological and other
development effects in growing children, as
well as links to a wide range of cancers,
tumors and other serious health problems
in adults, according to a 2015 EPA economic
analysis leading up to the^agency’s new
rules.
Now, Oregon OSHA has adopted the EPA
100-foot application exclusion zone rule with
the addition of the following protections that
go beyond the federal law:
• When the person applying the pesticide
is required to wear a respirator'according to
the pesticide’s label, the exclusion zone is
extended to 150 feet and anyone within the
zone must evacuate, rather than sheltering
in place, for at least 15 minutes.
• Employers are required to supply
workers with closeable storage where they
can store their work boots and shoes
outside in order to prevent tracking
pesticides indoors.
• Workers will be trained to protect
sensitive areas, such as outdoor areas where
children play as well as outdoor cooking and
eating surfaces when pesticides are being
applied nearby.
• Workers will be required to shut all
windows and doors and turn off all air
intakes before sheltering in place during the
application of pesticides. Workers living in
housing that cannot be adequately sealed
will be required to vacate the area.
• Employers must provide “information
stations” where farm occupants can see the
pesticide application schedule, and they
must also make pesticide training available
to all adult occupants, not just employees.
These new rules take effect Jan. 1, 2019,
and also apply to some reforestation
workers.
In December, the EPA under Scott Pruitt
announced it was going to propose
eliminating the exclusion zone rule and
several other worker protection provisions.
“We are pleased that Oregon OSHA has
adopted worker protection standard rules in
the face of the federal government likely
turning a blind eye to worker protections,”
said Lisa Arkin, director of Beyond Toxics.
A r la n was a vocal critic of the proposed
rules at advisory committee meetings
throughout the rulemaking process.
But Arkin said OSHA’s new rules don’t go
far enough.
“We are disappointed that Oregon OSHA
didn’t create a no-spray buffer - at least the
60 feet required in forestry” she said, in
reference to the buffer required around
housing and schools when forestry workers
conduct aerial sprays. “We thought all along
that was a legally defensible thing for OSHA
to do because it’s already a law in Oregon.”
She said her organization would have also
liked to see all shelter-in-place provisions
removed.
“We also don’t think standing 150 feet
away is a safe alternative. Oregon OSHA is
presenting false choices that don t provide
protections that Oregonians need, she said.
Wood said growers’ top complaints were
that the shelter in place option was not
allowed for all pesticides, and that the
exclusion zone had been increased to 150
feet in some circumstances.
He also said he’s received comments
from farmworker advocates stating OSHA is
taking an important first step with the
adoption of these new rules.
He said of those who submitted
comments, only “one or two dozen
approved of the proposed rules as they were
written.
“I’m certainly glad to put this rulemaking
behind us,” Wood said. “It was
extraordinarily contentious, and frankly
there were some very harsh things said
about Oregon OSHA - and at times about
me personally along the way.”
em ily @streefroots, org
@ greenwrites