Mississippi Board on Crop Dusting accused of bias, ineffectiveness
In recent years, the board has slashed penalties by half or more in some cases without giving a reason, and in at least one case, allowed a board member to recommend a penalty for his own company when his son was the pilot in the complaint.
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Subject: Aviation board faces criticism, turbulence * Accusations of bias, ineffectiveness threaten future
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 08:24:24 -0400
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
Dear Mr. Helliker,
I thought you might like to read an article from The Clarion-Ledger,
dated June 25, 2001, entitled: Aviation board faces criticism, turbulence *
Accusations of bias, ineffectiveness threaten future By James V. Walker,
Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer.
The Agricultural Aviation Board of Mississippi consists of
four owners of agricultural aviation, or crop dusting companies, and the head of
the Mississippi Bureau of Plant Industry. Among other things, it is empowered to
issue penalties to pilots who dump pesticides on people and houses.
The board has come under fire this month from both the
federal Environmental Protection Agency and the investigative arm of the state
Legislature for what has been described as ineffective and inconsistent
regulation.
In recent years, the board has slashed penalties by half or
more in some cases without giving a reason, and in at least one case, allowed a
board member to recommend a penalty for his own company when his son was the
pilot in the complaint.
JoAnna Johnson was an eighth-grader in 1997, practicing
cheerleading moves in her front yard when a plane spraying for boll weevils
passed over her house, dousing her with pesticide.
She and a friend who was nearby spent the next 24 hours in
the local hospital pale, sweating and with stomach cramps, she said. Since the
incident, JoAnna, now 17, has had severe migraines, although doctors can't say
for certain the two are connected.
When the Agricultural Aviation Board reviewed the case in
April 1997, it issued a fine of $125. The same day, the board issued three fines
totaling $7,000 to another pilot who contaminated a catfish pond.
"Does that mean these kids are worth (about) $60
each?" said Sandra Johnson, JoAnna's mother.
The pilot who sprayed JoAnna and her friend worked for
Boyle Flying Service, owned by Bern Prewitt. Prewitt, then a member of the
Agricultural Aviation Board, has since become its chairman.
Prewitt said he did not cast a vote in the case.
"That's like the fox guarding the henhouse,"
Sandra Johnson said. "There has to be a better way to regulate what's going
on with these folks."
But Prewitt argues that no one understands the technical
details of the industry better than the operators of the planes.
"We understand how our equipment operates and how to
determine when somebody is at fault," Prewitt said.
Inconsistent fines
The Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly
chastised the board for handing down wildly inconsistent penalties that are too
low to discourage future carelessness.
"AAB correspondence to the respondent typically uses
the term '...after careful consideration...' In some of the drift cases reviewed
by EPA this statement would not apply," regulators told the board in 1998.
In January 2000, EPA noted some of the problems with the
board's fines were caused by "simple arithmetic errors." In a letter
to then-Bureau of Plant Industry head Robert McCarty, federal regulators said
that problem had been solved because "a calculator is now being used to
double check the math."
EPA is threatening to take away the board's authority to
enforce federal laws and a recent report to the Legislature recommends
disbanding the board when its charter comes up for renewal in 2004.
"I don't think they're going to stop until they have
our head on a post," said board member Rudy Holcomb. "We've done
everything EPA has asked us to do, and it seems like the harder we try, the
worse we get."
The board's penalties are not abnormally low compared to
neighboring states. The Louisiana Agriculture Department handed out two fines
last year for pesticide drift, both for $500. The fines levied in Tennessee last
year ranged from notices of warning to $750.
Last year, the Agricultural Aviation Board of Mississippi
levied six fines with an average fine of $947. The board also dismissed four
cases and issued one warning notice.
But critics say the fines are based more on politics and
self-interest than the best interests of the public.
The majority of states give authority over pesticide
regulations to their agriculture departments, an option the state Legislative
Committee for Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review recommended to the
Legislature.
"I disagree with that," Holcomb said. "I
think we do an adequate job of policing ourselves."
When a case arose last year involving Holcomb Aerial
Service, owned by board member Rudy Holcomb, he participated in the discussion
and voted on the penalty, even though the pilot was his own son.
In that case, 18 residents complained that Holcomb's son,
Karl, harmed their flower beds by dumping pesticide on them. Holcomb's vote was
averaged in with those of other board members, for a total fine of $875, which
Holcomb paid.
It is not known what penalty Holcomb recommended, since
only the final average penalty is kept on record, not the individual penalty
sheets filled out by each board member.
Holcomb said his casting a vote in the case was "an
honest mistake." He said he did not want to bias other board members by
recusing himself, which would make it obvious that the case involved his
company.
Complaints are generally investigated by the Bureau of
Plant Industry and then presented to the board for action with no names or
identifying information attached to eliminate the possibility of bias.
Holcomb said he had arranged with the board's secretary to
turn in his penalty sheet but have it left out when she computed the final
average, but somehow it got averaged in anyway.
"When somebody dug around and found out about it, it
became a big deal," he said. "I screwed up, and I feel bad about
it."
Betty Petty, a community activist in Indianola, has said
the board's conflicts of interest have left them out of touch with the damage
being caused in many poor, black communities near the fields.
"A lot of the rules are being violated, and if
everyone was held accountable, we would not be having the problems we are
having," Petty said.
She has called for a complete halt to the spraying near
residential areas, which often lie only yards away from row crops in the Delta.
But almost any change would be an improvement, she said.
"I think there could be some positive change if EPA or
whoever steps in is accountable to the best interests of the community,"
Petty said.
Fines slashed
Cases that come before the Agricultural Aviation Board of
Mississippi are rated on a penalty matrix, with five categories being scored
from one to four. The categories include human harm, environmental harm and
culpability. The total score on the matrix determines a range for the penalty, a
system designed to make penalties more consistent.
But though the ratings go up to 20 and fines can range up
to $25,000, The highest fine issued in the past five years is $2,200. Any case
that scores a nine or higher out of 20 on the matrix has a minimum penalty of
$2,500.
In 1997, three cases against Leist Air Service with a total
penalty of $7,000 were reduced after the fact by almost 54 percent. A $650 fine
for pesticide drift that led to a fish kill that same year was later reduced to
$300, with the following explanation given: "it could not be determined if
the fish were killed by the material applied...or whether it was an act of
God."
Another operator was fined $1,540, with the fine later
reduced to $500.
"EPA finds a reduction of this magnitude baseless and
arbitrary," a 1998 review stated.
Since then, the board has reduced or dismissed several
other penalties in what are called informal settlement conferences.
Prewitt said the ability to mitigate fines is important
because, since the cases are presented without knowledge of the parties
involved, the defendants must be allowed to present additional evidence after
the initial determination.
He added the amount of the fine issued is not the most
important part of the penalty. For operators who are continually cited,
insurance rates go up and eventually insurance carriers will drop the companies,
he said.
In another case, the EPA noted that gravity matrix values
of 0, 2, 3, 0 and 1 were added by a board member for a total of 4, instead of
the correct total of 6.
Edwin Dyess, the head of the state Bureau of Plant
Industry, is the only member of the board who does not own a crop dusting
company. While he would not criticize the board's performance, he said he often
disagrees with the other members on fines for drifting pesticide.
"My assessments are usually higher than theirs,"
Dyess said.
When Gov. Ronnie Musgrove got a letter from EPA last week
about the agency's intent to remove the board's authority over federal pesticide
rules, he responded by asking DEQ Pollution Control Director Phil Bass to look
into the situation and report back.
"I hope the state will stand by us," Prewitt
said.
Bass, in turn, says that whether or not the board continues
to exist in its current form, one goal of negotiations with EPA will be to keep
federal regulators from intervening in Mississippi the way they did earlier in
the decade to enforce the Clean Water Act.
One possibility would be to hand the board's duties over to
the Bureau of Plant Industry, he said. The bureau already regulates
hormone-included pesticides and those applied by land, and nearly every other
state delegates pesticide enforcement to their agriculture department.
The report by the Legislature's Performance Evaluation and
Expenditure Review Committee issued June 11 offered similar advice. Dyess said
his agency could do the job by hiring one additional person who would handle
testing and licensing the pilots.
While Dyess said he wasn't interested in muscling into the
board's turf, he noted it wouldn't be much of a change since the bureau already
takes and investigates the complaints.
"We do all the work relative to that now, except
issuing the fines," he said.
The state has 90 days from May 31 to respond to EPA's
ultimatum. Musgrove can request a hearing or plan to meet with federal
regulators and devise a mutually agreeable solution. Bass said officials will be
using the 90-day window to work on a plan that will keep enforcement on the
state level.
The final settlement that is reached may be affected by
whom President Bush nominates to head EPA Region IV, which includes Mississippi.
The office is currently headed by Stan Meiburg, a Clinton-era official. One of
the candidates for the post is Jimmy Palmer, former head of the Mississippi
Department of Environmental Quality.
Neither EPA officials nor members of the Agriculture
Aviation Board would speculate about how such an appointment might affect
negotiations.
"What needs to happen is a plan that will let EPA stay
in Atlanta and allow Mississippians to regulate Mississippi," Bass said.
Source url: http://www.clarionledger.com/news/0106/25/m01.html
Well Mr. Helliker, throughout my entire 35 year career as a pest control operator, I have watched the "good old boys regulate" themselves. No one from the State ever inspected the many hundreds of thousands of POISON applications my own company made. Plumbers, electricians and carpenters have ALL of their work inspected before people come in contact with their work - yet the the POISON applicator's work occcasionally may be "inspected" (long after) someone makes a complaint. Would you like to comment on this rather alarming fact?
Respectfully, Stephen L. TvedtenIf you would like to be included in our mailing list for continuing information on pesticides, Email Us. with "subscribe" in the subject line.