Ag-Mart denies charges

Despite setbacks, state isn't giving up on pesticide case

RALEIGH -- State officials once said tomato grower Ag-Mart was the worst pesticide violator in state history, routinely forcing workers to labor in fields freshly sprayed with toxic chemicals and possibly causing deformities in their children.

Now, the state Department of Agriculture is fighting to keep alive a weakened case against the Florida company, which grows 700 acres of tomatoes in Brunswick County.

On Tuesday, company officials were called before an administrative law judge to answer charges that they harvested tomatoes too soon after spraying pesticides, misused or overused chemicals, illegally burned pesticide containers and failed to provide safety supplies and proper training for workers.

However, the heart of the case against the company -- the allegations that the company endangered workers, including three women who bore children with severe birth defects -- was missing from the two-day hearing, which began Monday.

In January, a judge threw out almost all the worker safety charges, saying the state didn't have enough evidence. And this week, another judge threw out the statements of a worker who said that pesticides often sickened him while he worked in the fields, because the state failed to bring him to court.

That left the agriculture department, which oversees pesticide enforcement, with about 100 charges that carry a maximum of about $20,000 in fines, far below the original fine of $184,500 for 369 violations.

State agriculture officials say they still believe Ag-Mart purposely ignored state pesticide laws. Barry Bloch, an assistant attorney general who is representing the agriculture department, said the remaining charges against Ag-Mart "demonstrate a pattern of cutting corners."

An agriculture department inspector, Patrick Farquhar, testified that he saw workers in a field which company records show had been treated with pesticides the same day. He also saw work taking place on a farm with no decontamination facilities, which allow workers to quickly rinse their eyes or change their clothes if exposed to pesticides. He saw a site where pesticide containers were burned, which is prohibited in North Carolina. He also discovered that an unqualified trainer was teaching employees who handled pesticides.

Officials with Ag-Mart said the majority of the charges resulted from misunderstandings and negligent state investigators. Mitch Armbruster, a lawyer for Ag-Mart, called the state's case "a witch hunt against Ag-Mart."

He argued that the state misinterpreted the company's documents. For instance, a record that said pesticides were applied from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. meant only that they were applied some time during the day, after workers left the fields. He said agriculture officials never talked with Ag-Mart about the documents upon which they based much of their investigation.

Company President Don Long and North Carolina manager Jeff Oxley said that tomatoes were harvested too soon after pesticide applications only because they calculated the waiting period differently. The company's lawyers pointed out that the company's tomatoes passed three tests for pesticide residue.

They said workers at one farm didn't have proper decontamination facilities because the farm manager was late in getting them installed. And they said they used training approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, not realizing North Carolina had more stringent rules.