CORRECTION

A front-page story Saturday gave incorrect dates for the suspension of Edward Owens' pesticide applicator license. Owens' license will be suspended from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31.

******

Violators of North Carolina's pesticide laws have sprayed homes, cars and waterways with toxic chemicals. They have endangered human health, killed animals and fish, and left containers coated with poisonous residue lying beside busy roads.

A review of state pesticide enforcement records shows that violators rarely pay more than a few hundred dollars for their illegal acts. Some violators pay small fines over and over, and continue applying pesticides with the state's blessing -- even when they have illegally sprayed cars and homes with toxic chemicals.

Now, the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which oversees pesticide enforcement, is wrangling with Florida-based tomato grower Ag-Mart over its punishment for 369 violations of pesticide law. The company is accused of exposing hundreds of workers to a host of poisonous chemicals, and state health officials are investigating whether those pesticides caused severe birth defects in some workers' babies.

With the case under scrutiny from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the media, Agriculture officials are asking for a record $184,500 fine. Department records show that, even if Ag-Mart pays only a small fraction of that, the case would be an aberration for an enforcement system that uses a light hand to regulate the use of dangerous chemicals.

The department oversees about 35,000 pesticide applicators in North Carolina. The most the state has collected in fines in any of the past five years is $34,500.

Eighty-five percent of the 172 fines issued since the beginning of 2002 were less than $1,000. Nine licenses to apply pesticides were briefly suspended during that time.

"We are doing everything we can," said Jim Burnette, head of the Agriculture Department's pesticide section. "Can you ever stop it all? No, I don't think you can."

Burnette's section investigates all pesticide violations and negotiates settlements. Nineteen inspectors do more than 10,000 routine inspections a year. They also investigate a few hundred each a year. Burnette said that's all they can do with a budget that has been cut 20 percent since 2000. Less than 3 percent of inspections reveal problems, the section's 2005 records show. When violations are found, most are handled with a warning that carries no penalty. Less than one-half of 1 percent of inspections result in a fine.

How board operates

The Pesticide Board, whose members are appointed by the governor, approves every sanction. The board includes employees of several state agencies, farm and pesticide industry representatives and at-large members.

The board has taken the attitude that big fines hurt small farmers -- though it also regulates large companies that run farms, sell chemicals or apply pesticides for pay.

"We don't need Big Brother there looking over every operation," said Scott Whitford, a farmer from Grantsboro in Pamlico County, chairman of the board. "With farmers, the profit margin is small, and they can't stand a lot of fines." Whitford said farmers follow the law because they don't want to damage their land or waste expensive chemicals.

Until recently, in cases that could not be settled without a hearing, the board refused to fine farmers more than $500 -- no matter how many laws were broken. The board said that was all the law allowed.

"We had some cases where people got $300 and $400 fines, and they did damage to the environment and put people's health at risk and everything else," said Benson Kirkman, a Raleigh conservationist who has been on the board for 10 years.

The board's practice changed after Robin Smith, an assistant secretary at the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources, joined the board and said she had never seen the law interpreted that way in any other regulatory agency.

Since mid-2004, the board's policy has been to fine up to $500 for each violation, not each case.

Since that change, fines have increased slightly.

In 2005, 14 percent of fines were $1,000 or more, compared with 9 percent in 2003.

A sampling of the board's cases from the past few years illustrates how violators are punished:

* Edward Owens, a Raeford pilot who owns a crop-dusting business, has been found guilty of five violations since 1998, according to records supplied this week by the Agriculture Department. News reports show he has other violations and suspensions that date from the 1980s.

Twice in the past eight years he was accused of spraying people's cars while they drove. At least once, the victim suffered serious health problems. In each case, the board fined Owens between $500 and $1,800 and allowed him to continue spraying. On a more recent occasion, in 2005, his license was suspended three months.

* In 2001, several Nash County residents complained of burning eyes, noses and throats, and county emergency officials announced a voluntary evacuation from the neighborhood. Inspectors found that an employee of one of the state's largest farming companies, Dale Bone Farms, sprayed toxic chemicals too close to wells and houses. The farm settled for $500.

* In 2004, after a Robeson County man complained of pesticide exposure, investigators found that a crop duster had sprayed too close to the man's house and to a road. The pilot settled for $500.

* The biggest settlement in the past few years was $2,700. In that case, settled in February 2005, a Florida company maintaining billboards on Interstate 95 sent unlicensed pesticide applicators to spray weeds. They damaged trees in a public right of way, carried pesticides in unlabeled containers and left empty containers beside the road.

A victim's perspective

Judilyn Knight, a former mail carrier from Fayetteville, has seen the state's enforcement in action.

In 2002, Knight was driving her route in rural Hoke County when Owens' crop duster flew overhead. Her windows were down, and she said she was soaked with foul-smelling liquid.

At once, her skin itched, her throat swelled, she felt confused and sick, Knight said. Within the next few weeks, Knight said, her symptoms worsened. Doctors didn't know what to do.

Knight, 43, said she now has a permanent brain injury from the pesticide exposure. She can no longer work or drive. She spends many of her days in bed.

Kaye Kilburn, a Los Angeles doctor who studies the effects of chemicals on the brain, examined Knight. He said having seen similar effects in other patients, pesticide exposure is the only explanation for Knight's problems.

Knight's husband, who retired before she got sick, returned to work as a trucker to make up for her lost salary. Their 18-year-old daughter watched her mother deteriorate. "It has just basically destroyed my life," Knight said.

State pesticide inspectors found that Owens sprayed a cocktail of three pesticides over the highway Knight was traveling. At the time, Owens was already a repeat violator with several violations over two decades. He settled the state's investigation of the Knight case in 2003 for $1,500. Knight is now suing Owens in state court.

Since the incident with Knight, Owens has paid settlements to the state in two more cases.

In September 2004, he was accused of dousing a couple's car as they drove. He settled for $1,800. And in October 2004, he was accused of allowing pesticides to drift onto a house. He paid a $1,200 fine and had his license suspended for three months, beginning Jan. 10 of this year. By the time crops are in the ground, Owens will be legal to spray again.

Other pilots flying for Owens' company have paid fines four times since 1998. Efforts to reach Owens failed this week.

Critics say North Carolina's pesticide enforcers are unequipped to deal with flagrant violators.

"For the most part, farms are big industrial operations, and they're run like factories," said Fawn Pattison, director of the N.C. Agricultural Resources Center, which opposes pesticide use. "But we don't regulate them that way."