The government continues to let farmers spread a controversial pesticide on the state’s apple orchards, even though it has admitted the chemical may pose unacceptable health risks to farmworkers and their children, according to a lawsuit being filed today.
Farmworker advocates are suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), claiming the agency re-authorized the use of the powerful insecticide called chlorpyrifos before fully understanding how it may harm those who spray it on fruit orchards and vegetable fields.
“This stuff is really bad,” said Carol Dansereau, executive director of the Farm Worker Pesticide Project, an advocacy group based in Seattle and Yakima. […]