MACOMB -- On May 19, 2011, ten senior citizens, including my husband, were playing golf at the Western Illinois University golf course, when a crop-duster airplane flew nearby to spray a wheat field. The spray drifted onto the golf course, spraying them and everyone else on the course.
They could smell it. They could feel it. They were furious.
It was a windy day. The plane's pilot should not have been spraying, they believed.
My husband filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Agriculture, which supposedly regulates pesticide drift. Others offered to complain but were not contacted.
He also bagged his clothing -- which we still have -- and scrubbed thoroughly in the shower, hoping that will save him from a future illness.
The Agriculture Department duly investigated the complaint, and decided that because the official average wind speed was not quite high enough, their was no violation. They didn't test the best evidence, the clothing.
They know who did the spraying, but nothing happened to them. No fines, no warning.
They interviewed the golf course manager, who verified the complaint. No matter.
On June 23, the bureau chief of the Illinois Agr. Dept., Warren Goetsch, signed the letter. It states:
"The Department's representative could not verify evidence to substantiate the claim of pesticide misuse. No evidence was available to definitely indicate that drift had occurred."
Case closed. The Agr. Dept. didn't want to find evidence.
Others who were sprayed, except for the golf course manager, were not interviewed. The clothing was not tested for the real evidence of pesticide drift. The letter doesn't mention any avenue of appeal. Apparently there is none.
And so pesticides continue to pollute our environment, endangering the health of countless people, and the state (and federal) government does nothing to prevent it except complain about subsequent medical bills.
Think of this the next time a crop duster sprays you or your car, or the next time pesticide is sprayed along a bridge or near a waterway (it surely will drain into the water), or the state and federal regulators ignore high levels of pesticides or other harmful substances in public water supplies or in the air we breathe.
We are slowly being poisoned, and the state of Illinois doesn't care. Likewise the federal government and Congress, which wants to weaken already weak environmental laws.
Politicians find it easier to complain about the medical bills and tax the public to pay for them than regulate the pollution of agribusiness, the source of campaign contributions and lobbying.
How sad, how terrible.
-- Elaine Hopkins
I've been sprayed before and have contacted, with no luck the Dept of Ag. Actually the best, marginally better, people to contact is the FAA. I can tell you that the aircraft applicator would have to spray you ten times in ten weeks before the Dept of Ag would do anything and then it would only be a small fine. It's been that way for years.
Posted by: Steve Waterworth | June 28, 2011 at 06:17 PM
I think it too bad that your husband was sprayed, but I find it a tad ironic that you are complaining about the use of pesticides (and other chemicals) while your husband is golfing - a past time that requires a tremendous amount of pesticide and chemicals.
Posted by: Sud O. Nym | June 28, 2011 at 10:58 PM
Chemicals have their place at the right time in the right amount. Just not on the human body or in your lungs. There's also a problem with chemicals applied by airplanes and that is the additional chemicals called surficants and ions that make the chemical more effective, more deadly. I was hit by a crop duster that made me sick, momentarily blind and unable to drive. If I'd had a health problem I'm sure I would have died.
Posted by: Steve Waterworth | June 29, 2011 at 06:37 PM
While visiting friends this morning a crop dusting aerial sprayer flew directly over their house and me at about 150 feet and 100 miles an hour. The lady is going to, maybe, call the FAA and make a complaint. That kind of flying can't be legal. No chemicals hit us though.
Posted by: Steve Waterworth | July 07, 2011 at 09:51 PM
They're spraying japanese beetles right beside my house at this very moment. Just flew directly over head. There he went. I've been sprayed so many times I stay in when they're flying around.
Posted by: Steve Waterworth | July 10, 2011 at 12:59 PM