SERIOUS PESTICIDES VIOLATIONS BY MAJOR TOMATO PRODUCER AND RECORD - HIGH PENALTY
Christiane Tourtet B.A.
February 13, 2009
According to Mark N. Mauriello acting Commissioner for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, a corporate tomato grower, Ag-Mart Produce Inc, which has its headquarter in Cedarville, Cumberland County, faces more than $ 931,000 penalty for jeopardizing the safety and health of workers, misusing pesticides in its New Jersey packing houses and farm fields. DEP in its enforcement action, cites the company with hundred of violations, including, losing track of a highly toxic insecticide, failing to post important-safety information and to properly ventilate areas during pesticides use, for workers, using forbidden mixture of pesticides, careless recordkeeping, and denying access to facilities to state environmental inspectors.
Ag-Mart Produce, markets its tomatoes under the brand name "Santa Sweets", and employs in New Jersey 700 people throughout 17 farms locations. The company also owns and operate other produce farms in Florida, North Carolina, and Mexico. DEP Commissioner Mark Mauriello
said: " Ag-Mart has repeatedly shown a stunning disregard of laws and regulations intended to protect the workers who harvest their tomatoes, the people who consume them and New Jersey environment. Ag-Mart´s pesticides violations are the most serious DEP inspectors have ever uncovered. We have imposed a record - high penalty not only to hold Ag-Mart accountable for their failure, but to make sure that it does not happen again".
DEP orders to fully comply with all pesticides laws and the fine of
931, 250 are due to a series of inspections at farm properties of Ag-Mart
during the years 2005, 2006, and 2007, interviews with Ag-Mart employees, and a review of corporate records. In May 2006, Ag-Mart Produce barred an environmental inspector from DEP, from inspecting facilities and even forced the state inspector to wait several hours before allowing access to
a portion of a packing house, which was not at issue. DEP Commissioner Mark Mauriello said: "Deliberately denying DEP inspectors the right to
enter and inspect their agricultural operations is an egregious offense because it impedes our ability to protect employees and the public from pesticide misuse" .
The investigation of the corporate farm and of its operations, revealed numerous significant offenses, including the company ´s failure to keep under lock and key an extremely toxic insecticide known as " monitor", the failure of Ag-Mart to account for the 2.5 gallon container of the insecticide,
applying pesticides much more frequently than allowed by law, failing to provide adequate ventilation for the vapors of chlorine in the tomato packing house, which affected three inspectors from DEP during a visit at the site. The inspectors also discovered that on 17 occasions, Ag-Mart, had harvested prematurely pesticide-treated crops, potentially exposing unsuspecting consumers to illegal pesticide residues in the market place, and that the company has failed to accurately and adequately document pesticide use in its fields. DEP inspectors, after going over records from the years 2004 and 2005, found that the documents were missing critical information such as the accurate time pesticides were applied and employees could be allowed to re-enter safely the treated areas, as well as the size of the treated areas and the name of the pesticide applicator. Let´s hope that this will never occur again, and that the actions taken by New Jersey DEP, will act as a deterrent for other companies who may be inclined to make numerous and serious violations.
Reference:
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection ( NIDEP).
© 2009 Christiane Tourtet . All rights reserved
Ag-Mart Produce, markets its tomatoes under the brand name "Santa Sweets", and employs in New Jersey 700 people throughout 17 farms locations. The company also owns and operate other produce farms in Florida, North Carolina, and Mexico. DEP Commissioner Mark Mauriello
said: " Ag-Mart has repeatedly shown a stunning disregard of laws and regulations intended to protect the workers who harvest their tomatoes, the people who consume them and New Jersey environment. Ag-Mart´s pesticides violations are the most serious DEP inspectors have ever uncovered. We have imposed a record - high penalty not only to hold Ag-Mart accountable for their failure, but to make sure that it does not happen again".
DEP orders to fully comply with all pesticides laws and the fine of
931, 250 are due to a series of inspections at farm properties of Ag-Mart
during the years 2005, 2006, and 2007, interviews with Ag-Mart employees, and a review of corporate records. In May 2006, Ag-Mart Produce barred an environmental inspector from DEP, from inspecting facilities and even forced the state inspector to wait several hours before allowing access to
a portion of a packing house, which was not at issue. DEP Commissioner Mark Mauriello said: "Deliberately denying DEP inspectors the right to
enter and inspect their agricultural operations is an egregious offense because it impedes our ability to protect employees and the public from pesticide misuse" .
The investigation of the corporate farm and of its operations, revealed numerous significant offenses, including the company ´s failure to keep under lock and key an extremely toxic insecticide known as " monitor", the failure of Ag-Mart to account for the 2.5 gallon container of the insecticide,
applying pesticides much more frequently than allowed by law, failing to provide adequate ventilation for the vapors of chlorine in the tomato packing house, which affected three inspectors from DEP during a visit at the site. The inspectors also discovered that on 17 occasions, Ag-Mart, had harvested prematurely pesticide-treated crops, potentially exposing unsuspecting consumers to illegal pesticide residues in the market place, and that the company has failed to accurately and adequately document pesticide use in its fields. DEP inspectors, after going over records from the years 2004 and 2005, found that the documents were missing critical information such as the accurate time pesticides were applied and employees could be allowed to re-enter safely the treated areas, as well as the size of the treated areas and the name of the pesticide applicator. Let´s hope that this will never occur again, and that the actions taken by New Jersey DEP, will act as a deterrent for other companies who may be inclined to make numerous and serious violations.
Reference:
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection ( NIDEP).
© 2009 Christiane Tourtet . All rights reserved
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