The Obama administration will unveil a proposal Friday to clean up gasoline and automobile emissions, a step that officials say will result in cleaner air across the U.S. and slightly higher prices at the pump.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the rule to reduce sulfur in gasoline and tighten emissions standards on cars beginning in 2017 could increase gas prices by less than a penny per gallon and add $130 to the cost of a vehicle in 2025.

But the agency says it will yield billions of dollars in health benefits by slashing smog- and soot-forming pollution come 2030.

The oil industry, Republicans and some Democrats had pressed the EPA to delay the rule, citing higher costs. An oil industry study says the rule could increase gasoline prices by 6 to 9 cents per gallon.

The so-called Tier 3 standards would reduce sulfur in gasoline by more than 60 percent and reduce nitrogen oxides by 80 percent, by expanding across the country a standard already in place in California. For states, the regulation will make it easier to comply with health-based standards for the main ingredient in smog and soot. For automakers, the regulation allows them to sell the same autos in all 50 states.

Environmentalists hailed the proposal as potentially the most significant in President Barack Obama's second term.

The Obama administration has already moved to clean up motor vehicles by adopting rules that will double fuel efficiency and putting in place the first-ever standards to reduce the pollution blamed for global warming from cars and trucks.

"We know of no other air pollution control strategy that can achieve such substantial, cost-effective and immediate emission reductions," said Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. Becker said the rule would reduce pollution equal to taking 33 million cars off the road.

But the head of American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, Charles Drevna, said in an interview Thursday that the refiners' group was still unclear on the motives behind the agency's regulation, since refining companies have already spent $10 billion to reduce sulfur by 90 percent. The additional cuts, while smaller, will cost just as much, Drevna said, and the energy needed for the additional refining could actually increase carbon pollution by 1 to 2 percent.

"I haven't seen an EPA rule on fuels that has come out since 1995 that hasn't said it would cost only a penny or two more," Drevna said.

A study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute estimated that lowering the sulfur in gasoline would add 6 to 9 cents per gallon to refiners' manufacturing costs, an increase that would likely be passed down to consumers at the pump. The EPA estimate of less than 1 cent is also an additional manufacturing cost and likely to be passed on.

A senior administration official said Thursday that only 16 of 111 refineries would need to invest in major equipment to meet the new standards, which could be final by the end of this year. Of the remaining refineries, 29 already are meeting the standards because they are selling cleaner fuel in California or other countries, and 66 would have to make modifications.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the rule was still undergoing White House budget office review.

Sean Gardner / Reuters

Barges sit along the banks of the Mississippi River in Vicksburg, Mississippi in this file photo taken May 13, 2011. Fifty-five percent of river and stream lengths are in poor condition for aquatic life, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Tuesday in an unprecedented survey of U.S. Waterways.

WASHINGTON — Fifty-five percent of U.S. river and stream lengths were in poor condition for aquatic life, largely under threat from runoff contaminated by fertilizers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday.

High levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, runoff from urban areas, shrinking ground cover and pollution from mercury and bacteria were putting the 1.2 million miles of streams and rivers surveyed under stress, the EPA said.

"This new science shows that America's streams and rivers are under significant pressure," Nancy Stone, acting administrator of the EPA's Office of Water, said in a statement.

Twenty-one percent of the United States' river and stream length was in good biological condition, down from 27 percent in 2004, according to the survey, carried out in 2008 and 2009 at almost 2,000 sites.

Twenty-three percent was in fair condition and 55 percent was in poor condition, the survey showed. The finding uses an index that combines measures for aquatic life, such as crayfish and water insects.

Of the three major climatic regions surveyed - eastern highlands, plains and lowlands, and the west - the west was in the best shape, with 42 percent of stream and river length in good condition.

In the eastern highlands and the plains and lowlands, 17 percent and 16 percent of waterway length respectively was in good condition.

By far the most widespread stress factor was phosphorus and nitrogen, which are used in fertilizer. Forty percent of river and stream length had high levels of phosphorus and 28 percent had high levels of nitrogen, the report said.

Risk levels of mercury in fish tissue were exceeded in 13,144 miles of rivers. Streams were not surveyed. In 9 percent of river and stream length, samples for enterococci bacteria topped levels for protecting human health.

Federal, state and tribal researchers carried out the survey at sites ranging from the Mississippi River to mountain streams.

Julio Cortez / AP

Wind blows through a tarp hanging from a fence surrounding an industrial site in Garfield, N.J. where toxic chromium was spilled in 1983.

Scientists plan to check toenail clippings in Garfield, New Jersey, to determine if residents were exposed to a toxic metal made infamous in California by environmental activist Erin Brockovich.

Chromium, linked to lung cancer, leaked from the now-demolished EC Electroplating Inc. factory and polluted groundwater in a 1983 incident.

Located 12 miles west of New York City, the area is on the federal Superfund list of hazardous waste sites. Some 30,000 people live in Garfield.

"Concentrations in the groundwater, et cetera, are very high," Judith Zelikoff, a professor of environmental medicine at the New York University School of Medicine, told Reuters on Monday.

In the 1983 incident, more than 3,600 gallons of a chemical solution containing chromium were discharged from a tank at the factory, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The solution got into the groundwater, which flows toward the Passaic River, about 2,500 feet west of the site.

The city's drinking water comes from a different source and is not contaminated.

The plume is about three quarters of a mile long and slightly more than an eighth of a mile wide, said Rich Puvogel, a project manager with the EPA.

Detecting chromium in groundwater, soil and homes does not necessarily mean that people were exposed, Zelikoff said.

"We hope to be able to relieve their anxiety," said Zelikoff, noting that scientists will begin recruiting volunteers for the toenail clippings within the next three weeks.

Toenails grow slowly and may help to detect chronic exposure, she said.

Very high levels of chromium were found at the factory - approximately 80,000 parts per billion, Puvogel said. Downstream from the site, the levels drop off by several orders of magnitude, he said. New Jersey sets a limit of 70 parts per billion.

The residents' exposure would have come from inhaling or touching chromium that had seeped into their basements, especially during flooding.

"When the water dries, it also leaves a chromium dust residue," Zelikoff said.

Inhaled chromium is a carcinogen that increases the risk of lung cancer, according to the EPA.

Scientists, who became aware of the contamination last year, want to test up to 250 residents, including some who live directly above the plume and a control group living at least three miles away, Zelikoff said.

Residents who agree to submit toenail clippings will receive kits containing stainless-steel clippers and instructions. They must be between 18 and 65 and cannot have taken chromium supplements or be smokers.

Last year the EPA removed more than 753 containers and drums of industrial waste from the factory and 6,100 gallons of chromium-contaminated water. The building was demolished in October.

Next week the agency will start sampling the soil at the site to determine what sources of contamination remain. 

Erin Brockovich, a law firm assistant turned campaigner, rallied residents in a California desert town to sue Pacific Gas & Electric over a pollution incident - a battle that formed the basis for a 2000 movie in her name starring Julia Roberts.

Some residents who live around Moffett Federal Airfield near Mountain View, Calif., say they are scared. Others say they’re not worried at all.

Depending on whom you talk to, the Environmental Protection Agency’s findings of higher than expected levels of TCE in the air and in the groundwater near the Mountain View property is either a cause for big concern or no big deal.

But one thing is certain. Everyone is talking about the new test results from the EPA showing a presence of toxic chemicals in the air and in the groundwater in and around the Middlefield, Ellis, Whisman (or M-E-W) Superfund site.

According to the EPA, the underground Superfund site include a wide variety of toxic chemicals including PCE and vinyl chloride, chemicals left over from the budding semi-conductor industry that got its start in the buildings along Middlefield and Whisman Roads and Ellis Street.

The chemical of most concern and most quantity in the toxic underground plume is a chemical called trichloroethylene, known as TCE. It's a cleaning solvent once commonly used by the military and the budding semi-conducting industry 30 years ago.

The EPA says that TCE is a toxic solvent that causes cancer in people and heart deformities in unborn babies. According to EPA experts the toxic plume has been lurking underground for decades ever since nascent semi-conductor companies apparently dumped or allowed TCE and other chemicals to leak into the ground.

According to EPA officials the United States military also used TCE to clean airplanes and vehicles during that same time period.

The plume extends from under the runway at Moffett Field a mile and a half south and west under Highway 101 and past Middlefield Road. To the north it goes to Whisman Road and south to just past Ellis Street.

The plume of mostly TCE is believed by EPA investigators to be about a half-mile wide at its widest point.

After NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit began asking questions in April 2012 about possible health effects of the TCE plumes, the Cancer Prevention Institute of California (CPIC) opened its own probe.

After exhaustive research and analysis of three decades worth of health data, California’s state cancer registry announced that it found a higher than expected number of people living in neighborhood surrounding the M-E-W Superfund site who had contracted a group of cancers the registry’s scientists call non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The higher than expected incidence of these cancers occurred during the years 1996 to 2005.

NBC Bay Area

Now the EPA admits that until recently it had somehow missed some “hot spots” of higher than acceptable levels of TCE in groundwater and in the air in several homes and more than 20 commercial buildings in the area. Two of the hotspots were found by EPA investigators along Evandale Avenue outside the original plume area.

That concerns some residents who live on that road. Residents like Theresa Larrieu, who has lived in a home along Evandale with her family for a quarter century. Larrieu said that the family always knew the M-E-W Superfund was nearby but figured it didn’t directly affect them since it wasn’t right next door. The Superfund site was far enough away, Larrieu thought, to be present but not an impact on her family’s health or life. Now, with these new EPA test results, the TCE plumes appears to actually be right next door and it may even be under Larrieu’s home. The EPA has conducted air, water and soil tests in and around the home but the results have not come back as of this writing.

Larrieu says she's worried and is holding her breath waiting on the results of those air and water sample tests the EPA took from her home. “Scared. Nervous. Worried. Very worried,” Larrieu said when asked to describe her emotions. “(There’s) way more suspense than I need in my life.”

“Your first thought is your health, is this affecting us is this affecting other neighbors that I know had health issues,” said Larrieu.

The EPA shares Larrieu’s concerns and M-E-W Superfund Site manager Alana Lee emphasizes they are working hard to address and clean up the mess. “We cleaned up over 5 1/4 billion gallons of contaminated water and over 110,000 pounds of toxic contaminant,” said Lee.

But Lee also said that the EPA also missed these hot spots of TCE both in groundwater and in the air inside some buildings along Evandale Avenue including two homes outside the original plume area.

“The concentration (found there) is very high,” said Lee, “A very high concentration.”

How high?

According to documents from test results, the highest TCE levels that the EPA measured in ground water in the area reached 130,000 parts per billion. The EPA considers anything over 5 parts per billion unsafe.

In the commercial buildings nearby, including two now occupied by Google, EPA tests found TCE in the air at levels 26 times higher than the level considered by the EPA to be acceptable and safe.

“Once we found these concentrations, which were a surprise, we took immediate action,” said Lee.

EPA

Bruce Panchal’s home is one of the two houses located on Evandale where the EPA found high levels of TCE. The companies responsible for the toxic chemical cleanup installed a series of four pipes in and around his home to ventilate the toxic TCE fumes leeching from the ground away from the house’s interior to the outside.

Even so Panchal said he’s not worried. “They found a high concentration and with the system it pumps out all the fumes so it safe,” said Panchal.

Panchal and his family have lived in his home along Evandale for 45 years. He said he worked for the budding semi-conductor businesses that got their start in his neighborhood. He even said he handled the chemicals now in question and dumped them in the ground back then.

Despite the new contraptions now pumping air away from the inside of his house, he says he isn’t worried about his or his family’s health. “I’m living proof that they have an issue with the fumes but it is not death defying or a detriment to your health,” said Panchal.

EPA officials said they also found high levels of TCE in more than twenty different commercial buildings between Whisman Road and Ellis Street. Included among those buildings are two new office complexes for Google employees where, the EPA says, renovations and construction allowed higher than expected levels of TCE to leech from the ground through the buildings’ concrete slabs and into the air inside.

It is in some of these buildings where EPA investigators found levels of TCE vapors in the interior air that were as much as 26 times higher than acceptable safe levels with air conditioning systems off.

The EPA says it has systems in place in and around those buildings to keep vapors outside.

Google tells us they take this matter seriously and they’ve already taken measures to ensure that the buildings and the work area is safe.

Theresa Larrieu worries that it may be too late to keep her family from feeling the health effects of this toxic plume. She wonders how long they may have been exposed to these vapors and chemicals that went undetected until recently.

“It is scary,” said Larrieu. “I’m very scared. I have children. I have grandchildren.”

Larrieu also remains concerned that not even the EPA can say how long the fumes have been leeching into the neighborhood or how long she and her family have unknowingly been exposed.

When we asked the EPA if they knew exactly how long have these newly discovered TCE hot spots had been there the EPA’s Superfund Site manager Alana Lee said, “We don’t know.”

When we asked whether the toxic chemicals migrate underground or traveled down Evandale Avenue or whether those chemicals had been lurking there underground along with the rest of the toxic plume for decades, Lee had the same answer. “We don’t know.”

The EPA said it will take decades more to clean up this toxic mess.

By Sheila Kaplan and Corbin Hiar
Investigative Reporting Workshop, American University

Millions of Americans may be drinking water that is contaminated with dangerous doses of lead. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) knows it; state governments know it; local utilities know it. The only people who usually don’t know it are those who are actually drinking the toxic water.

The problem stems from a common practice in which water utilities replace sections of deteriorating lead service lines rather than the entire lines, commonly known as partial pipe replacements. It is a course of action that can do more harm than good.

“It’s scary and the magnitude of this problem is huge,” said Dr. Jeffrey K. Griffiths, a Tufts University professor of medicine and public health, who recently chaired an expert panel advising the EPA on the problem.  “I didn’t realize how extensive the lead exposure still remained. … EPA is really deeply concerned about this …. This was not something they expected.”

Since the 1970s, lead has emerged as the most dangerous neurotoxin known to man, potentially damaging the developing brain and nervous system, causing life-long learning disabilities and other serious problems. It has been taken out of gasoline, removed from paint and banned from children’s toys. Yet practices developed to keep lead out of water, under an EPA rule, have backfired and can actually increase the hazard, a fact that led the agency to create Griffith’s group to study the latest science on the issue.

The problem stems from the 1991 Lead and Copper Rule, a regulation designed to protect Americans from the nation’s network of aging
lead water service lines, which connect water mains to customers’ taps. Most of these lead service lines were installed before the devastating effects of this heavy metal were fully accepted. Seeking to reduce the amount of this poisonous metal leaching into drinking water from old lead pipes, the regulation required utilities to test water from local homes for lead. If 10 percent of the samples exceeded 15 parts per billion, the utility was then ordered to try to reduce the lead contamination through chemical corrosion control techniques. If that failed, water utilities had to replace 7 percent of their lead service lines each year, or until follow-up samples showed the lead levels were reduced.

But after a review of recent studies and interviews with dozens of scientists as well as state and federal water officials, the Investigative Reporting Workshop found that the regulation has become a case study in unintended consequences.

“EPA tried to do something good and was thwarted. We should recognize that,” said Dr. Bruce Lanphear, a preeminent lead researcher and professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, who served with Griffiths on the EPA Science Advisory Board’s Drinking Water Committee.

A plan derails
The regulation began to derail as early as 1993, when the American Water Works Association (AWWA), which represents more than 4,000
public and privately-owned water systems, sued EPA. The trade group argued that EPA had adopted the Lead and Copper Rule without proper notice about how it planned to define “control” of — responsibility for — the service lines. The group also claimed that utilities did not have authority to replace the sections of lines on private property, and that ordering them to do so exceeded EPA’s mandate.

A federal appeals court ruled that EPA had, in fact, not provided enough notice for public comment on the issue of control; but the court did not rule on the question of EPA’s authority to require the utilities to replace the portion of the pipes on private property. Following the decision — that the EPA made a procedural error — and after years of industry lobbying, the agency amended its rule in 2000 to permit the utilities to perform so-called “partial pipe replacements,” from the water main to the private property line. In the vast majority of cases, homeowners would be responsible for paying to finish the job.

Few homeowners have done so, to their detriment. As Griffith’s panel wrote in a little-noticed report last year, “[B]ased on the current scientific data, PLSLRs [partial lead service line replacements] have not been shown to reliably reduce drinking water lead levels in the short term, ranging from days to months, and potentially even longer. Additionally, PLSLR is frequently associated with short-term elevated drinking water lead levels for some period of time after replacement, suggesting the potential for harm, rather than benefit, during that time period.” The panel found “the available information is broadly suggestive that PLSLR may pose a risk to the population
…”

How tap water flows
When water leaves a treatment plant, it is usually lead-free.  From the plant, water flows into large pipes, called mains, which are usually made of cast-iron or concrete and run under streets. From the main, water flows through a smaller pipe called a service line, which carries it to the customer’s tap. That service line is where contamination can begin. Lead service lines are found in many states, but are especially common in older neighborhoods in the Midwest and Northeast.  Most water systems stopped installing them in the first half of the last century. And there is generally less lead in water now than in years past.

But, if the service line is made of lead, as are between 3.3 and 6.4 million, according to a recent report from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, fragments of corroded lead can chip off and be swept into tap water. Additional lead can also get in as the water runs across lead-soldered joints or comes into contact with brass or bronze fixtures. Until recently, such hardware was allowed to be advertised as “lead-free,” even if it contained up to 8 percent lead. A federal law reducing the acceptable amount of lead in these plumbing fixtures to .25 percent will take effect in 2014, although Vermont and California have already adopted such rules.

Partial pipe replacements can physically shake loose lead fragments that have built up and laid dormant inside the pipe, pushing them into the homeowners’ water, and spiking the lead levels, even where they previously were not high. In addition, the type of partial replacement that joins old lead pipes to new copper ones, using brass fittings, “spurs galvanic corrosion that can dramatically increase the amount of lead released into drinking water supplies,” according to research from Washington University.  Similar findings have been
published by researchers at the Virginia Tech and elsewhere.

So why are these partial pipe replacements still commonplace? The reason is twofold: Replacing the customer’s portion of the pipe, from the property line or meter to the home, is expensive — averaging $2,300 but going as high as $7,000 or more.

And the Investigative Reporting Workshop found another reason: Notification about the health risk of partial pipe replacement is inconsistent around the country. Residents are not always told that partial pipe replacements have been shown to raise the risk of lead poisoning. It is a fact that might make the cost — and hassle of tearing up one’s lawn and patio or cutting down trees — seem worth it.

Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, ran an investigation into lead-in-water issues last Congress, and has more recently raised concerns about partial lead pipe replacements.

In a letter to EPA last September, Miller wrote, “Under the LCR [Lead and Copper Rule] homeowners are warned in general about the dangers of lead, particularly to young children, babies, pregnant women and their fetuses.” But, he wrote, “they are not notified about the grave impact that ‘partial’ lead line replacements may have and the significant unintended public health risks this partial replacement may pose to their families. … These PLSLRs have cost local water systems tens of millions of dollars and in many cases have elevated, not decreased water lead levels for extended periods of time in cities around the country.”

Miller, citing information from EPA, said at least 38,000 mandatory partial replacements have been completed or are planned in water
systems that serve 1.4 million people — although he said this figure is likely underestimated because of what he called poor reporting by utilities and state agencies and weak tracking by EPA.

One EPA water specialist, who asked not to be named, said there are 100 to 1,000 times more voluntary pipe replacements, which occur
during routine pipe maintenance or emergency repairs on water mains or broken pipes, than there are mandatory ones.

The rule requires water systems that are performing partial pipe replacements under EPA order to inform customers of the risks that their
lead levels might temporarily increase. But the agency provides only “guidance” as to what utilities should say. Adherence to that requirement and interpretations of this suggested language vary widely.

An Investigative Reporting Workshop survey of notifications sent out to customers in the 13 water systems identified by EPA as recently
having done mandatory partial pipe replacements, or still working on them, found that nearly a third of them didn't mention the potential for lead levels to spike after the procedure.

The level of warning the 13 water companies made dropped even further when the same utilities were conducting routine voluntary replacements during roadwork or to fix leaks — essentially the same procedure, but not  ordered under the law. Only around half of the utilities alert residents to the potential for lead levels to spike after a voluntary partial pipe replacement.

Part of the reason these utilities don't give the same warnings when doing basically the same procedure is that they're not required to. EPA offers no guidance for these far more common voluntary partial lead service line replacements done by utilities across the country.

Likely as a result, the vast majority of other U.S. cities that are not under EPA orders to replace their remnant lead pipe systems rarely
give any warnings to their customers about lead levels spiking after they do voluntary partial service line replacements.

The Investigative Reporting Workshop interviewed representatives at the largest utilities in the country by customer base about whether or not they notified customers about the potential for lead spikes after repair work had been done on the public portion of the pipe.  The top five water utilities with lead service lines said that they did not notify customers of the potential health risks after repairs or maintenance. Those utilities are New York City Water Supply System, City of Chicago Department of Water Management, Miami-Dade Water and Wastewater Services, Philadelphia Water Department, and City of Phoenix Water Services Department.  A Phoenix water utility
representative, however, said that lead pipes in their system are extremely rare. 

The Workshop also surveyed other water utilities with lead pipes around the country, many of which do not notify customers about the
potential for harm with the partial pipe replacement.  Denver Water was the only utility we spoke with that indicated they did full pipe replacements of all lead pipes through the customer property to avoid dangerous lead spikes. Madison, Wis., and Washington D.C. warn residents about the potential for lead levels to spike after work on the public portion of their pipes.

In Cincinnati, residents are warned when partial pipe replacements are done, but  not when water mains are being replaced – which also can cause spikes.   After the Workshop raised the issue, Jeff Swertfeger, assistant superintendent of Greater Cincinnati Water Works, said he did not realize that they did not provide this information and that they planned to change their notification to warn of the threat of raised lead levels. Other major cities that said they do not inform residents that lead in their drinking water may reach dangerous levels after a partial pipe replacement are Columbus, Ohio; Boston; St. Louis; Newark, N.J.; Louisville, Ky; New Orleans, and Pittsburgh, Pa.

Although the local water utility in Providence, R.I., stopped doing mandatory partial pipe replacements after the neighborhood of Mount Hope protested, the utility continues to do voluntary replacements for maintenance purposes and does not notify customers about the health risks. 

“If a child drinks from the bathroom tap or water tap,” it can be dangerous, Lanphear said. “Lead in water is usually very bio-available and this is a direct ingestion.” Lanphear estimates that children get about 20 percent of their lead exposure from water. For newborns on baby formula, he says, the amount is closer to 40 to 60 percent.

That news does not seem to have reached all the nation’s water companies. In Louisville, Ky., for example, the Louisville Water Company
has been conducting voluntary partial pipe replacements for decades. The utility plans to finish replacing its portion of all lead service lines by 2020 — about 19,700 services in all, according to a “Lead Information Sheet” published on its website.

That same information sheet gives customers no indication of the potential threat posed by what the company calls its “aggressive initiatives.” Tests conducted throughout the system “all confirm that lead in drinking water does NOT pose a health threat to our customers,” the handout states. Despite that, in 2011, about 10 percent of the Louisville samples exceeded EPA’s action level.

In Pittsburgh, Stanley States, director of water quality and production for the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, said the utility
frequently does partial replacements when working on the city’s pipes, but does not disclose the risks residents run if they don’t pay to replace their segment other lead service lines. “We’re waiting for better guidance from EPA on what to do about that,” States said. “We're not going to act on our own and go off half-cocked.”

Action level not protective of public health
Jeffrey Kempic, an environmental engineer with EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water in Washington, D.C., noted in a presentation to EPA’s advisory panel that the action level of 15 parts per billion (ppb) is not health-based, but was chosen for the practical reasons of feasibility and economics.

Advisory panel chairman Griffiths said, “That doesn’t mean if you are at 14.9 that’s not bad for you.”  In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed its definition of lead poisoning in response to a CDC advisory panel report declaring that there is no safe level of exposure to lead. The CDC lowered the threshold for intervention in children from 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood to five.

EPA water specialist Michael Schock said there is reason for concern. “The research up to this point … is that any kind of disturbance of an
in-place line can cause elevated lead levels,” said Schock. “[Lead] may persist from days to years. So long as the lead pipes are in there, or any part of the lead pipe, there is a potential for a lead level that used to be low, to be considerably higher. And since there’s no safe level for lead, the remnant pipe remains a continued exposure source.”

Schock also worried about lead exposure for children and complained to the Workshop in a telephone interview from Cincinnati, Ohio, with
an EPA public relations representative on the line, that there is no requirement for anyone to track children who have been exposed to lead in water from so-called voluntary replacements.

Indeed, there are no testing or reporting requirements when partial pipe replacements are conducted as a matter of routine maintenance.

Miguel Del Toral, an EPA water specialist in Chicago, expressed frustration with the lack of information and the prevalence of partial pipe replacements, both required and voluntary. “How many partials have been done? We don’t even know how many lead service lines there are out there. None of that is reportable,” Del Toral said. “In some cases they say they notify the residents, but all they do is notify them that their water is going to be cut off while they replace the lines. There is not any kind of educational material to inform them that their lead levels will go up.”

Problems date back decades
Heath-risks from partial pipe replacements should not have been a surprise. As far back as 1988, when the Lead and Copper Rule was in
discussion, Schock’s division warned that partial pipe replacements were likely to expose more people to dangerous levels of lead. At the time, the alternatives were thought to be too burdensome to the utilities. Later, in 1997, he wrote a memo to his colleagues noting,  “[T]he bottom line is that EPA is promulgating a policy that KNOWINGLY INCREASES LEAD LEVELS for an UNKNOWN DURATION,” he wrote to EPA environmental engineer Peter Lassovszky. Schock’s counsel was not followed.

Although public health officials have been concerned about the impact of partial pipe replacements for years, Griffith’s advisory committee was convened by EPA only after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention completed a study in 2010 noting that children living in houses in Washington, D.C., where partial pipe replacements were carried out were three times as likely to have elevated levels of lead in their blood as children living in houses in which the old lead service lines remained undisturbed, or were not made of lead. The advisory committee reviewed the current science and said past research, which showed that partial pipe replacements either did not cause spikes or caused only brief ones, studied too small a sample size to be valid.

“There has been a lot of research over the years that has called [partial pipe replacements] into question,” said Paul Niman, environmental engineer for the state of Massachusetts. “It’s always been suspected, this was more my understanding, that partial lead service line replacements would lead to short-term elevated lead levels, but then they would settle down.”

When the advisory committee looked into it, Niman said, “They found, ‘Guess what? It doesn’t really settle down and might make things
worse.”

Massachusetts has eight water systems conducting mandatory partial pipe replacements, mostly in the Boston suburbs. Niman has been waiting for guidance from EPA.

“We’d like to see EPA take a position to say, ‘Let’s discontinue doing the partial lead pipe replacements,” Niman said. “We want them to focus on full lead pipe replacements …We’ve asked EPA to create some type of funding so that homeowners who couldn’t afford to have it done could get some low interest or no-interest loan to assist them, but I don’t know [that] we’re going to see that.”

Some cities, such as Madison, Wis., have ordinances requiring homeowners to pay for their part of the new pipes, and also offering
financial help, as does Boston, but this is rare.

Missing the danger
Marc Edwards, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech and an expert in home plumbing and drinking water systems, was instrumental in resolving a 2004 lead-in-water contamination scandal in Washington, D.C. Hundreds of homes there had tested at more than 300 ppb, and, in a few cases, the utility measured lead above 24,000 ppb, Edwards said in an email. The city’s lead problem was ultimately traced in part to the EPA-directed use of chloramines, a disinfectant, which made lead more likely to leach into the water, as well as the partial pipe replacements, which were stopped in 2008. Edwards and a U.S. congressional investigation led by Miller
called CDC complicit in downplaying the health risks to residents when the CDC wrote a controversial report in 2004 claiming that there was no evidence of childhood lead poisoning from the elevated lead levels in water.

Edwards, who won a 2007 MacArthur genius award in part for his work to discover and expose problems with lead contamination, and EPA’s Schock accused some water utilities of “gaming the system” in various ways, including testing homes in newer neighborhoods where pipes have less likelihood of becoming corroded and failing to test enough houses. The regulation itself gives utilities this loophole, requiring the testing of only up to 100 homes, no matter the size of the district. “It all comes down to which houses you pick,” Edwards said. “If you don’t pick the worst houses, you don’t find the problem.”

Schock said, “Gaming is trying to skew a sampling program to not uncover potentially risky lead or copper sites.” He didn’t point to specific examples, but he told the Workshop that he, too, believes it goes on.

One example Edwards points to is Chicago, where the city continued to install lead pipes until 1986, when lead was banned in new plumbing and plumbing repairs.  Edwards said that in 20 years of testing Chicago never produced samples exceeding the 5 parts per billion limit.  From March 2011 through October 2011, however, EPA did its own tests using a few different sampling protocols, and found lead levels as high as 36.7 ppb.

In these studies, EPA conducted sequential sampling, which consists of taking multiple samples at each site, one after other, to assess the level of corrosion throughout the plumbing network. It was in these sequential samples that EPA found the high results. Currently, sequential sampling results are not allowed to be used for compliance monitoring under the current Lead and Copper Rule.

EPA’s Del Toral said the purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the current sampling protocol in capturing the level of lead corrosion that is occurring. All public water systems, including Chicago, are required to use the current sampling protocol. All sampling was completed as of October 2011 and EPA is in the process of writing up the study findings, an effort that may lead to changes in the sampling methods required under the law.

Water utilities develop a new tactic
For the past year, EPA has been holding public meetings to discuss partial pipe replacements as the agency considers revamping the Lead
and Copper Rule. Science Advisory Board committee members, EPA staffers and utility officials say that some of the changes under consideration are: a possible moratorium on partial pipe replacements; new ways to help customers pay to replace their section of the pipe; increased public warnings of the risks of partial pipe replacements, especially for those done on a voluntary basis; possible changes in test methods and house selection; and conducting definitive studies on the health risks of partial pipe replacements.

But faced with the prospect of new EPA rules, and increasing evidence that the partial pipe replacements pose a hazard, water utilities have developed a new tactic: “gifting” the lead service lines to property owners. According to a survey of 90 utilities of varying sizes and from different regions, published in a 2008 report by the industry-funded AWWA Research Foundation and EPA, “77 percent of utilities
responding claimed ownership of the service line from the main to the curb stop [property line]….” Yet shortly before the Griffith’s advisory committee report was released three years later, the water association conducted another survey, which found that of its 805 respondents, 69 percent said they did not own any of the lead service line.

Niman said, “We have had that occur in Massachusetts.’’ Some communities around the nation, Niman said, “have passed bylaws saying this city or town is no longer responsible for the pipe. It’s now the responsibility of the homeowner.”

In Washington, D.C., the Water and Sewer Authority, now called DC Water, has made great strides in accountability under new leadership,
scientist Edwards and his research partner, Yanna Lambrinidou, a local activist, said. But they have one concern: DC Water can escape responsibility, they said, for the remaining thousands of lead pipes by having “gifted” them to homeowners.

Indeed, DC Water recently changed its wording about ownership on its website. Until March, the utility’s website noted, “To encourage pipe replacement on private property, DC WASA is offering homeowners the chance to replace their lead service pipe at the same time that contractors replace the lead pipe on public property.”

The website now reads: “During water main replacement projects, the portion of the water service pipes in public space are replaced
in order to connect each household to the new water main. This includes the replacement of any existing lead pipes in the public space. The water service pipe connects the water main to your household plumbing and is owned by the property owner. … However under certain conditions, DC Water is authorized to repair, maintain or renew the portion of the service pipe in public space.”

Asked about the change, DC Water’s principle counsel, Gregory Hope, said, “Questions were raised as to who is responsible for doing what in public space, whether or not the property owner is responsible. Are they responsible for doing everything, if they do their own half?”

Hope declined to say who raised the questions. He said he researched the history of the relevant codes, and found that an 1896 statute
passed by Congress gave property ownership of the entire line, from the water main to the tap, to the property owner. The District of Columbia enacted revisions in 1977, he said, to “maintain, renew and replace the portion in public space.” Hope said the D.C. City Council’s policy is that the utility will still pay to replace the public portion of the service line, but that his review of the law says the D.C. code, “did not transfer ownership.” But as recently as 2004, the DC water utility published a news release saying “… in the District, as in most U.S. cities, homeowners own the portion of the service line that runs from the edge of their property line to their house…”

Lambrinidou, president of Parents for Nontoxic Alternatives, said that DC Water ultimately was shifting liability for the lead pipes to the
homeowners. “Utilities cannot pass on the burden of leaded pipes to consumers and politicians,” she said. “This reflects a more systemic trend among water utilities, that is that their priority is to get rid of their responsibility for lead in water.”

The researchers have raised this issue with EPA. “Is each homeowner in the U.S. ‘gifted’ a lead line going to sue them to say, ‘I don’t
own it?’” Edwards asked. “It’s crazy. … If the approach is successful, they’ve just absolved themselves of their major responsibilities under the Lead and Copper Rule.” An EPA staffer, who asked not to be named, said, “We know about it, but we have no statutory authority to do anything about it.”

Steven Via, regulatory engineer at water association said, “We ought to get the lead out to the extent that we can. … Getting lead out is
a shared responsibility, so that the water system can take out the lead that they are responsible for, and the homeowner should take responsibility for what they own.”

Via acknowledges that when utilities replace water mains, especially in an emergency, they may not advise residents of the risks. “We’ve
been working on information to get out to customers so that they fully appreciate the nature of lead and that they take steps that are appropriate if they are concerned about it,” he said.

An EPA spokeswoman said the agency plans to publish its proposed revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule by January 2013. The agency has been working on revisions since 2007.

Hilary Niles and Julie Stein contributed to this report.

Luis M. Alvarez / AP

Farmworkers pick tomatoes in Immokalee, Fla., during the 2006 spring season.

By Ronnie Greene
Center for Public Integrity

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Laboring in the blackberry fields of central Arkansas, the 18-year-old Mexican immigrant suddenly turned ill. Her nose began to bleed, her skin developed a rash, and she vomited.

The doctor told her it was most likely flu or bacterial infection, but farmworker Tania Banda-Rodriguez suspected pesticides. Under federal law, growers must promptly report the chemicals they spray.

It took the worker, and a Tennessee legal services lawyer helping her, six months to learn precisely what chemical doused those blackberry fields. The company ignored her requests for the information. The Arkansas State Plant Board initially refused to provide records to her lawyer, saying it didn’t respond to out-of-state requests. An Arkansas inspector, dispatched after the complaint, didn’t initially discern what pesticides were used the day the worker became ill, records show.

When answers finally arrived — the fungicide was Switch 62.5WG, a chemical that can irritate the eyes and skin — Banda-Rodriguez had already left Arkansas to follow the season to Virginia and ultimately returned to Mexico. She never learned whether the pesticide sickened her.

The episode is as telling a snapshot today as it was six years ago for one of America’s most grueling and lowest-paying vocations. Pesticides can endanger farmworkers, but thin layers of government protect them and no one knows the full scope of the environmental perils in the fields.

The Environmental Protection Agency administers a Worker Protection Standard meant to regulate pesticides and protect workers and handlers. Yet the agency maintains no comprehensive database to track pesticide exposure incidents nationwide.

In 1993, the Government Accountability Office (then called the General Accounting Office) warned that the lack of data could lead to a “significant underestimation of both the frequency and the severity of pesticide illnesses.”

Nearly 20 years later, the EPA can still only guess at the scope of pesticide-related ailments in an industry where many workers, toiling in the shadows, are reluctant to speak up. The EPA often hands enforcement of pesticide regulations to states, which receive and investigate few formal complaints each year, federal records show.

“The system in place to address pesticide exposure is horrible. It’s dysfunctional,” said Caitlin Berberich, an attorney with Southern Migrant Legal Services, a Nashville nonprofit that provides free legal services to farmworkers in six southern states. “It just doesn’t work at all.” 
Some top state regulators agree the full toll of pesticides on farmworkers is not documented. Yet reforms requiring more complete disclosure of pesticide use have been caught up in EPA red tape.

The EPA did not respond to repeated requests for comment and written questions, sent by the Center for Public Integrity over the last month, about its pesticide oversight. The EPA "estimates that 10,000-20,000 physician-diagnosed pesticide poisonings occur each year among the approximately 2 million U.S. agricultural workers," federal records show.

Workers say they were fired for speaking up
Yet when workers do complain — as in the case in Arkansas — securing hard information can be daunting. 
Sometimes, workers say, they pay a price for speaking up.

When pesticides were sprayed near them in 2010 in the tomato fields outside the city of Newport, in a patch of east Tennessee where the mountains touch the clouds and road signs warn of falling rock, the migrant farmworkers complained to state regulators. When it happened again, they say, they snapped videos with their cell phones.

The tomato farm’s response, the workers say in a federal lawsuit: to fire them on the spot, pile them on a bus and route them back to Mexico. The company denies any wrongdoing or retaliation.

In Florida in late 2009, farmworker Jovita Alfau, working in an open-air plant nursery in a rural swath of south Miami-Dade County, said she became dizzy and weak, with numbness in her mouth, and vomited. 

Alfau said she had been told to tend to hibiscus plants at the Homestead nursery less than 24 hours after they had been sprayed with the pesticide endosulfan. The grower sent workers out too soon after the spraying, Alfau said in a lawsuit, violating the Worker Protection Standard, and did not tell her when pesticides were applied, provide protective gear or tell her how to protect herself. 

Endosulfan is so toxic that, by summer 2010, the EPA banned its use, saying the pesticide “poses unacceptable risks to agricultural workers and wildlife.” 

Several days after falling ill, Alfau went to the doctor but was not asked about pesticides, said her lawyer, Karla Martinez of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project. Alfau, a legal U.S. resident and Mexican native, said she has been unable to work regularly since. 

Power Bloom Farms and Growers denies wrongdoing, but agreed this month to settle Alfau’s case for $100,000, court records show. Under terms of the settlement, the company could also pay up to $75,000 total to other affected workers in a case that also included wage abuse allegations. The company did not respond to an interview request. 

Farmworkers who have spent decades in the fields say one constant remains: Workers have little voice when it comes to pesticides. 

“We have to run to the cars and close the windows because the plane is putting pesticides in the fields. After that happens, people feel sick,” said Yolanda Gomez, who began picking Florida oranges when she was nine and spent more than 30 years following the harvest from Florida to Washington State. “When you go to the field you go clean, and when you come out of the field you can see your eyes are very red.” 

Raised in a family of farmworkers, with a father who once carried signs for Cesar Chavez, Gomez is now a community organizer for the Farmworker Association of Florida, in Apopka near Orlando. Farmworkers frequently trek into the office complaining of pesticide-related illnesses, she said. 

“When you tell them, ‘Let’s make this paper and put your name on it so we can make a difference,’ they just won’t do it,” Gomez said. “‘I don’t have any papers. I have to work. This is the only way I can feed my family.’ They don’t see another way out of the system.” 

The system, she said, “should care about the human side of the worker.” 

Bottom of the food chain 
The battle over pesticides is a microcosm of the larger struggle for laborers at the bottom rung of the economic food chain. 

“There’s this disenchantment,” said attorney Adriane Busby, who focuses on pesticide safety policy for the nonprofit Farmworker Justice in Washington, D.C. “They just don’t believe anything will happen if they go above and beyond in reporting things. They don’t believe in the system protecting them.” 

For farmworkers, just getting clear answers about pesticides is a struggle. No one, the EPA included, has a full picture of the problem. 

An EPA slideshow report in 2006, for instance, opened with a question: How many occupational pesticide incidents are there each year in the United States? 

The slide listed multiple possibilities, from 1,300 to 300,000. Each number could be true, the report said – it just depends upon the source. One number came from the Poison Control Center, another from EPA estimates and yet another from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. 

This uncertainty, even the EPA admits, can carry real consequences. As its slide noted, the lack of accurate information “inhibits clear problem identification.” 

Advocates say the dearth of information triggers another problem: It’s hard to hold government and industry accountable when there is no benchmark from which to judge. 

In its 2006 report, the EPA set goals of gathering more complete information and creating a more consistent means of tracking incidents. Among its recommendations: To “prepare a report on occupational incidents.” 

Six years later, asked whether such a report has been prepared, the EPA did not respond. 

Instead of maintaining its own database, the EPA depends on states to report complaints. But those annual reports list minuscule numbers. In 2011, for instance, North Carolina listed a total of five investigations based on complaints — for the entire state. South Carolina, another major agricultural producer, reported zero. Tennessee: 3. Florida, the nation’s second-biggest agricultural state after California, reported 61 complaint-based investigations that year. 

But Gregory Schell, managing attorney with the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project in Lake Worth, near West Palm Beach, Fla., said just a fraction of the pesticide incidents are reported. 

His guess: “One-tenth of 1 percent, in Florida.” 

In 2005, Schell surveyed laborers who worked for a grape tomato grower in northern Florida that season. Nearly one in four said they had been directly sprayed with pesticides or other chemicals. Just under half said they had encountered drift from nearby fields. Thirty-six percent said they had become sick or nauseous from pesticides, and more than four of 10 said they developed skin rashes or irritation. 

Had those numbers been extrapolated out for a state with 200,000 farmworkers, there would have been thousands of complaints, not dozens. 

“Workers view these exposures as an occupational hazard. Even when they do complain, there’s an unwillingness to come forward,” Schell said. One reason "is their immigration status. The other is the employer can and will fire them. 

“It is like pulling teeth for us to get people to file pesticide complaints.” 

The official count doesn't reflect reality, agrees Andy Rackley, director of agricultural environmental services for Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. "I would say we probably don’t have a good handle on it," Rackley said. "It’s probably not as big as some people say it is but it’s probably bigger than what our complaint investigation files would indicate." 

Rackley said growers should be required to more fully disclose where farmworkers are when pesticides are being sprayed. "Where were the workers at the same time, were they harvesting in the same fields?" he asked. "That won't keep anybody who's intent on hiding something from doing something, but it certainly raises the stakes." 

Growers log their pesticide use, and many track workers' activities — but there's no rule requiring one report tying the two, Rackley said. "EPA has been working on a rule to do that for at least eight years, maybe longer," he said, "but we still don’t have it." 

No warnings in Spanish
Language barriers add another hurdle. 

Pesticide warning labels are not required to be in Spanish, though eight of every 10 farmworkers are foreign born and most of the nation’s agricultural workforce comes from Mexico. 

On average, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey, crop workers had not advanced beyond the seventh grade. Forty-four percent said they could not speak English and 53 percent could not read the language. When farmworkers can’t read safety instructions, they face higher risks of exposure, say advocates who have pushed the EPA to require bilingual labeling. 

With a scarcity of hard data, advocates are sometimes left to cite decades-old reports as proof of pesticide’s perils. One report, from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, said farmworkers suffer the highest rate of chemical-related illness of any occupational group, at 5.5 per 1,000. The report date: 1987 

Florida's Rackley believes the EPA should more fully fund qualified advocacy groups to train workers on pesticide safety — empowering workers, giving growers a level of comfort, and building trust between the two. "Listen, the growers need the workers and the workers need the growers, that’s the bottom line," he said.

In recent years, records show, the EPA has provided funding from $25,000 to a nonprofit to help reduce farmworker pesticide exposures in New Jersey to up to $1.2 million over five years to help train clinicians working with farmworkers. 

A conflict in Tennessee 
Workers who speak up sometimes find themselves immersed in conflict. 

In Newport, Tenn., tomato grower Fish Farms hired workers under the federal government’s H-2A temporary agricultural program, in which legal foreign workers can be brought in when industry lacks local laborers for the job. 

At Fish Farms, 15 workers contend in an ongoing lawsuit, pesticides were sprayed in the fields while they worked and close to their trailer homes, in a secluded stretch of a city of almost 7,000 whose commercial strip includes Debbie’s Drive Inn, For Heaven’s Cake & Bakery and the Newport Plain Talk newspaper. 

In July 2010, aided by Southern Migrant Legal Services, the laborers complained to the pesticides administrator of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, “citing frequent exposure to pesticides while working at Fish Farms, physical symptoms, and the absence of medical care,” according to the lawsuit. Some laborers told the state they had lost fingernails that season, and said pesticides were sprayed 30 feet away from them. 

That August, the workers turned to the Knoxville Area Office of the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor, contending the company skirted federal and state pay and housing laws. The workers said they had to wash their clothes in a nearby river, and that their trailers were insect-infected and overcrowded, with holes in the walls. The company said the housing met federal standards, and any violations were caused by the workers. 

On August 23, 2010, the Labor Department conducted an on-site investigation — leading to a skirmish. Two Fish Farms bosses “impeded” the inspectors’ discussions with the workers, the federal lawsuit says, and two others “arrived brandishing firearms.” 

Fish Farms disputes that account in its response to the lawsuit. Instead, the company said, one worker “held a knife in a threatening manner.” The company fired him and filed an aggravated assault charge. The worker said he had been using the knife to cook with and did not threaten anyone. The state dropped the charge. 

On September 5, 2010, the workers said, pesticides were again sprayed close to their trailers. This time, they took out their cell phones and began taking video of tractors passing by. Fish Farms bosses again turned out. 

Workers said they retreated to their trailers, but, according to their lawsuit, a Fish Farms boss kicked in one door and two bosses yelled obscenities, including “f---ing Mexicans.” Farm bosses snatched their cell phones, loaded workers on a bus and arranged their return to Mexico, the suit said. 

This May, Fish Farms referred a reporter’s inquiry to the company’s Knoxville attorney, Jay Mader. The lawyer did not respond to three interview requests, but the company challenges the workers’ account in a formal response to the lawsuit filed this month. 

On the September day workers began taking video footage, Fish Farms said, the laborers were actually trying to “fabricate evidence of improper pesticide spraying.” The decision to fire them was warranted for “excessive absences,” the company wrote, and because the farmworkers “knowingly engaged in behavior that falsely portrayed Fish Farms as being out of compliance with local, state, and federal law.” 

A Fish Farms boss “may have briefly removed” cell phones in his face, but returned them. The company said it paid for lodging and bus tickets for the workers to return to Mexico. There were “heated exchanges,” the company admitted, but executives said they could not recall the exact words. 

After the lawsuit was filed, Fish Farms tried to get the case dismissed, saying the former H-2A workers lacked legal standing. A judge denied the farm’s request last month,calling its argument “completely unsubstantiated and devoid of merit.” The company continues to seek the case’s dismissal. 

Ultimately, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture investigated the pesticide complaints. In November 2010, months after the workers had returned to Mexico, the state cited Fish Farms for using pesticides inconsistent with labeling, and for not displaying specific information about pesticides used. 

The civil fine imposed: $425, which Fish Farms paid that same month. “The department considers this matter to be closed,” the state wrote. 

Maze of red tape 
The case in Arkansas opens a window into the maze farmworkers enter when they think they’ve been poisoned by pesticides. 

Banda-Rodriguez, the 18-year-old farmworker toiling in the blackberry fields in Judsonia, Ark., said she started getting sick one day in June 2006. A short time later, she reached out to attorney Melody Fowler-Green of Southern Migrant Legal Services about another matter, involving immigration. Later, the worker mentioned her sickness. 

In October 2006, Fowler-Green sent a certified letter asking the grower, Gillam Farms, to tell her what pesticides were used the day the woman became ill. She cited the EPA’s Worker Protection Standard, which mandates disclosure. Gillam Farms did not respond, the lawyer said in a letter to the EPA the following year. 

Gillam Farms did not respond to two interview requests from the Center for Public Integrity. 

In Arkansas, the EPA defers regulation to the state Plant Board. In November 2006, after not hearing back from the grower, Fowler-Green contacted the state and said she was told her phone call constituted a complaint. 

In January 2007, a state official told her an investigator had visited the farm “but failed to gather information regarding the pesticide used on the fields when my client became ill,” Fowler-Green wrote the EPA. “I was not offered any coherent explanation for this failure.” 
She followed up again in February 2007, when the Plant Board faxed to her a complaint form to fill out. Fowler-Green said it was the first time she was told she had to submit that paperwork. 

Along with a complaint, the lawyer filed an open records request to obtain the Plant Board’s investigative file. 

That same month, a lawyer for Gillam Farms questioned the pesticides inquiry in a letter to the state. “My client intends to cooperate with any legitimate investigation by the Plant Board,” wrote attorney Byron Freeland. “However, we are concerned that the Plant Board is being used by a former Gillam Farms employee and her attorney to harass Gillam in an attempt to gain information for a spurious claim.” 

That April, Fowler-Green said, the Plant Board finally told her the pesticide that had been used: Switch 62.5WG, a fungicide made by the Swiss conglomerate Syngenta that kills diseases on crops ranging from blackberries to turnip greens. 

But the agency still hadn’t turned over its investigative case file. 

“It is the opinion of the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office that the state FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] does not apply to persons outside the state,” Plant Board Director Darryl Little wrote the Nashville attorney that July. 

Only when she threatened to sue did the board provide the information. 

All told, it took the lawyer six months to learn the name of the pesticide Banda-Rodriguez encountered — and 10 months to get a copy of the state’s investigative file. By that time, the farmworker was back in Mexico. 

In an interview, Plant Board Director Little said the agency was hamstrung because the initial complaint did not arrive until months after the worker became sick. Normally, he said, the department aims to move as quickly as possible to gather evidence. 

“It was frustrating figuring out what we could do to help this lady since it had been such a long time since this incident occurred,” Little said. 

Yet the director acknowledged that his office, once contacted, moved slowly. 

“We were extremely short-handed in that division at the time and I am sure we were slow — there’s no question about that,” he said. “We were struggling in our division at that time to keep our nose above water.” He said the Plant Board is back to full staffing. 

When asked about his initial records response, Little said he was simply applying the law. “The way it’s written states that the records are open to the citizens of the state,” Little said. “But my take on it is, the only thing you’re going to do is make somebody mad and they’re going to call someone they know in Arkansas and they are going to get the records.” 

His ultimate call, he said: “Give them the records. And that’s what we did.” 

In the end, the Plant Board concluded it had insufficient evidence to determine whether the worker had been exposed to pesticides, or whether the Worker Protection Standard had been violated. 

When Fowler-Green complained to the EPA, the federal agency replied that Arkansas’ review was proper. The EPA does not meddle in state public records disputes, an official said — and, if anything, the worker should have filed her complaint sooner. 

If it took a lawyer this long to obtain basic information, Fowler-Green thought, imagine the difficulty farmworkers face. 

“Yes, of course complaints should be made right away,” said Fowler-Green, who recently took a job with another law firm. “But whether it’s a month, two months or three months, the worker still should have a right to the name of the pesticide that was applied.” 

Advocates wage longshot campaigns. Southern Migrant Legal Services has four lawyers handling farmworker cases in six states. 

Yet the federal Worker Protection Standard meant to protect laborers has gone 20 years since a thorough revamping. 

Farmworker Justice and the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice are pressing for upgrades, writing to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson last November and calling for reforms, including:

• Expanded training requirements for agricultural workers and pesticide handlers;
• Strict limits on when workers can re-enter the fields after spraying, and more complete information provided about the pesticides they encounter;
• Rules mandating special areas for workers to change into their work clothes, store clean clothing, and shower at day’s end, so they don’t carry pesticide residues home.

When asked about the suggestions, the EPA did not respond.