fair ground

Congress finally gets to work on chemical reform

2011-11-21T13:40:00.003-05:00

After watching 2 hours of constructive, informed, substantive, and sometimes even juicy debate in the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee last week, I am elated that toxic chemicals reform is finally on the agenda in Congress. It's not there because of special interest lobbying or industry pay-backs, but because everyday folks (like you and me!) have been badgering Congress so persistently to do something about this toxic chemicals mess, that they are finally getting the message.

The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is the federal law that covers the chemicals that saturate our every-day lives as ingredients in almost every consumer product you can name. With more than 80,000 chemicals on the market and less than 200 tested for safety, it’s no wonder that TSCA is widely considered to be a complete failure.

Sen Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has introduced the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011 to fix TSCA’s problems and give the American people an assurance of safety when products like baby bottles and household cleaners are put on the market. He facilitated a lively bipartisan discussion that covered everything from the EPA’s jurisdiction to the “body burden” of 212 industrial chemicals in Senator Udall’s body.

Five expert witnesses testified to the committee (you can read their testimonies and watch the archived video here). Watching the hearing, it became clear that all the stakeholders are at the table, and that one - the chemical manufacturers - are dragging their feet. One Senator after the next grilled the American Chemistry Council and asked them to stop criticizing from the sidelines, roll up their sleeves and get to work fixing TSCA, if they are sincere in their assertions that it needs to be fixed. Another key industry player, the Consumer Specialty Products Association, representing the likes of Johnson & Johnson and Proctor & Gamble, is clearly doing just that. The CSPA and the environmental health folks in the hearing room agreed that they are “on the cusp” of agreeing to solutions for all the sticky points they identified in the hearing.

Next stop: "Markup," which is inside-the-beltway language for all the stakeholders getting out their red pens and working with Senate staff to make detailed edits to the bill so that the committee can vote on actual changes. After the hearing, Senator Lautenberg reiterated his intention to bring the Safe Chemicals Act to a vote before the year is out.

Now that the ball is finally moving down the field, we all need to make sure that our Senators understand how important chemical reform is to our health and our economic future. Moms like me have kept up a steady drumbeat that has put safer chemicals on Congress’s to-do list. Our job now is to make sure that they get it done.

It was a great feeling last week to watch the Senate seriously debating an issue so important to our health and our future. This week as I give thanks with my family for our many blessings, I’ll also be giving thanks for all of you who are working together for a healthier world for our children.

How I turned my 1991 Camry wagon into a force for environmental justice

2011-11-18T13:17:00.007-05:00

by Guest Blogger Kate Pattison

Donate your car to Toxic Free NC, it's so much easier than dealing with insurance companies!

My beloved 1991 Toyota Camry has always been there for me. It motored through work travels that took me all over the southeastern United States, endured a hellish commute on I-40 between Raleigh and Durham for about two years, and steadfastly for the past two years my Camry has been right there backed up almost to the fence among the thickening bamboo and English ivy in my driveway. It hasn't left my sight (as long as I stand in the driveway).

Back in the winter of 2010, that jolly little wagon was plugging along *slowly* but reliably back home when the transmission took its last breath and gave out on the upward climb of a hill near Crabtree Valley. With an expensive overhaul, Camry could have been back at it on I-40 within the week, but I knew the repairs would cost far more than the value of the car. I had been aiming for at least 250,000 miles on the odometer. Camry made it to 230,000. Good enough.

So should I sell Camry? With a busted transmission, it was only good for parts at that point. I did a little research and found out that by donating my car, I could get a nice tax deduction. After a $75 processing fee, the recipient of my donation would get the rest of the cash. I wanted my favorite local non-profit, Toxic Free NC, to reap the rewards of my car's demise. And, it just so happens that my sister, Fawn Pattison, is the Executive Director at Toxic Free NC. Fawn liked the car donation idea, too, and set up TFNC's relationship with a car donation program. I was going to be the test case for Toxic Free NC's very first car donation!

The process was extremely easy; I called the nice people at CARS, they took some basic information about my car (VIN number, etc) and told me I would get a call from a towing company within 48 hours. The following day, I filled out the seller's information on my title and got it notarized at my bank, plus the towing company called and set up the appointment. By the time Camry was rolling out of its spot at the very back of the driveway yesterday (and just out of the grasp of rapidly encroaching bamboo), it was just a hair over 48 hours since I had placed that first call to car donation folks.

It was actually the second call to the car donation folks. I did say Camry died in the winter of 2010, and I formulated the donation plan then. But I didn't keep my decomposing car in the driveway for two years out of some sick attachment, and I didn't leave it there out of laziness, either. Well, not too much laziness. A few other car-related things intervened to delay the process.

After Camry was decommissioned, I became the owner of a lovely Honda Accord, which was promptly rear-ended. A short while later, a freak wind storm blew my neighbor's tree down - right on top of the Accord. While the Accord was in the shop having the tree damage fixed, I was rear-ended again, this time in the rental car! And the giant pile of mulch (from said fallen tree) blocked Camry from being extracted from the driveway for most of 2011. So there you have it. Moral of the story: donate your car to Toxic Free NC, it's so much easier than dealing with insurance companies.

2011-09-27T14:07:00.001-04:00

New short film revealsteens’ experiences being sprayed with pesticides

Last week Toxic Free North Carolinareleased our latest Farm Worker Documentary Project film, Overworked & Under Spray.It’s a six-minute piece featuring six high school-aged farm workers’ storiesabout being sprayed with agricultural pesticides while tending crops in fields across NC.

For two months this summer, full-time Student Action with Farmworkers intern Abi Bissette and I crisscrossedthe eastern side of the state. Wevisited farm worker families in their homes, giving out pesticide safetyinformation and discussing their rights as farm workers. By midsummer we hadassembled a group of motivated, outspoken teenagers who have worked cultivatingand harvesting blueberries, strawberries, sweet potatoes, green beans, grapes,cucumbers and tobacco.

“You could see the spray coming atyou...but we kept on working. The next day I didn't feel so good,” FelixRodriguez, one of the youth featured in the film, told us during his interview.“I wouldn't feel comfortable talking about pesticides to the owner orsupervisor because they'll see you as nagging. They just really want youto work.”

When we asked the youth how they wouldfix the situation, they had a range of impressively astute answers: put more inspectors in the fields, get rid ofchild labor in agriculture, make stronger regulations for crew leaders. But one messagewe heard loud and clear from everyone interviewed was “enough is enough”. Theexploitation of children (or anyone) for cheap food—and the poisoning of thepeople who work to fill our grocery store shelves—has gone on for far too long. It’s time for eaters of conscience to demandan end to abusive, toxic agriculture.

Here in North Carolina we're actively working to protect children, and all workers, from exposure to toxic pesticides and other dangerous working conditions. Want to take action for farm workers inNC? Check out our website for three simplesteps you can take.

Farmworker Advocacy: We're All Important!

2011-07-11T13:00:00.001-04:00

Hi there Toxic Free NC fans! This is Abi Bissette. I’m the Student Action with Farmworkers intern this summer working on the Farmworker Documentary Project. This project is in its third year running. Its intent is to share farmworkers’ stories with a broad audience. By increasing awareness about the struggles farmworkers face every day, we hope to move people into action in support of the people who harvest our food. This year, the documentary I am making focuses on youth working in the fields and their experiences with pesticides.

Lately I have been doing a lot of visiting. Visiting farmworker camps and family houses, looking for people with interesting stories who might be willing to be interviewed for this year’s documentary. On one such visit to the Wilson area last week, one house in particular struck me as a textbook example of the ways in which farm workers’ rights to safe, healthy living conditions are being violated. As we drove up the dusty dirt driveway towards a small house in ill repair, a woman stepped out onto the front porch. She was young, and appeared to be in the late stages of pregnancy. After approaching the house and greeting the woman, other members of my group and I began explaining our work to her. One was from Migrant Ed, the other worked with migrant youth and families and I worked for an agency that informed farm workers of their rights surrounding pesticides in the fields and at home.

Early on in the conversation, two little heads peeked around the corner of the house. The older of the two boys exclaimed “¡Eso no es Papá!” looking, surprised, at our group of gringos. The woman explained that the older boy was her little brother and the younger was her son. Her parents and husband were still at work. Because she was close to her due date, she had not been working since they arrived in North Carolina two weeks earlier.

As the other two farmworker outreach workers continued to talk with the woman, I took a moment to watch the boys run around in front of the house. I was jolted out of my reverie, though, when one asked the young mother, “do they tell you when they spray the tobacco field here?” pointing to the thriving field not ten feet from the front door. The woman answered, unconcerned, that growers never inform the family when they are about to spray the fields, nor are they advised about how long to wait before it’s considered safe to walk through the tobacco after it’s sprayed. As she was talking, I watched the two boys giggling as they playfully hit each other with limp tobacco leaves.

Looking at the field, the tobacco didn’t look dewy with pesticides, but how could you tell? How could a person know the damage that is being done to their own health by living and working in such close proximity to pesticides? How could this pregnant mother know how the pesticides she was breathing would affect her soon-to-be-born baby in and out of the womb? I was reminded of my role as a person who shares safety information. “But what,” I wondered, “is the point of telling someone the importance of wearing long sleeves at work to protect against pesticides if the pesticides are being sprayed in through the front door?”

I was also reminded that in terms of helping this woman, my information was only going to go as far as she was willing to take it. I could give her all the numbers for legal aid and various other governmental agencies that I could think of, but it was this young immigrant mother who would ultimately have to decide to take the next step and seek contact. This made me aware, once again, that my relationship with farm workers is a partnership. Without the information and connections held by advocates, many workers would be unaware of their power to advocate for themselves. Without the input and self-advocacy of farm workers, advocacy work is self-serving and ineffective. This puts my weekly outreach visits into a different perspective. By involving farmworkers in my documentary, I hope to make them aware of the importance of their stories in creating social change. By taking these stories to the general public, I hope to make my audiences aware of the importance of their support in making sure current laws are followed and new legislation is passed so that everyone can have access to food that is delicious, environmentally friendly and ethically sound.

Stronger limits on pesticide residue in food, smaller lawsuit risk?

2011-06-30T14:52:00.007-04:00

The Environmental Working Group (“EWG”) recently published this year's “Dirty Dozen” list of the most pesticide-laden fruits and vegetables as well as the “Clean 15” list of produce with the least amount of pesticides. Several of the “Dirty Dozen” (like blueberries, apples, and strawberries) are among North Carolina's most important commodity crops.

Industry's take on the lists is to frame it as fear-mongering. They point out, rightly, that approximately 98% of all conventional produce contains less than the legal limit for pesticides. But that response is an answer to a question that no one is asking.

The problem isn't whether pesticide residue on produce exceeds the legal limits. Rather the issue is whether those limits are actually protecting the public. Scientists and government agencies collaborated on a study to answer this question last year. They found that the current legal limits for pesticides do not protect children. In the study, children who ate conventional produce ingested pesticides well beyond what is considered to be safe. This is why EWG and other food safety groups are arguing for new pesticide guidelines that are based on what is safe for children.

It's a mistake for industry to fight against revised pesticide guidelines. Primarily, new regulations could help protect the most vulnerable—kids and farmworkers—from the effects of pesticides. New regulations could also be beneficial to the industry. Absent better regulation, pesticide users and producers are leaving themselves open to liability. As the scientific data builds linking pesticides to illnesses—learning disabilities, asthma, endocrine disruption, and cancers—industry and regulators face lawsuits and public relations campaigns similar to those faced by tobacco companies. Safer regulations could prevent future injury and future lawsuits, both fine reasons for industry to join EWG's campaign for safer pesticide limits.

Sonya Ziaja, J.D., writes regularly for LegalMatch and Ziaja Consulting's Shark. Laser. Blawg.

update: Governor vetoes S13

2011-02-22T21:09:00.002-05:00

Governor Perdue has issued the first veto of the legislative session (and only the second of her administration.

Toxic Free NC and many other sustainable agriculture advocates argued that removing money from the current year's economic development funds would significantly harm the state's investment in sustainable agriculture and rural jobs, by de-funding the Tobacco Trust Fund and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund.

See the Governor's press release here.

House to Gut Crucial Rural Economic Development Funds

2011-02-09T13:53:00.005-05:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 9, 2011

Contact: Fawn Pattison, Toxic Free North Carolina

fawn@toxicfreenc.org | (919) 833-5333

House to Gut Crucial Rural Economic Development Funds

“Balanced Budget” bill will limit jobs growth in rural North Carolina

Raleigh, NC - Today the NC House is expected to pass SB 13, the “Balanced Budget Act of 2011.” The bill takes money from the current year’s balanced budget in order to offset the looming budget hole faced by the NC Legislature for 2011-12, authorizing the Governor to make $400M in cuts. Ironically, the bill will drain another $87M away from a handful of the state’s trust funds aimed at economic development.

“Our message to the General Assembly is this: don’t cut funds that are creating jobs and strengthening our state’s economy” says Roland McReynolds, Carolina Farm Stewardship Association executive director.

What is at stake in rural North Carolina: the continued investment in projects that foster innovation and create jobs while building local food systems. Some examples of the types of successful projects that would not exist without this funding are:

Piedmont Food and Agricultural Processing Center
Carolina Ground Bread Flour Project
Blue Ridge Food Ventures
Eastern Carolina Organics
Foothills Farmer Fresh Market

Eastern Carolina Organics is a private, manager- and grower-owned distributor in Chatham County that connects North Carolina's organic farmers with the restaurants and grocers who want to buy from them. It all got started with a $48,000 grant from the Tobacco Trust Fund in 2004.

"Without the Tobacco Trust Fund, none of this would exist," says Sandi Kronick, ECO's CEO. In 2010, ECO sold over $2 million in products to local customers and buyers throughout the East Coast and in Canada, sending $1.6 million back to NC organic family farms in just one year.

For instance, in 2010 alone, RAFI-USA’s Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund received 403 applications requesting over $4.5 million. Of those, RAFI-USA was able to fund 120 new projects with $1.2 million in grants from the Tobacco Trust Fund. That investment along with the cost share from participating farmers totaled $5.9 million in new investment, created $5.25 million in new annual income for farmers and created and retained 1091 jobs as a result. 12,600 other farmers benefited from the funded projects, and approximately 330 unfunded farmers replicated a funded project.

The proposal would drain the unused balance of key trust funds used for job development in rural North Carolina: The Agricultural Development & Farmland Preservation Trust Fund and the Tobacco Trust Fund. It would also divert $67 million in tobacco settlement funds from the Golden LEAF Foundation to be used by legislators in the state’s General Fund.

The Golden Leaf Foundation, the Tobacco Trust Fund, and the Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund have been actively investing in local food to help farmers and rural communities maintain and regain vitality. Between 2000 and 2009, these trust funds have invested $36.6 million into local, regional, and statewide value-added agriculture enterprises and programs. These awards have also been leveraged to attract federal and private funding to support these and other projects.

The Golden Leaf Foundation has awarded $21 million in grants for 157 agriculture and food enterprise development programs since 2000.1
The Tobacco Trust Fund has awarded $12.9 million to value-added ag enterprises since 2002.2
The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has made $2.7 million in grants through the Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund.3

For more specifics about the projects listed above, contact:
Mountains:
Jennifer Lapidus, Carolina Ground Bread Flour Project, jennifer@carolinafarmstewards.org
Mary Lou Surgi, Blue Ridge Food Ventures, (828) 348-0128

Piedmont:
Roland McReynolds, Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, (919) 542-2402
Noah Ranells, Piedmont Food and Ag Processing Center, (919) 245-2330
Sandi Kronick, Eastern Carolina Organics, (919) 542-3264
Mike Faucette, Faucette Farms, Browns Summit, (336) 669-5262
Herbie Cottle, Cottles Organics, Rose Hill, (910) 289-5034
Stefan Hartmann, Black River Organic Farm, Ivanhoe, (910) 540-8600
Stanley Hughes, Pine Knot Farm, Hurdle Mills, (919) 880-5979
Joe Schroeder, Program Director, Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund RAFI-USA, (919) 542-1396

Foothills:
Timothy Will, Foothills Connect, (828) 447-2660

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Sustainable Food NC is a coalition of organizations committed to advocating for state-level policies that foster sustainable and organic food production, enhance local economic development, support community health and increase access to local food throughout North Carolina. For more information, contact Shivaugn Rayl, Coalition Coordinator, at 919.576.9173.

1 The Golden LEAF Foundation, www.goldenleaf.org/searchgrants.php.
2 North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund Commission, www.tobaccotrustfund.org/grants/index.htm.
3 NC Agricultural Development & Farmland Preservation Trust Fund, www.ncadfp.org/grantsinfo.htm.

Good news for a new year

2011-01-03T12:07:00.007-05:00

Here's a little tidbit of good news to start your new year right. Last week a California appeals court upheld a previous, landmark ruling that organic farmer Larry Jacobs has the right to sue a neighboring farm for pesticide drift that occurs through volatilization. The lawsuit was on behalf of Jacobs Farm Del Cabo, whose organic herbs are sold in Whole Foods stores all over the country. Jacobs' farm was contaminated in 2007 when pesticides from a neighboring Brussels sprouts field volatilized and made their way to his fields, making his entire dill and rosemary crops unmarketable.

We hear on a pretty regular basis from organic farmers and gardeners in North Carolina who are frustrated and concerned about the risk of pesticides drifting onto their crops. This ruling may set a positive precedent for not only those farmers and gardeners, but also for farm workers who are often on the receiving end of pesticide drift.

There is of course, still plenty of bad news to go around. Here's a story about a group of South Carolina hunters who were hospitalized after they were exposed to the pesticide Temik while hunting. Temik is used a lot in North Carolina, and many of the violations that the NC Pesticide Board settles each year involve the mishandling of this particular toxic pesticide.

Here's to progress, and a whole new year of working to make harm from pesticides a thing of the past!

My favorite moments of 2010

2010-12-28T17:08:00.006-05:00

Looking back at a great year, I can't help reflecting on how much I love being a part of this organization and working with the fantastic supporters who make us what we are.

These were some of the highlights of 2010 for me:

Getting to be color commentator with our emcee Ryan Parker at the Love Bug 2010. 500 people came to cheer on dozens of local artists as they drew bugs all night!
Hearing from child care centers around the state that they want to detox their centers. My co-workers Billie and Ana trained over 300 child care professionals this year!

Meeting with Congressman G.K. Butterfield, who is now a co-sponsor of the Toxic Chemical Safety Act. You’ll be hearing lots more from us about this ground-breaking federal legislation in the coming months.

Sitting down to lunch with farm workers, the press and supporters as we launched the Harvest of Dignity campaignwith our friends at Farmworker Advocacy Network.

Getting to know the tight-knit group of “Women without Borders,” the farmworker women who are organizing a community garden in eastern North Carolina.

Working with our 106 fantastic volunteers, like superstar Laura Valencia. Our wonderful volunteers put in over 2,200 hours of service to Toxic Free NC this year!

I can’t wait to see what 2011 will bring, and I’m so grateful for all the great supporters who are on board with us for it. Here’s to a bright new year!

Thousands of Americans to EPA: "Ban Chlorpyrifos!"

2010-10-13T14:58:00.003-04:00

Today we participated in a nationwide media action calling for the ban of the toxic insecticide chlorpyrifos, a highly toxic insecticide used by the ton in North Carolina agriculture on tobacco, peanuts, corn, apples, peaches and strawberries. According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), the average annual use of chlorpyrifos in NC is approximately 383,000 pounds--that's roughly 192 tons each year. More information on the human health effects of chlorpyrifos exposure can be found here.

EPA already banned chlorpyrifos in 2001 for indoor use, after it was determined to present risks of health and developmental harm to children exposed to it in the home. However, chlorpyrifos is still registered for use in agriculture, and rural children and their family members are still being exposed.

We've spent the past few months collecting signatures from rural North Carolinians in support of a chlorpyrifos ban, and we'd like to thank every one of you who signed the petition this summer!

-----------------------------
For Immediate Release

Contact:

Ana Duncan Pardo, Toxic-Free North Carolina, (919) 818-5933, ana@toxicfreenc.org
Carol Dansereau, Farm Worker Pesticide Project, 206-729-0498; cdansereaufwpp@earthlink.net
Stephenie Hendricks, 415-258-9151, stephdh@earthlink.net

Chemical Threat: Groups Call for Pesticide Ban
Consumers, Parents, Health Advocates, Farmers, Farm Workers and Others Target Widely Used Pesticides Linked to Attention and Learning Problems

(Raleigh, NC) - 13,000 individuals and organizations from across the country sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today calling for a ban on the pesticide chlorpyrifos and a phase out of other organophosphate (OP) pesticides.

“Human studies have now linked prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos with mental and developmental delays emphasizing even more the urgency to remove the product from the market,” said Dr. Theo Colborn, President of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX) and a signatory on the letter. “Chlorpyrifos illustrates the urgent need to be cautious, prevent further exposure and protect our children from the time they are conceived onward,” she said.

TEDX also announced today the addition of chlorpyrifos to their publicly-accessible on-line database, “Critical Windows of Development”, spotlighting animal research that links prenatal, low-dose chlorpyrifos exposure to altered health outcomes in the brain and other organs.

Dr. David Carpenter, M.D. and Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany said, “It is unacceptable that farm worker children, and children in the general population continue to be exposed to these neurotoxins.”

“As more families cope with the suffering and costs of learning and developmental disabilities and attention problems, EPA must prevent further exposures to neurotoxic pesticides,” said Maureen Swanson of the Learning Disabilities Association of America.

"The last time EPA reviewed these pesticides, its own scientists complained that the Agency was not assuring adequate protection of the nation's children, and that it was unduly influenced by those it regulates," said Dr. William Hirzy, a professor at American University in Washington D.C. and a former EPA chemist. While at EPA, Hirzy was involved in a letter raising these concerns sent to management by six unions representing 9000 EPA scientists and other staff, as the Agency was finalizing its Cumulative Risk Assessment for organophosphates in 2006. "Five years later, with even more sobering studies in hand, will EPA finally act to protect children?" Hirzy asked.

“The warning signs have been obvious for decades, yet EPA has allowed generation after generation to suffer exposures and consequences,” said Carol Dansereau, Executive Director of the Farm Worker Pesticide Project, a Washington State farm worker organization that initiated the letter to EPA. “EPA is promising to better protect children and other vulnerable people, but that promise is meaningless as long as it keeps reregistering chlorpyrifos and other organophosphates, ” she said. FWPP and others are asking the public to contact EPA and join in demanding a ban, and the implementation of precaution-based policies.

“Unfortunately chlorpyrifos and other organophosphates do not stay where sprayed. They evaporate and move with wind and fog. That’s how they contaminated our fields,” said Larry Jacobs of Jacobs Farm/Del Cabo, an organic grower in California. “There are better ways to manage insect pests than depending on organophosphates like chlorpyrifos. We signed onto the letter to EPA to protect our health and to protect our farm.”

EPA is in the process of considering re-registration for chlorpyrifos, one of the most widely used pesticides in agriculture in the US and worldwide.

Toxic Free NC Teaming up with Locopops for Labor Day Fiesta!

2010-08-30T09:39:00.002-04:00

Raleigh, NC - Toxic Free North Carolina will be the special guest at Locopops' Fifth Anniversary Party on September 6th from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Raleigh store on Hillsborough St. The Raleigh celebration is one of three being held simultaneously at Locopops stores around the Triangle.

Raleigh neighbors will be stopping by between cookouts and pool parties to enjoy a Locopop and learn about Toxic Free NC's work fighting pesticide pollution in North Carolina. All of the proceeds from the event will go to benefit Toxic Free NC, North Carolina's only organization working to put people before pesticides!

When: Monday, September 6th, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

What: A PARTY to celebrate Locopops' 5th year in business!

Where: Locopops, 1908 Hillsborough St., Raleigh, NC

Who: Hosted by Locopops Head Chef Timothy Fletcher and Toxic Free NC

About Toxic Free NC:

Toxic pesticides are over-used in North Carolina and around the world, polluting the food we eat, the water water we drink, and ultimately, our bodies. Toxic Free NC fights pesticide pollution in North Carolina by advocating for common-sense alternatives that protect our health and environment.

Toxic Free NC’s one simple goal is to get rid of pesticide pollution in our water, our food and our bodies. We work together with those who care about the environment and our health to make our communities safer. You can find more information about our programs, including Toxic Free Kids and Just and Sustainable Agriculture, at www.toxicfreenc.org or by calling 1-877-NO-SPRAY.

About Locopops:

When Locopops opened its doors in May of 2005 in Durham, the customers who first happened in were from the bordering neighborhoods. Locopops quickly became a part of the community in a way we hadn’t anticipated - putting a whole new spin on how we thought about our business and what we wanted to accomplish. The community is good to us, so we strive to be good to the community. We actively support community groups, PTA’s, student groups, animal shelters and other non-profits through fundraising activities, donations, and public art space. Learn more at: www.ilovelocopops.com.

Get you some bug art

2010-08-18T15:51:00.014-04:00

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to the Love Bug art show & benefit for Toxic Free NC, and to all the volunteers, artists and sponsors who made it AWESOME!

If you missed the show, or went home without some wonderful new bug art tucked under your arm, here's your chance! There's still Love Bug art for sale through the month of August. View the galleries here, or stop on by Epona and Oak before August is out to view these pieces in person.

We are also auctioning off the three remaining pieces from the finalist round! Check them out below, make a bid, and thanks for supporting us - all proceeds go to Toxic Free NC's work fighting pesticide pollution in NC.

"Caterpillar Party," by Paul Dumlao
8.5x11, ink on paper
Bid on this drawing

"Butterfly Queen of Hearts," by Pete Sack
8x10, ink and watercolor on paper
Bid on this drawing

"PBR Bug Party," by Bart Cusick
8x10, ink on paper
Bid on this drawing

LoveBug People's Choice Winner Announced!

2010-07-28T10:59:00.018-04:00

Local artist Sean Kernick wins by landslide, earns seat in finalists round

Contact: Ana Duncan Pardo, Toxic Free NC
(919) 818-5933 | ana[at]toxicfreenc.org

Raleigh, NC – Yesterday Toxic Free North Carolina announced the winner of the LoveBug People’s Choice poll. Raleigh artist Sean Kernick won the online poll by a significant margin, and will be given an automatic seat in the finalists round of the art competition. Ten LoveBug competitors created insect self-portraits for a week-long People’s Choice campaign on Facebook. All the artists’ self-portraits can be seen on Toxic Free NC’s Facebook page.

People's Choice Artist Sean Kernick is available for interviews. Please contact Ana Duncan Pardo for more information.

What: LoveBug is a combination live on-street art competition and gallery opening hosted by Toxic Free NC at Epona & Oak in downtown Raleigh’s City Market. This year LoveBug has garnered support from a variety of local business sponsors, including Burt’s Bees Greater Good Foundation, Whole Foods, Empire Eats, Locopops, Visual Arts Exchange and many others, and the 2010 artist line-up includes local notables David Eichenberger, Amy Sawyer and Bart Cusick.

LoveBug will kick off on First Friday, August 6 at 6 p.m. with a young artist’s round, followed by two grown-up rounds. The competitor whose art receives the highest total bid wins, and in the evening the two finalists will compete with the People’s Choice winner to create a buggy masterpiece; sold auction-style. The artist whose piece earns the highest bid wins!

All proceeds from the event will go to Toxic Free NC to support their ongoing work to get toxic pesticides out of North Carolinians’ air, water, food and bodies.

When: August 6, 2010 (First Friday) 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Where: Epona & Oak, 329 Blake St. City Market (map)

Participating artists: David Eichenberger; Amy Sawyer; Chris Norris; Sean Kernick+; Paul Dumlao+; Casey Porn*; Bart Cusick+; Catherine Hannah+; David Welch+; Pete Sack; Patrick Hitesman+; Wesley Hare; Kiki Farish*; Denee’ Black*; Rosalynn Villaescusa*; Desiree Peterson*; Sherri Pekks*; Samantha Henneke*; Bruce Gholdon*; Ann Marie Kennedy*; Christina Preher*; Eliza Campbell Kiser*; Jeremy Bond*; Becky Wofford-Waehner*; Ginger Gehres*; Terri Reiser*; Robert Shertz*

* = exhibit only + = exhibit & First Friday Competition

About Toxic Free North Carolina
Toxic pesticides are over-used in North Carolina and around the world, polluting our food, water and our bodies. Toxic Free NC fights pesticide pollution in North Carolina by advocating for common-sense alternatives that protect our health and environment. We are an independent non-profit organization -- North Carolina’s only organization working to put people before pesticides. Learn more at www.toxicfreenc.org.

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Agrarian Road Trip with the Presbyterian Hunger Program

2010-07-12T10:22:00.007-04:00

Guest post by Toxic Free NC Intern Laura Valencia.

After interning with Toxic Free NC in the summer of 2009, working specifically on farm worker advocacy, I was left with the nagging sensation that the global food system was seriously ill. I learned first-hand about the symptoms of the sickness through sharing stories with farm workers who provide much of the labor that keep the food system chugging along. Pesticide exposure, poor housing, and unsafe working conditions were just a few aspects of the status quo that I not only heard about, but saw with my own two eyes. It wasn’t hard to come out of the summer with the idea that the food system is an unbridled beast, a problem that neither law nor economy would be able to fix.

Then, in the spring of 2010 I heard about the Presbyterian Hunger Program’s Agrarian Road Trip to the US Social Forum. Although the name is a total mouthful, the idea is quite simple: get together 15 people from across the country to road trip through eight states and visit just and sustainable agricultural projects. Or, in other words, my dream vacation. This trip gave me the opportunity to see the local agriculture movement as up close and personal as I saw the problems with conventional agriculture, and learn about much needed local solutions to national and global problems!

We toured from Louisville, KY to Detroit, MI by way of Berea KY, Maryville TN, Asheville NC, Wytheville VA, Mullens WV, and Youngstown & Cleveland OH (map). I’d like to report on the NC projects that our group visited and commend your state on a fantastic variety of agrarian projects!

The Veteran’s Restoration Quarters and Transitional Housing in Asheville, NC is a converted Motel 8 with over 150 rooms. According to Director Michael Reich, the facility is in the top 5 of 600 similar facilities in the United States, evidence that they run a tight ship! One project, the Victory Garden, was started by two current residents who asked for a garden when they moved in. They now work a large piece of land sunrise to sunset every day of the week. This victory garden not only provides food to the men’s quarters, but also to the women’s quarters in the city. The two men also run a weekly tailgate market to support their project! Produce also goes to the culinary classes where other veterans work to develop skills. The Victory Garden serves the community: it is not divided into plots for different people, it is a garden that is completely communal. While giving us a tour, the men mentioned their composting initiatives and also their use of IPM. In the photo to the left, Ed, a resident of the Veteran’s Restoration Quarters talks with Talitha, a Road Tripper from California. If you look closely, you can see a patriotic scarecrow in the background!

The Free Store at Warren Wilson College was started in 1999 as a part of Warren Wilson College’s super progressive recycling program. As a college student, I was blown away by WWC’s initiatives across campus: local food advocacy in the cafeteria, sustainable ag practices taught in the classroom, and an eco-dorm for leisure activities! As a college student, I am also sensitive to big-budget college spending vs. small-budget college student saving. The project that I saw that really appeared to not only be cutting-edge environmentally but also progressive socially was the Warren Wilson Free Store. The Free Store is an initiative to divert waste from the landfill – the message on their website is clear: “If you have some stuff you want to get rid of, no matter what it is, and you think that someone else might still be able to use / salvage it, bring it down.” Shelves upon shelves are filled with half-used shampoos, old cell phone chargers, dirty shoes, and suitcases. Just about everything a college student would throw away is found there, and more! I even picked up a “Warren Wilson Admissions” polo shirt. This project is part of WWC’s awesome recycling program, which you can check out here.

Our group spent the night at Warren Wilson College and had the pleasure of making Marc Williams’, local ethnobotanist, acquaintance. Marc led us through a meal that used over 30 ingredients, the vast majority local and harvested just that day. The menu included: herbal tea of monarda, spearmeint, sassafras leaves; pesto of lamb’s quarter and basil; garden salad with more lamb’s quarter and lettus, garnished with day lilies and monarda (left); and for dessert, juneberry-blackberry cobbler. Marc Williams, our favorite genius, is an ethnobotanist, teacher, chef, and farmer who went to Warren Wilson College and Appalachian State University. He is leading an online course that is donation based and based on the book Botany in a Day. Check it out!

One last story I’d like to tell is about a lunch our group shared in Brevard, NC at Fred and Elizabeth Bahnson’s homestead. Because our trip was sponsored by the Presbyterian Hunger Program, we often spent time with theologians and learned specifically about faith-based organizing around the local foods movement. The Bahnson couple, who are building an eco-house just up the hill from their gravity-fed edible forest and permaculture garden (idyllic, no?) are both theologians who met at Duke Divinity. My fellow roadtripper Bethel (her blog here) describes the Bahnson’s projects with detail:

Where the Bahnsons live is actually a microclimate in the midst of the mountains – a tropical rainforest, receiving nearly 80 inches of rain each year – as much as Seattle. As they build their new house, the Bahnsons have planned to harvest the rainwater, situating their catchment system on top of a hill – to gravity-feed to their biointesive growing beds. In addition to rainwater catchment, Fred has designed swales on the contour of the land to irrigate native fruit trees and prevent erosion on the steep slope on which their farm is southerly-facing. Other highlights of their farm-to-be are living mulches that fix nitrogen (lupine) and accumulate other deep nutrients (comfrey), as well as growing their own grains (Hopi blue corn for grinding). Elizabeth is currently dreaming of a goat dairy.

If you are interested in the connection between food and faith, check out an article Fred Bahnson co-wrote for the organization he founded, the Anathoth Community Garden. He points out, as many agrarian theologians do, that human and humus are not so far apart, a fact often supported by the Bible’s stories. The Bahnson’s are a living example of a desire to serve the soil rather than dominate it.

reflections on farm work in the heat of the summer

2010-06-28T17:05:00.001-04:00

I went berry picking this past Sunday afternoon at Vollmer Farm, a certified organic former-tobacco-farm about 45 minutes northeast of Raleigh. Berries are among my very favorite foods in the whole wide world. So, inspired by the season's bounties - blackberries & blueberries & even a few strawberries - I organized this little berry picking trip with a couple friends. Only one big problem: Sunday was blazing hot with a heat index of 105 degrees, and we went in the hottest midday hours. Whew, not so smart! Under hats, sunglasses and sunscreen, we picked sluggishly for an hour or so, rested often in the shade, then retreated to showers and air conditioning as soon as we'd picked enough to justify the trip. (Photo by Kate Pattison. The author picking blackberries at Vollmer Farm.)

Even with the heat, picking berries was pretty pleasant work - sometimes I was close enough to my friends to chat, and the rest of the time I was alone with my thoughts and the beautiful - if sweltering - day. Being on a certified organic farm, I had no qualms about pesticide exposure as the breezes cooled my bare arms and legs, and as I taste tested the different berry varieties. But, as I squatted and stooped and sweat, I thought a lot about farm workers. Here I am, an "agritourist," picking berries by my own choice, on the farm of my choice, no more or faster than I feel like, and I get to go home whenever I want....and even I am pretty uncomfortable, feeling pretty paranoid about sunburn and getting enough water. What would it be like if this was my job, if I picked berries all day long?

Toxic Free NC Leadership Council member Melissa Bailey wrote an email this weekend about her work with youth farm workers in Eastern NC that I'm sharing some of here with her permission, because she writes so eloquently about this issue.

My team and I have spent a very grueling week. I say this humbly because getting in and out of air conditioned vehicles and sweating an hour under the tin roofs of mobile homes/housing is nothing compared to what agricultural laborers suffer in heat indexes that are now regularly between 105-110 degrees.

The situation causes me to reflect about real climate change and if we can expect similar heat waves over this and future summers. It also raises questions about just how hot it can get and for how long. In short, we all dread August at this point (us and the workers).

I recall a conversation I had with a colleague and very good friend last season when children were experiencing breathing problems and our youth were losing weight quickly with some only getting as far as the cool porch floors or shaded areas in their shorts before they fell into exhausted sleep/rest.

She told me about what it is like when you breed prize animals, in this case, dogs. She recounted the importance to the owners that the animals remain disease and illness-free. She discussed the thousands of dollars some breeds can bring to the owners in income. She explained that the animals had air conditioners, regular physical examinations and were only exercised/trained in the early mornings
and late evenings. We talked about hydration and diet.

I felt sick to my stomach at the comparison. To this day it resonates. I understand the differences. I know people are supposed to seek their own medical attention, their own air conditioning, their own safety levels while in the fields. The
problem is, we all know they don't. Not because they don't care. But because they don't want to miss work, appear weak, or anger the contractor/grower. In short, they desperately, desperately need their jobs.

They need to work so badly they are willing to work in dangerous heat indexes for 8-12 hours, in conditions where contractors/growers can be found at the edge of the field with the water and sitting in their air conditioned trucks/vans. I know this because I drive by it every day I'm out there. Anyone who thinks otherwise is extremely naive.

A few camps only work until noon. The common thread in those camps seems to be that the grower/contractor won't put his workers in the field if he/she is not willing to work under the same conditions. One would think that the human condition would provoke this kind of behavior. Unfortunately, these contractors/growers are a minority.

This heat is so dangerous. It isn't Texas heat or Mexico heat. It's a humid heat that provokes every drop of moisture from your body. In time you stop sweating and you start to feel cool, then you begin to shake. If you don't understand what is happening, you say things like, "My body is used to the temperature now," and maybe you don't drink anything else because you're afraid you'll start sweating again...

Why? Obviously the injustice nags at me but I guess the larger question of how did we ever get to the point that we could so completely dehumanize the labor necessary for our food supply is the larger question. What happened? And how in the world can we keep this from slipping further and further into a time when we just buried them and bought more?

I have to go now. (...) I love my job, even in 107 degree heat indexes. I get to take them (the workers) water and fresh fruit and take them to the clinic and even call the occasional ambulance. I can't really teach anything. They fall asleep too quickly. But still, I go and sweat with them. It seems like the least I can do for a situation I am so powerless to affect.

Thank you, Melissa, for the work that you do!

Now for a little comic relief: check out this article about a joint effort between the UFW and the Colbert Report: "In a tongue-in-cheek call for immigration reform, farmworkers are teaming up with comedian Stephen Colbert to challenge unemployed Americans: Come on, take our jobs."

Stay cool, everyone!

Ag-Mart: The end of a long, sad story

2010-06-09T17:21:00.009-04:00

A long, disappointing episode came to a close today as the NC Pesticide Board accepted a final settlement agreement in the Ag-Mart case that has dragged on for more than five years. In 2005 the state found hundreds of pesticide safety violations in what would become the Department of Agriculture’s largest enforcement case ever.

Three families alleged that their children’s birth defects were related to pesticide exposure that pregnant workers experienced while working for Ag-Mart on tomato farms in Florida and North Carolina. One of the children died, and another, Carlitos (pictured at right), became a symbol of this case through stirring photography and reporting in the Raleigh News & Observer and Palm Beach Post. An investigation by the NC Division of Public Health could not prove whether the pesticide exposures to pregnant workers caused the birth defects, but found that they were almost certainly a contributing factor.

Today’s settlement covered six points. The state’s attorney provided an overview based on what the state gets out of the agreement, and what Ag-Mart gets. What the state gets:

Ag-Mart agrees to dismiss their appeal of the Pesticide Board’s ruling against them.
Ag-Mart will pay a $25,000 settlement – that’s $24,000 for this case, and another $1,000 to settle a separate case of pesticide misuse from 2006 that was never heard by the Pesticide Board.
Ag-Mart will conduct a pesticide education program for North Carolina farmworkers during the 2011 and 2012 growing season.

What Ag-Mart gets:

The Pesticide Board will make a public statement to the effect that there have been no pesticide violations found on Ag-Mart’s North Carolina farms since 2006, and that Jeffrey Oxley and Ag-Mart are free of any negligence or liability in this case.

Ag-Mart’s employee, Jeffrey Oxley, will get to keep his pesticide license, with a 6-month probationary period.
The Pesticide Board will amend its ruling so that all violations that were found to be “willful” violations of pesticide rules are now classified as “non-specified.”

All in all, this appears to be a much better deal for Ag-Mart than it is for the state, or for Ag-Mart’s employees. The settlement sends an unfortunate message that the state ultimately will not hold anyone responsible when a preventable pesticide incident has the potential to cause irreparable harm farmworkers and their families. How much worse would a case have to be in order to make the charges stick?

It is understandable that the state wanted to finally settle this case, but the settlement terms seem to be much more about rehabilitating Ag-Mart’s public image than protecting worker health and safety. A 2008 Governor’s Pesticide Task Force examined pesticide health and safety requirements in the aftermath of this case. Some regulations were tightened up around the margins, but larger reforms were rejected, and the funding for educational programs that resulted have all been cut since then in the state’s budget crisis.

One huge question remains unanswered: What is Ag-Mart going to do, and what is the state going to do, to make sure that something like this never happens again in our state? The Pesticide Board’s silence on this question today was deafening.

Update 6/19/10: Take action: write to the pesticide board.

Goodbye, Endosulfan!

2010-06-09T11:32:00.001-04:00

One year ago this week, Toxic Free NC joined farmworker, health and environmental advocates around the nation calling on the US EPA to take the notoriously dangerous pesticide, endosulfan, off the market in the US. Read our blog post from June 8, 2009.

Today the EPA announced that it would do just that, to protect the health of farmworkers and wildlife.

Many thanks to all of you who joined the petitions to reconsider the scientific evidence, and cheers to EPA for getting rid of this persistent pollutant!

on "natural" meats and choosing local & organic

2010-05-18T16:00:00.002-04:00

Guest post by Toxic Free NC volunteer Hayes Simpson.

I was forever changed a couple of weeks ago, and will henceforth always practice the “sniff test method” before I begin to cook any type of food with an expiration date!

Here's the story: I went food shopping on a Thursday, went out of town for the weekend, returned on a Sunday afternoon. Later in the afternoon, I chopped some onions, crushed some garlic cloves, and set out spices for the whole chicken that I intended to roast. I unwrapped the chicken, plopped it on a roasting pan while the oven preheated, and Whew! All of a sudden something was amiss; the air was thickening with a fetid odor that begged to be extinguished. First I ran to the bathroom, then to the shamed chicken, which I quickly double bagged and carried out to the garage. But, when I checked the slimy wrappings, the "sell by date" was for that very day!

For one thing, I probably should not have left uncooked chicken in the fridge for that long. Check out this Food Storage Guide. Fresh poultry is supposed to spend only one or two days in the fridge, oops! Us “master chefs” learn something new every day!

But here's a little more background on this chicken… I purchased it from a grocery store where I don't normally shop because they don't carry many organic products. But shop there I did, and seeing no great meat choices in the freezer section, I chose a whole chicken from behind the meat counter display case. It was labeled “natural” and had been produced on a “farm.” I think it was the word “natural” that sold me.

So, what does the label “natural” mean when it is applied to meat and poultry? The USDA says that meat and poultry labeled “natural” must not contain artificial flavoring, color ingredients, chemical preservatives, or artificial or synthetic ingredients, and can only be processed “minimally.” Really, the “natural” label refers to what happened to the animal product AFTER slaughter. This means that so-called "natural" products could contain pesticides, added hormones, or antibiotics! Pesticides and other pollutants build up in the fatty tissues of livestock that are exposed to them. When we consume animal products that have pesticides in them, those chemicals wind up in our own bodies. Unlike microbial contaminants, we can’t "kill" pesticides and other chemical pollutants by cooking them away. For more info on pesticides in food, go to: http://www.whatsonmyfood.org. It seems there could have been quite a few pesticides in that rotten chicken that I thankfully did not eat! (Maybe it was a blessing in disguise.) Too bad I can't "sniff test" for pesticides in my food!

We meat eaters do not have to abandon hope just yet, however! We have the option to shop for local, sustainably produced, pasture-raised animal products. Pasture-raised meat is leaner, higher in Omega-3s, has been shown to help lower LDL cholesterol levels, and is MUCH less likely to contain harmful bacteria and pesticides. This site provides a great summary of research on the health benefits of pasture-raised, "grass fed" meats.

Lucky for those of us in the Triangle area, we are surrounded by plenty of alternatives for purchasing healthy, sustainably-produced meat, poultry, and dairy products. A great resource is the Triangle Meat Buying Club. Members order their meats online from a local farm. Each month, participating farms are listed along with the products they offer. You place an order online, then simply pick up your order from the farmers at the designated pick-up site. This sounds sooo much more pleasant than scrutinizing labels in the meat department of a crowded grocery! And, you can’t beat getting to shake hands with the person who actually helped produce the meat that will soon be on your dinner plate. (The photo above is from one of the Triangle Meat Buying Club's suppliers, Coon Rock Farm in Hillsborough.)

For more information on pasture-based local producers look at the NC Choices site. Another idea to consider is joining a CSA Farm that offers meat, poultry, and/or dairy products. If you feel that this is too big of an expense, consider splitting the cost of a CSA share with a friend or family member. Personally, that is my plan. I was fortunate enough to visit a great CSA farm that specializes in pasture raised chicken. Check out the farm blog at: http://castlemainefarm.blogspot.com.

I know that I will feel much more comfortable adding wholesome, fresh chicken to my meal plans, perhaps some beef tenderloins for special occasions, and I can’t forget the delight of Sunday morning bacon. Perhaps my nose can relax now too!

Friday news roundup

2010-05-07T16:00:00.003-04:00

Hello fair ground readers! Here's a little round up of news stories and items-of-interest that crossed my desk this week. Have a great Mother's Day weekend, and please take a moment to take action on our Mother's Day Action Alert - Toxics Reform Your Mom Would Love! - Billie

Farmers Cope with Roundup-Resistant Weeds from the NY Times.

"(...)“You’re having to add another product with the Roundup to kill your weeds,” said Steve Doster, a corn and soybean farmer in Barnum, Iowa. “So then why are we buying the Roundup Ready product?” (...)"

Agencies Pledge to Curb Abuse of Child Farm Workers from NPR.

"(...)Human Rights Watch also criticized the EPA, saying its regulations regarding pesticide use on farms did not adequately consider the special vulnerabilities of child workers.
In response, the EPA said it was working to strengthen its assessment of pesticide health risks, in part to improve conditions for child workers, and expected to propose amendments to federal worker protection standards by 2012. (...)

New Alarm Bells About Chemicals and Cancer from the NY Times.

"(...) It’s striking that this report emerges not from the fringe but from the mission control of mainstream scientific and medical thinking, the President’s Cancer Panel. (...)"

And the backlash: US Panel Criticized as Overstating Cancer Risks, also from the NY Times.

Some local news:

NC Farm to School Program Sees Record Sales from WRAL

MomsRising: Cut Toxics from Our Kids' Lives on the WRAL "Go Ask Mom" Blog

And, the comment war on Toxic Free NC's last post over on NewRaleigh.com - Sayin' No to GMOs. Thanks to Hayes Simpson for the post that inspired that one!

We're finalists!

2010-04-28T10:49:00.004-04:00

Check it out everyone...our documentary short from last summer is a finalist in the EPA Environmental Justice video contest!

We're so proud of the work done by Laura Valencia, our 2009 intern through SAF's Into the Fields summer internship program, and also extremely proud of all the workers who contributed to the video by speaking up and speaking their minds about pesticides on the job! Also, many thanks to SAF and to the folks at Beehive for helping us make it happen!

Stay tuned for further updates, and in case you haven't seen it yet, here's our video!

NC Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council - Meeting #2, Earth Day 2010

2010-04-23T16:18:00.005-04:00

The new NC Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council met for the second time yesterday. Here's a little report on the highlights:

Federal food safety legislation - Several members of the Council have been at work trying to figure out how proposed federal food safety legislation might affect small farmers in NC, and representing that perspective in the national discussion. The general sense is that the federal legislation isn't considering the needs of small farmers nearly enough, and that though the Senate bill is better than the House version, neither are great. The Council members asked for materials they can use to contact their representatives about this issue. More info on this issue and how to take action is available from the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (check out the "Action Alerts" section).

CEFS Farm to Fork Guide - This publication, just released, is the result of a statewide Farm-to-Fork initiative and includes lots of good ideas for the Council about where to start and what topics to tackle. They got a quick summary of the highlights in their meeting, and started discussing its implications. Get the guide from CEFS (right side of the page).

Funding for the NC Ag Development & Farmland Preservation Trust Fund - This Trust Fund is at risk of losing all funding for the 2010-11 fiscal year, and that would be a real shame, because it has been a source of funding for great initiatives in the state, and already in just 2 grant cycles, it has helped many farmers to stay on their land. The Council passed a resolution to submit a joint letter to the NC General Assembly leadership and request that the Trust Fund receive $5 million this year, and also talked about contacting legislators as individuals. More information and how to take action for farmland preservation funding.

Subcommittees of the Council - The Council spent the remainder of the meeting approving a set of guidelines and a structure for subcommittees, which of course they can change later as needed. For now, they'll have three subcommittees. These are not the exact titles, but the topic areas are: Public health, hunger & fighting obesity; land, people & natural resources; economic development & infrastructure. Subcommittees will have to keep minutes, and report back to the whole Council on what they do. I expect that subcommittee members will be posted to the Council's webpage soon. The presentation slides from yesterday's meeting are also posted here.

The general feeling of this meeting was somewhat tedious and bogged down. Discussions and decisions that ought to have been relatively straightforward took a long time to muddle through, and it seemed the main culprit was not so much disagreement, but that "Robert's Rules of Order" weren't working so well for them. I for one really hope that a solution to that problem can be worked out ASAP, because it seems a real shame for a group of such interesting and inspired people to come together, in many cases from very far away, and then to have to spend their precious little time together bumbling through the small stuff.

Future meeting dates have been set for July 22 in Raleigh and September 9 in Asheville. We'll keep on keeping you posted!

not all germs are bad

2010-04-15T10:17:00.006-04:00

Guest post by Toxic Free NC volunteer Andrea Restle-Lay, Moderator of Five Points of Raleigh CSA

Not all germs are our friends, it’s true, and they can turn into true enemies. It’s no wonder H1N1 swept us all into a panic!

I’ve heard lots of stories over the years: a neighbor has MS; my high school friend has celiac disease (a.k.a. gluten allergy); friends and relatives die of cancer; schoolmates started suffering sudden, life threatening peanut allergies and asthma; my own son picked up a cold which turned into an odd, barking cough that went on forever and was impervious to medications. My own research has shown that all these issues may be related to hyper-immunity, or the body’s immune system turning against itself. But why? What is wrong with everyone’s immune system all of a sudden?

One explanation comes from the Hygiene Hypothesis, developed after a failed experiment in Germany in the late 1990s. Dr. Erika Von Mutius hypothesized that children who grew up in poorer East Germany would be more likely to have asthma and allergies than those in wealthier West Germany. In fact, after reunification she discovered that exactly the opposite was true – children in East Germany were less likely to have asthma and allergies! So she developed a new theory – the hygiene hypothesis - that a child’s early contact with dirt, animals and other children exposes them to many microbes and allergens, and this helps their immune systems develop strong and healthy.

There has been much debate in the scientific literature since that time about the validity of this idea, and how exactly it works. There is such a thing as a good germ – in fact, there are billions of good bacteria at work in all of us, helping us to digest our food properly, heal from skin wounds, and more. Overdoing it on the antibacterial soaps, cleaners and sanitizers, not to mention antibiotics, may kill off too much good bacteria and throw our bodies out of whack. What’s more, antibacterial ingredients added to many household products are actually pesticides, with toxic effects on our health and on the environment. More about that in a previous blog post.

Opponents of the hygiene hypothesis point to inner-city populations in the US. Living in more crowded housing and spending more time in daycare should mean higher exposure to germs and lower risk of asthma and allergies for inner-city kids, right? But no, rates of asthma are in fact much higher than for other American children. However, inner-city kids may also face a lot of other exposures that increase their risk for respiratory illnesses – things like diesel exhaust, industrial pollution, and pesticides. Diet may also play a big role.

Some good sources to check out on this issue include:

Jessica Sachs’ Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial World

Dirt’s good for kids from the Chicago Tribune

So what can we do as parents to raise healthy children free of immune diseases AND the flu?

Educate your children’s immune system every day by exposing your children to plenty of environmental nuances - (non-poisonous) backyard plants and flowers, fields of weeds and wildflowers, get a kiss from a neighbor’s well-behaved dog, investigate some bugs, pick up some earthworms. Feed your kids local honey every day after they reach one year of age. Let them get dirty and make mud pies in the backyard.
Wait to serve solid food until six months. Start with low allergy risk foods like sweet potatoes, oatmeal and apples but avoid things like eggs and nuts early on.
Flood those little bodies with healthy antioxidants to help their immune systems remain strong, especially after a cold or vaccination when young immune systems are most likely to overreact. A delicious organic berry and local honey yogurt smoothie or even chicken vegetable soup can do the trick!
Join a Local CSA farm and feed your family a variety of fresh, local, organic fruits and vegetables, serve uncooked foods when you can and visit the CSA farm so your kids can play in their dirt, too. (The photo above is of two very happy kids in the dirt at Killen Farms in Pittsboro, NC - courtesy of Jennifer and Jason Killen.) Take your children to the Farmer’s Market and let them try free samples whenever you can. Look on www.LocalHarvest.org for resources nearby.
Don’t use pesticides around children! No matter what you think about the hygiene hypothesis, know that the same argument does NOT apply to pesticides and other toxic chemicals. Children are more sensitive to health damage from pesticides and many other pollutants than adults are, so it’s extra important to keep their environments toxic-free. Try natural methods instead - you can get some ideas for least-toxic pest control methods from Toxic Free NC’s website.

You’re still allowed to make your children wash their hands when they get home from school, though, because not all germs are good germs, either!

Tips for Avoiding Genetically Modified Foods

2010-04-12T14:23:00.005-04:00

Guest post by Toxic Free NC volunteer Hayes Simpson

For a long while now, I have carried around an index card in my wallet billfold, which contains a list handwritten by my own dear Mama. The list includes the top fruits and veggies to buy organic (as in the Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce from Environmental Working Group). She also listed fish and shellfish that contain fewer toxins (as in the Seafood Selector from Environmental Defense Fund).

I’m sure that many of you are familiar with these lists and others like them, and they may have changed your buying habits in a big way, or maybe just when it comes to certain staple foods, such as apples, spinach, and potatoes. I'll admit that it was only once in a while that I remembered to check my Mama's list.

But another closely-related food issue has caused me to stop consuming sodas, and to “floor-it” when my stomach is grumbling and the golden arches are beckoning. I am talking about the unsavory subject of GMO’s which until recently brought to my mind visions of acres of picture-perfect, bright yellow, completely inedible corn, and futuristic, square watermelons stacked neatly into a towering pyramid for display purposes.

I was lucky enough to be introduced to some information that really helped me to put my limited knowledge about organic food shopping and genetically modified foods into context. It started when I was shown a clip from the film, Everything you HAVE TO KNOW about Dangerous Genetically Modified Foods.

I learned that, in fact, the crops that are most likely to be genetically modified are corn, soybeans, canola, and cotton. Very few fresh fruits and veggies sold in the U.S. currently are genetically modified, but did you know that there are dozens of common ingredients derived from the big four GM crops that may be genetically modified? In the words of my two year old, “Ewwwww!” So the best advice for keeping GMOs off your plate is to read labels, and know that anything containing one of these ingredients is questionable, unless of course the product is marked "certified organic" or "non-GMO."

The film explains that there are a some very serious health concerns about genetically modified ingredients, including the potential to cause allergies. More information is available at: http://www.responsibletechnology.org They also provide an excellent Non-GMO Shopping Guide (in case your Mama hasn’t already made you one.)

Good luck, and eat well!

Flippin' Ants

2010-04-08T16:58:00.003-04:00

Cross posted on NewRaleigh.com

Happy Spring, all.
It's time for birds and bees and flowers and trees, and sadly, a lot of pests too. Nothing says spring quite like looking down the loooong aisle of pesticides at the hardware store, sigh.

But, if you stick with me, I will do my best to get you through the spring insect onslaught without having to resort to toxic and expensive pesticide products! Drop me a line in the comments, or on our website, to request a toxic free tip about your favorite pest.

Which brings me to today's main dish: ANTS.
Flippin' ants. They come in all different sizes, shapes, and levels of annoyingness.

For ants that wander indoors, I've heard lots of natural remedies involving cinnamon or cayenne pepper, but can't vouch for those myself. I have a feeling, though, that no remedy natural or otherwise is going to get rid of ants unless you remove their food source. Like any other pest, ants wander inside to eat something you've got there - often something sweet and delicious in your trash or your cabinet. So, cleaning up and putting foods into ant-proof containers is key. By ant-proof, I mean airtight plastic and glass containers - plastic bags or boxes won't hold against a determined ant!

So, Billie's indoor ant management program goes something like this:

Step one: kill ants.....with soapy water. Let's say there's a train of ants moving through your kitchen. The quickest and most satisfying way to quell the insurgency is to squirt them with soapy water, then wipe them up with a sponge or rag and send them down the drain. They will drown, and what's more, you will clean up the pheromone trails they leave for each other. The "scout" ants leave a trail for the rest of the gang to follow and find your sweet treats, so wiping that up slows them down. *Note: don't wipe up the whole trail before you figure out where it starts, i.e., where they're coming in from, because that is useful information!

Step two: block the way the ants came in. If there's an obvious crack or hole they're using to come in, block it off. A permanent fix is ideal - like caulk or a screen - but anything will do for a temporary solution....even duct tape.

Step three, get rid of all your crumbs and sticky bits. Everyone's kitchen has some. Find them and clean them up! With soap! Then, it's time for the ant-proof containers, as per above. Another quick fix if you don't have enough ant-proof jars/bins/etc: your fridge is a giant ant-proof container, so you can temporarily keep boxes and bags of ant-prone foods like cereal, sugar, or dried fruit in the fridge.

Step four, if all that wasn't enough to foil your ant friends, it's time for some borax ant bait you can mix up yourself. Borax isn't non-toxic, but it's a heck of a lot closer than the bug sprays you can buy at the store, it doesn't off-gas, and it's wicked cheap. You should still handle it with care, and be sure that your borax ant baits are labeled, and kept well out of the way of kids and pets. To make the bait, dissolve 1 cup of sugar and 4 teaspoons of borax in 3 cups of water. Divide the mixture between several small containers that you don't mind ruining - old jelly or baby food jars, little plastic containers, or whatever. Loosely pack the containers halfway with cotton balls or other cotton stuffing. Put the lids on, then poke a few holes in the top of each for the ants to get in. Then, put the bait containers near places where ants are getting in, or near where they've been visiting a lot. It may sound weird, but these baits really work!

For more advice on getting rid of ants, check out these articles from Toxic Free NC: Getting Rid of Ants Without Toxic Chemicals, and The ABCs of Coping with Fire Ants.

This Tuesday: Groceries for a Cause 5% Day for Toxic Free NC at Cary Whole Foods

2010-04-05T11:24:00.013-04:00

For more information contact:
Ana Duncan Pardo
919-833-8655

For Immediate Release

Toxic Free North Carolina is Recipient of Whole Foods 5% Community Day

Raleigh, NC - On Tuesday, April 6, Toxic Free North Carolina will be the recipient of five percent of the day’s sales at Whole Foods Market in Cary. Toxic Free NC, a grassroots nonprofit fighting pesticide pollution statewide, is also the focus of the Cary Whole Foods Market’s April Community Spotlight. Staff from Toxic Free NC will be in the store to answer questions from shoppers throughout the day on Tuesday.

Toxic Free North Carolina is a nonprofit organization that has been dedicated to fighting pesticide pollution since it was established in 1986. Toxic Free NC’s three-member staff focuses their work on efforts to safeguard child health, protect farm workers from toxic exposures and strengthen sustainable agriculture in NC. Toxic Free NC engages parents, sustainable farmers, consumers and farm workers across the state through popular education, creative use of documentary and grassroots organizing and advocacy.

Toxic Free NC staff members Billie Karel and Ana Duncan Pardo will be available throughout the day at Whole Foods Market in Cary to answer questions and provide information about their work. For more information about Whole Foods Market 5% Community Day call 919-816-8830.

###

Whole Foods Market - Cary is located at 102 New Waverly Place, Cary, NC 27518-7002.

About Whole Foods Market®
Founded in 1980 in Austin, Texas, Whole Foods Market, a leader in the natural and organic foods industry and America’s first national certified organic grocer, was named "America’s Healthiest Grocery Store" in 2008 by Health magazine. The Whole Foods Market motto, "Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet"™ captures the company’s mission to find success in customer satisfaction and wellness, employee excellence and happiness, enhanced shareholder value, community support and environmental improvement. Thanks to its 53,000 Team Members, Whole Foods Market has been ranked as one of the "100 Best Companies to Work For" in America by FORTUNE magazine for 11 consecutive years. In fiscal year 2008, the company had sales of $8 billion and currently has more than 275 stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Whole Foods Market is a trademark owned by Whole Foods Market IP, LP.

Mujeres sin Fronteras - Women without Borders

2010-03-31T16:04:00.001-04:00

I am so pleased to introduce the Mujeres sin Fronteras ("Women without Borders") to the blogosphere! It's a privilege to know these amazing ladies in the Kinston area who are starting a cooperative organic farm on land owned by a local church. The group is facilitated by Melissa Bailey, with support from Toxic Free NC's Leadership Council.

The Mujeres are migrant farmworkers with a home base in North Carolina. Ironically, even though they work 10-to-12 hour days, 6 days a week growing and harvesting vegetables all through the growing season, they have a hard time affording food for their families during the winter months. This is a common challenge for North Carolina's farmworkers - in fact, a 2004 study from Wake Forest University found that among the 100+ NC farmworkers they interviewed, "food insecurity" was about 4 times more prevalent than for the US population overall.

The Mujeres sin Fronteras initially came together out of a desire to support one another through those lean months of the year. After talking through their needs and hopes, they decided to pursue a cooperative farming model, since after all, farming is what they know best, and food is what they needed most immediately! From their mission statement:

The Mujeres sin Fronteras (Women Without Borders) has the single goal of organizing impoverished women, their families and youth to create sustainable communities.

We work with those who care about us to:
- Educate people about the need for sustainable community environments;
- Increase our ability to affect change where we live, work and learn;
- Advocate for the resources we need locally to achieve the American Dream; and
- Promote farmworkers as farmers and directly assist with the creation of sustainable food systems.

The Mujeres sin Fronteras broke ground on their new cooperative farm in early March. (At left is a photo of volunteers and youth on ground-breaking-day at the Mujeres sin Fronteras farm site - photo courtesy of Melissa Bailey. The photo above is of a new vermicomposting bin donated to the Mujeres, complete with labels and instructions in Spanish! Photo by Billie Karel.)

There are so many benefits to cooperative organic farming for this group of women. The Mujeres will supplement their families' diets with healthy organic foods year-round. They intend to sell their organically grown produce locally, which will diversify their families' incomes. They are very deliberately involving their children and other young farmworkers in the project in order to connect youth to the land and educate them about food, farming, and sustainable business. Ultimately, what they're doing is so powerful to me because they are building a community based on cooperation and sustainability, instead of exploitation. Their organic farm will reduce their families' dependence on conventional agriculture as an occupation, which exposes them all too often to dangerous chemicals, unfair labor practices, and drastic seasonal fluctuations in income.

The Mujeres sin Fronteras are taking greater control of their community's food supply, and of their own livelihoods, and I just can't say enough about how inspiring they are, and how proud Toxic Free NC is to support them!

You can donate directly to the Mujeres sin Fronteras to support their cooperative organic farm by sending a check to their fiscal sponsor:
Home Missions and Evangelism of OFWB
2600 West Vernon Ave.
Kinston, NC 28504
(Please make out your check to "Home Missions and Evangelism of OFWB," and put "Women without Borders" in the memo line.) The Mujeres are collecting private donations to use for seed, tools, training on organic farming and interpretation of organic farming resources, and transportation. If you're in the Kinston area and would like to help out at the garden, contact Melissa Bailey at 252-286-7064.

Toxic Free NC is working with rural communities all across the state to get sustainable food projects like this one off the ground. Thank you for supporting our shared work!

gardeners' tool: what's in your fertilizer??

2010-03-24T14:36:00.004-04:00

On Saturday my husband came home from the garden store with a little bag of fertilizer labeled "For Organic Gardening!" I was skeptical. Fertilizer is notorious for being full of other contaminants besides the potassium, nitrogen and phosphorous you want out of it.

The bag directed me to the company's regulatory website to read about the ingredients. That website directed me to this one: The Washington State Fertilizer Product Database. Hot dog!!

I looked up the "for organic gardening" fertilizer and discovered that it contained 37.9 ppm arsenic. Arsenic! Just to put that number in perspective, the EPA's arsenic limit for drinking water is 0.010 ppm. That makes the fertilizer levels more than 3,000 times higher than the EPA's limits for drinking water. It was also full of mercury, cadmium, lead, and plenty of other stuff that doesn't belong in my vegetables. And I want to put this stuff on my garden.... really?

Luckily we have a nice big compost pile in our backyard full of rich organic matter for the garden. We returned the bag of fertilizer (and told the store why we were returning it - they were a bit taken aback).

The good news is that you don't need to buy fertilizer additives for your garden - compost is easy to make at home. The bad news is that fertilizer is full of virtually unregulated contaminants. The Washington State database lets you find out what's there - but only after you've bought the stuff. The USDA should crack down on fertilizer makers. The rest of us can learn about organic gardening and make our fertilizer the do-it-yourself way.

Ambassadors Workshops & Friday News Roundup for 3/12/10

2010-03-12T17:00:00.001-05:00

Toxic Free NC's staff is giving three upcoming workshops on Ambassadors for Just & Sustainable Agriculture. More about that program here.

Black Mountain this Sunday, 3/14 at 3:30 (don't forget about daylight savings), Lakeview Community Center, 401 Laurel Circle Drive, Black Mountain, NC. Questions or RSVP: ana@toxicfreenc.org.
Greensboro next Thursday, 3/18, 6 pm on the campus of Bennett College. Full details on Facebook and Google Calendar. Contact Billie with questions or to RSVP: billie@toxicfreenc.org.
Pittsboro on Tuesday, 3/23 on the campus of Central Carolina Community College. Full details TBD - contact Billie to RSVP and get the full details as they become available: billie@toxicfreenc.org.

Want us to come give a workshop for Ambassadors in your neck of the woods next? We love giving these workshops, and love working with activists who are passionate about fighting pesticide pollution and promoting a healthier and more equitable food system in our state. Invite us to give this dynamic workshop to your group/church/class, or just in your living room!

In other good foodie news:

5% Day for Toxic Free NC at Whole Foods in Cary set for 4/6/10

The next meeting of the NC Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council has been set for April 22nd - Earth Day! - in Raleigh. More about their first meeting in Feb. Full details on the April meeting TBA - keep an eye on this website for updates.

Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduces Farm to School legislation in Congress. Here's a video of Holt speaking about this bill in a House committee - nice!!

herbicide hormone havoc

2010-03-02T09:27:00.003-05:00

The Washington Post is reporting on yet another study that shows that the widely-used herbicide, Atrazine, scrambles hormones in wildlife.

In this study, Dr. Tyrone Hayes at UC-Berkeley found that male frogs who as tadpoles swam in water tainted with low levels of Atrazine (within the US EPA's drinking water limits) developed female sex traits. 10% of the male frogs even laid eggs that hatched!

Syngenta, the chemical company that makes Atrazine, continues to stick to their story that Atrazine does no such thing. Every study they've released shows the opposite.

Meanwhile, the US EPA is taking another look at Atrazine, which they re-registered for use in 2006 based on Syngenta's safety data. It seems all this independent research has shown things in a different light. Perhaps EPA will start making a practice of considering independent research - not just the company's own data - when evaluating a pesticide's risks. It would be long overdue.

News Roundup

2010-02-26T10:00:00.002-05:00

Hello Fair Ground readers -
Just a quick roundup of interesting - and mostly wonderful! - stories that came across my desk today.

A very well-done blog post over on Civil Eats - Farmers Fighting for their Health - based on a story in The Ecologist - Cancer and Pesticides: "After long battles, three farmers in France have won legal claims that their cases of cancer and Parkinson's disease were caused by working with pesticides. Now they want to help others fight similar cases." Wow!

Smithfield Pork just appointed a new Sustainability Coordinator. Yes, you read that right: Smithfield....Sustainability....weird to have them in the same sentence, no? Here's Smithfield's press release, and a blog post about this move over on Sustainable Food at Change.org. Best of luck, Mr. Treacy - you've got a heck of a job in front of you.

And finally, the Triangle's own Crop Mob is in the NY Times Magazine! They're a group of people interested in sustainable farming who do big group workdays at local farms. The photo at right is of a January crop mob at Okfuskee Farm in Siler City, taken by flicker user quitter. More photos and info on their website - cropmob.org.

Happy weekend!

America's Most Wanted Toxic Chemicals

2010-02-23T16:10:00.006-05:00

by Andy Igriegas
Campaign Director, Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
Reposted with permission

One way we'll know that Congress is serious about reforming the nation's chemical laws is by how they address a group of extremely dangerous chemicals that are the equivalent of the FBI's "Most Wanted" list: Persistent, Bioaccumulative Toxins or PBTs.

Some of the most notorious chemicals ever studied are PBTs - lead, PCBs, DDT, dioxin mercury, and cadmium. Many PBTs, including flame retardants and the stain-resistant perfluorinated chemicals (like PFOA used to make Teflon), are still found in products we use every day in our homes and places of work.

Persistent, toxic chemicals build up in our bodies and are passed on to the next generation. This is especially troubling to parents like Molly Gray, who want their children to have safe, happy and healthy lives that are free of toxic chemicals that may harm their health.

Molly's concern for this issue is deeply personal. Molly was part of a study that tested pregnant women for toxic chemicals; their developing babies were exposed to these chemicals during pregnancy.

Molly thought she'd test chemical-free because in the five years before becoming pregnant, Molly had done everything she could to reduce her exposure to toxic chemicals, including eating organic food, choosing low-mercury fish and avoiding personal care products with phthalates and fragrances.

Instead, despite taking precautions leading up to her pregnancy, Molly learned she had the highest levels of mercury – a PBT – of all the women tested in the study. And she tested above the national average for other chemicals tested, including phthalates, BPA, flame retardants, and "Teflon" chemicals.

We helped get Molly and her seven-month-old son Paxton to Washington, DC so she could tell Congress that what we don't know about toxic chemicals is harming real people, right now.

Senator Frank Lautenberg, who will soon introduce legislation to update the nation's chemical safety law, expressed concern, saying, " … in essence, the American public has become a living, breathing repository for chemical substances. And when the chemicals…show up on our children's bodies, we have a potentially dangerous situation."

The Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition agrees with Senator Lautenberg. We believe it should be a no-brainer for Congress to put PBTs on a pathway to phase-out when it reforms
the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

Unfortunately, even no-brainer ideas have run into trouble recently, thanks to the lobbying efforts of the chemical industry. The chemical industry is trying to avoid action by convincing Congress that the right thing to do is to spend more years "studying" chemicals; chemicals that scientists have already shown to be notorious and dangerous.

Please write to your member of Congress to tell them that real TSCA reform will include taking immediate action to phase PBT chemicals out of commerce.

An awful tragedy (and what we can do about it)

2010-02-15T09:29:00.007-05:00

Last week began with the terrible news that a 4 year-old girl in Layton, Utah was killed after gas from a powerful rat poison seeped into her home. Two days later, the girl's 15 month-old sister also died in the hospital. Both girls were buried by their family yesterday, on Valentine's Day.

The Friday before the girls became sick, an exterminator spread several times the recommended amount of Fumitoxin, a phosphine-producing rat poison for which there is no known antidote, in the yard around the girls' home to take care of a vole problem. The contractor failed to follow the label for the poison, which listed specific instructions for quantity and appropriate distance from buildings.

As heartbreaking as this story is, it's made even more so by virtue of the fact that it was completely, 100% preventable. Had the contractor chosen one of the many least-toxic alternatives, or even just followed the label instructions, we probably never would have even heard of the Toone family.

The bottom line, though, is that a product this dangerous shouldn't be available for casual use. Given the plethora of safer alternatives that exist, maybe we don't need Fumitoxin at all--many pest control companies have already stopped using it because it is so risky. Unfortunately the current process for restricting or banning a pesticide (or any chemical, for that matter) is convoluted and strongly favors the manufacturer.

Until now, that is. We are on the brink of big changes in our nation's approach to chemical regulation. There is a large movement building across the country to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)--a 30 year-old regulatory device that has never properly worked. While TSCA wouldn't directly change the laws which apply to pesticides (i.e. FIFRA), it will almost certainly lead to the reform of those laws.

Check out this beautiful video highlighting the need to improve the way we regulate ALL chemicals for the health of our children, ourselves and the planet. From there you can sign a petition, tell a friend, write a letter to your congressperson--whatever you want to do to show support for this long overdue reform.

Our hearts go out to the family of those two little girls, even as we continue working for a safer and healthier future.

New NC Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council convenes

2010-02-12T16:15:00.010-05:00

North Carolina's brand new Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council met for the first time on Feb 2nd in Raleigh. The Council is charged with making recommendations to the NC General Assembly about how to grow and strengthen North Carolina's sustainable and local food system.

Thank you to everyone who helped Toxic Free NC and our partners at the NC Sustainable Food Systems Coalition advocate for the legislation that created this Council last year. Nice work, folks - we couldn't have done it without you!

Below are some of my notes and impressions from the meeting, but here's the super short version: The Council is a very impressive group of people, and while they didn't actually get to start doing much of anything yet in their first meeting, my sense coming out of it was one of sincere optimism for what they'll achieve.

* Lots of people: All but one Council member was in attendance, and this with the roads still a bit dicey across the state because of snow a few days earlier. Nice! Lots of other people also came to watch - the Department of Agriculture had to pull out more chairs, and it was still standing-room-only.

* Input from the public (or lack thereof). Open meeting laws mean that all the Council's meetings must be open to the public, and that there must be minutes or recordings also made available to the public - keep an eye on this website for meeting agendas and notes. Anything sent to or from the Council about this body is also public record. But, there was no time for public comment at the Council's meeting. There's a way to submit comments over their website, which will then become part of public record, but what's the plan for actually reading and following up on them? That hasn't been discussed yet, but based on attendance at the first meeting, it sure seems like North Carolinians have a lot to say to this Council!

* The Council members. Everyone on the Council introduced themselves and their motivations for serving at this meeting, which made me think a lot about the Council's make-up and how that will affect the recommendations they make. The full membership list is posted here. My observations:

FARMERS: There are 8 farmers and one person in commercial fishing on the Council by my count - mostly small or medium-scale, and mostly organic or sustainable. I think this will give the Council's work a solid grounding. There's lots to talk about, but there's also lots to DO, and farmers tend to be doers, so this is a good thing indeed.

THEMES: One big theme in many of the Council members' introductions was a desire to preserve working farmland. Commissioner Troxler, Andrew Brannan (Farm Transitions Network), Dania Davy (Land Loss Prevention Project), and John Day (NC Association of County Commissioners) all spoke directly to the issue of keeping farmers on their land and farming during their introductions.
Another big theme that I heard in Council member introductions was improving access to healthy and affordable food, especially as it pertains to combating childhood obesity. Members who mentioned this specifically as part of their introductions include Dr. Jeffrey Engel (State Health Director), Dr. Lynn Harvey (Department of Public Instruction, Child Nutrition Services), Dr. Alice Ammerman (Center for Health Promotion and Disease Control at UNC-CH), Earline Middleton (Food Bank of Central & Eastern NC), Mary James (Dogwood Farms & Willing Workers Cooperative), and Willy Phillips (Full Circle Crab Company).

DIVERSITY: The Council is a very diverse group in terms of expertise and geography, and it could be a lot worse on gender and race. By my (strictly superficial) count, the Council is made up of 18 Caucasian men, 5 Caucasian women, and 3 African American women. That isn't nearly enough women or people of color to fairly represent our state's population, but it's more than I'm used to seeing in such contexts. Conclude from that information what you will! Notably absent are Latinos, farm workers, or anyone who could speak knowledgeably to the perspectives of those groups.

* "This is not a fad. It's a force." The Council got a little pep talk from John Vollmer of Vollmer Farms. John spoke mostly about his recent trip to New England, and his vision that North Carolina, like Vermont, could be gaining farms instead of losing them, and that we could produce enough food to feed our state year-round. Vermont's food system is like a farm-fresh tomato, he said, a tomato that's so good, it makes you wonder why you ever bothered buying lousy tomatoes out of season at the grocery store! We don't yet really know what we're missing in NC, but once we get a taste, we'll never go back. He also addressed Commissioner Troxler directly to say, "This is not a fad. It's a force."

* Leadership & Super-fast Robert's Rules. The final order of business in the first Council meeting was discussing leadership structures for the Council and electing a chair. Commissioner Troxler was elected chair and Nancy Creamer vice-chair in rapid succession. In fact, it was very rapid - the Council suddenly swung into Robert's Rules at this point, full throttle, and it moved really fast! We really hope that Council members weren't too caught off guard by the sudden transition. In any case, from the discussion around these elections, it sounded like the plan is to tap some other Council members to serve on a leadership committee that will work with the chairs to set agendas and coordinate subcommittees.

That's it! Thanks again to everyone who helped to bring this Council into being, and a huge thanks to everyone who is volunteering to serve on this Council. Please stay tuned for more updates.

Infestations Vacationsgoofy but great home pest prevention video from US EPA

2010-01-25T10:52:00.006-05:00

Thanks to Toxic Free NC board member Dr. Katherine Shea for sharing this link! The EPA recently released this funny little video - Infestations Vacations - together with a set of recommendations about preventing home rodent infestations. It's right on for preventing a lot of other home pest issues, too!

Rat poison - a.k.a. rodenticides - can be so dangerous, for kids, pets and a lot of non-rodent critters, so this is especially needed. Nice work EPA! Sorry it's not easier to share - that's EPA's fault, not ours. You can download copies of the video from their website pretty easily, though.

stopping the antibacterial overload

2010-01-19T05:52:00.000-05:00

Last week Toxic Free NC joined Beyond Pesticides and 75 other public health and environmental organizations in asking the US EPA to pull triclosan off the market.

Triclosan is the anti-bacterial ingredient found in everything from hand soap to sweat socks, and concerns are building that the over-use of this chemical could be creating resistant bacteria. Triclosan is washed down the drain and contaminates both sewage sludge and drinking water, and is linked to a wide range of environmental and health problems. The petition asserts that EPA never considered such widespread use when it first registered triclosan for use in health care settings in 1972, and that these consumer uses should not be allowed.

Good luck trying to buy a container of hand soap these days that doesn't contain triclosan, or another anti-bacterial ingredient. Even though soap and water alone are strong enough to kill over 99% of bacteria to which you might be exposed, chemical companies have exploited our germ-phobias to sell us millions of dollars worth of unnecessarily-treated antibacterial products every year.

Learn more at Beyond Pesticides. You can read the petition to the EPA by downloading it here (pdf, 400 KB). I'm off to buy a bar of old-fashioned soap.

Research links Pesticides to Autoimmune Disease

2009-12-16T10:13:00.005-05:00

Guest post by Toxic Free NC volunteer Amy Freitag.

Yet another reason to question use of pesticides in the home: it has recently been linked to autoimmune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. In a study presented at the American College of Rheumatology’s annual meeting earlier this year, researchers concluded that women who sprayed pesticides at least six times a year doubled their risk of autoimmune disease. This risk was the same whether the pesticide was applied professionally or not. Read the rest of the story here, but that’s not the beginning of the journey nor is it likely to be the end. A review published in 1988 summarized the effects of various chemicals, including pesticides on autoimmune response based on understanding at the time. The field has come a long way since then, but the basic link between the two was pretty well elucidated, even 20 years ago. The authors linked seven different types of autoimmune reactions to chemical exposures and suggested that genetic predisposition may lead some people to be more susceptible to environmental exposures than others.

Autoimmune responses in a nutshell describe the process of the body attacking and destroying healthy and important cells. It’s like sending the baby out with the bathwater, as the saying goes. The signaling pathway within the body that leads to the miscommunication is still not understood, and likely to be different depending on the person and the tissue attacked. Environmental exposures, however, are implicated as triggers. In the intervening twenty years since that first review, a flurry of articles have been published presenting mixed results on the link between chemical exposure and autoimmune response. Depending on the exposure and the target tissue, immune response could increased to unsafe levels, but could also be decreased or left the same. According to a review in 2002, the pesticides malathion, lindane, and aminocarb, cause an autoimmune reaction in both sheep and mice. The authors do caution the use of animal models, as their immune systems may react differently to exposures than humans, but they are the best model we have as scientists.

The only human study done to date involved a spill of the pesticide hexachlorobenzine (HCB) in Turkey, where residents near the spill showed a drastic increase in autoimmune disease. Compared to previous studies on HCB, humans showed a much more sensitive autoimmune response, suggesting that animal models may provide only a conservative estimate of which exposures will show an effect in humans.

Most people are left with this review of the medical literature with their head in a kind of cloud as to what the data are really showing. Since almost all studies show some effect of pesticides on autoimmune responses, the precautionary principle should be invoked. It’s another case of the need to limit exposure to chemicals that may cause devastating disease in the future, because you may be one of the lucky few with genetic resistance to autoimmune disease, but your loved ones might not be.

Our Favorite Green Gifts

2009-12-11T16:45:00.004-05:00

Whether you’re trying to keep your holiday gift shopping green, or trying to please a hardcore greenie on your list, these “best green gift” testimonials from the people of Toxic Free NC are sure to help! Readers, please leave your favorite green gifts in the comments - thank you!

Billie (staff): CSA-friendly cookbook. “My mom got me Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone a few years ago. It’s been super helpful to me as a CSA farm member and farmers’ market shopper because it’s got recipes organized by vegetable. So, when I get something weird from my CSA, like a rutabaga, I can just flip to the section in this cookbook about rutabagas and learn all about them - different varieties, flavor pairings that work well with rutabagas, basic cooking instructions, as well as full-fledged recipes. The cookbook does the same thing with different beans and grains, like quinoa and stuff. Doesn’t actually matter that much if you’re a vegetarian!”

Fawn (staff): Angel tree gifts. “My favorite green gift is the Angel Tree. My mom chose a child’s name from one of those Angel Trees at the mall, bought the child a new coat and then gave me a little box with a note telling me that my gift was the child’s new coat. I couldn’t have asked for anything nicer!”

Ana (staff): Used books. “Some would say that the greenest product is one that has already been used by someone else before. That said, I think the stack of thoughtfully chosen used books I get from my husband every Christmas is a pretty great (and green and thrifty) present!”

Renée (staff): A bicycle for green vacationing. “A few years ago my husband bought me a bicycle for the holidays. Since then, we always take our bikes on vacations up and down the East coast. It’s such a wonderful way for us to spend quality time together, and to see the beautiful scenery along the Coast, on the Appalachian Trail, or wherever we may wander!”

Kathy (Board member): Donations to charity. “I like and give donations. I’m well past needing “stuff” of any description. It’s catching on in our family, so now our tree has bunches of envelopes under it instead of boxes. Cool! At Christmas we use Church World Service as our vehicle, others use Heifer in the family.” PS from Billie: I’d be remiss if I did not also mention that you can make a contribution to Toxic Free NC in honor of a loved one for the holidays, or anytime. If you get your gift contribution in on or before 12/14/09, we’ll get your honoree a handmade card in the mail before Christmas.

Annie (Board member): Recycled wrapping. “We have a friend whose family not only wraps presents in recycled newspaper and comics, but they put the presents in cereal boxes! You can have real fun with that one.” PS from Billie: Here’s the instructions for a recycled gift bow, as pictured above! I wonder what a “metal brad” is, and where to acquire one?

Allen (Board member): Clyde Jones recycled wood sculpture critter. “My family surprised me (completely) with a Clyde Jones “critter” years ago. They made me sit with my eyes closed while they dragged it out from under a blanket in Dan’s closet. There was quite a racket and much scuffling while I waited. Opening my eyes I was completely surprised and pleased. It is made from firewood nailed together. He still guards our garden years later and I smile every time I see the deer-like ‘Clyde’.”

Christopher (volunteer): Planet Earth DVDs. “A gift from my mom a couple years ago. For one, the footage is beautiful. As for why such a green gift? Easy. Imagine having a super up-close view of the most pristine, magical places on earth; viewing animals in their natural habitats; exploring the bottom of the ocean…without leaving your house. Having the experience of all the sites and sounds without flying thousands of miles and expending all that energy is way green. Also, it opens up that soft and tender spot in your soul. The part that says, ‘wow, this is amazing. I want to protect it.’ “

December 3, 1984

2009-12-03T08:33:00.003-05:00

By guest blogger Allen Spalt

Today is the 25th anniversary of the disaster at Bhopal, India.

When the badly designed and improperly maintained chemical tank failed at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal and sent a cloud of deadly methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas over the city killing thousands in the middle of the night, it was the world's works industrial "accident." It also poisoned thousands of others with health effects that linger today (for those who have survived that long).

For me, it is a strong reminder and impetus for our work. It was also totally unnecessary in at least two ways.

First, the pesticides being manufactured there, carbaryl (Sevin) and Aldicarb, can be made with a 'flow through' process that does not require the use of intermediate holding tanks for the MIC which is used in the manufacture of the final products. In fact, at the time, Bhopal's sister plant in Institute, West Virginia, did not contain such tanks. Better oversight and maintenance might have prevented the leaks, of course, but in fact the tanks were not even necessary. Just cheaper. So to save a few bucks on the process and on maintenance, Union Carbide risked the lives of tens of thousands.

Second, we work to promote alternatives which would make the manufacture of such deadly pesticides unnecessary. You don't need Sevin or Aldicarb or other similar deadly poisons in sustainable or organic agriculture. Every acre that is converted means fewer pounds of poison manufactured, sold, used, or disposed of. Fewer people at risk. Less residues in the water, soil, and food. Safer environments for our children and wildlife.

Someday it will be recognized that what has been called "conventional agriculture" for the last few decades was anything but. It is horribly out of sync with the tradition of agriculture over the centuries. With chemical intensive monocultures, it is depleting the soil and poisoning the water. It is not sustainable. The latest gasp of bioengineered crops, which promised more productivity and fewer chemicals, are proving to provide neither. They are less productive and require more herbicides and other pesticides. You know, if there is one thing the geniuses from Monsanto could select for besides Roundup-resistance, it would be greater productivity. But they haven't found it in any genetically engineered crop. More than a few critics from our side of the barn predicted this.

It is not a question of whether will we replace "conventional" agriculture with sustainable production, it is when. Otherwise we will not be sustained as a civilization.

Most indicators, fortunately, are not as dramatic as Bhopal, but they are pointing in our direction. I am proud to work with all of you on this important work to promote health and safety and to point the way to a sustainable future. Getting rid of pesticides is one important part of the struggle.

Union Carbide did not survive the aftermath of the incident, though it never paid fully for its responsibility. Its assets were sold. Work continues under other owners in RTP. The Bhopal plant was bought by Dow, which contends it has no responsibility to the victims.

On the tenth anniversary I was giving a workshop at a meeting in Atlanta and asked for a moment of silence for Bhopal. I was moved when one participant introduced himself as having grown up in Bhopal. He is one of three or four people I've met from there, the others are survivors of the disaster. Today I will take time out to remember them and others and rededicate to the task.

Join us in commemorating the Bhopal anniversary by taking action for justice in Bhopal.

Dow Shall Not Trespass

2009-12-02T14:40:00.009-05:00

By guest blogger Gary Cohen, President and Co-founder of Health Care Without Harm - www.noharm.org

Twenty-five years ago, a Union Carbide pesticide factory exploded in Bhopal, India, releasing a toxic cloud that killed thousands in its wake. More than 8,000 people died within the first three days of the disaster, while more than 500,000 were exposed to toxic gases that invaded their lungs and spread throughout their bodies. For this reason, Bhopal has been called the Hiroshima of the Chemical Industry.

Twenty-five years later the abandoned factory has still not been cleaned up, but continues to leak poisons into neighborhood groundwater. A recent report by the Bhopal Medical Appeal found dangerous levels of heavy metals and persistent chemicals in the groundwater. Union Carbide executives have never been brought to trial in India, despite attempts by the Indian government to extradite them. And although Union Carbide was bought by Dow Chemical in 2001, the parent company claims no responsibility for cleaning up the mess left behind and has not submitted itself to the Indian criminal case. Rather than addressing its ongoing liabilities in Bhopal, Dow has spent tens of millions on its Human Element ad campaign, which portrays the chemical company as people-focused and caring.

The world has learned a lot about the chemical industry since the Bhopal disaster. We now know that many of the industry’s products are linked to a broad array of diseases in the general population, including asthma, cancer, birth defects, infertility, Parkinson’s disease, endometriosis, obesity and diabetes. Rather than internalizing the consequences of pollution, the industry has externalized health and social costs onto individuals and the American healthcare system, which is being crushed under the weight of ballooning costs, chronic disease and misaligned priorities.

We have also learned that we all carry the by-products of the chemical industry in our bodies. These toxins pass into us from the food we eat, through plastics in everyday consumer products, through building materials in our houses and offices, and through our water and air. The Centers for Disease Control has documented that the average American carries more than 100 toxic chemicals in his or her body. Plastic additives bisphenol A and phthalates, the pesticide 2,4 D, and shampoo additive 1,4 dioxane are among those Dow Chemical products found widely in many people’s bodies. Even children are being born pre-polluted, already filled up with a plethora of toxic chemicals that can act like ticking time bombs, triggering health impacts later in life. Without our knowledge and our consent, we and our children have become guinea pigs in an uncontrolled chemical experiment in which Dow and the other chemical companies are running.

Over the last twenty-five years, the Bhopal survivors’ plight and our own have become much more intertwined. We have all become united in a global web of chemical poisons. We have all been “branded” by the chemical industry, their signature chemicals coursing through our veins and building up in our fat tissue and other organs, whether we live in Bhopal or Baton Rouge.

Given the new political momentum in the country to address environmental issues, healthcare delivery and even corporate negligence, its time to stand up to the chemical contamination of the American people and reassert our basic human rights and religious values. As a society, we should guarantee every American child the right to be born free of industrial chemicals. And as a society committed to freedom, we should defend the freedom of women to breastfeed their infants without passing their life supply of toxic chemicals onto them. We all have a right to a toxics-free future. The laws in our country and at a global level should guarantee these rights and the environmental conditions for our health and wellbeing.

Farming American Dreams

2009-10-23T14:00:00.001-04:00

In ‘Is Becoming a Farmer the New American Dream’, Makenna Goodman writes about the recent migration of scores of city dwellers to rural farms (herself included). She notes that among these new farmers are well-educated recent college graduates and even corporate bigwigs. Goodman questions why many with steady salaries are forfeiting them in favor of the unpredictability of the farm. She concludes that it is the desire for a greater connection with nature and a return to traditional values that is driving (via horse and buggy) so many into the agrarian lifestyle.

My father was born and raised on a farm in northeastern North Carolina, where he spent summers picking, sorting, carrying, and cleaning potatoes. As his son, I think about how our lives are so different even though we are only one generation apart. I often wonder how my character would differ if I had spent my childhood in fields of corn and cotton, rather than fields of soccer and baseball. What values I’d have if my Christmas bounty and family’s wealth were tied to Mother Nature’s weather and the crop’s health.

I regret not sharing Dad’s experiences as a kid, and feel disconnected with my ancestors and environment as a result. I question whether (and fear that) it is those things I do not share with my Dad that make him the man I so admire. But it was his wishes that led him to leave the farm, pursue other interests, and raise a family in an urban setting that he thought would best suit them. He followed the path of countless farm children before him, a path many city kids desire to take back.

Goodman includes in her article an excerpt from the Gene Logsdon book ‘Living at Nature’s Pace: Farming and the American Dream’. In the excerpt Logsdon acknowledges the rise of urban farming and community based food solutions. What is driving people back to farms is the recognition that there is a need for sustainable food systems, and that the solutions require great ingenuity. Where farms were once the places parents hoped their children would escape with the help of an education, they have now become the places where the educated are returning to craft inventive solutions that help us to escape from unsustainable consumption patterns.

For some inspiring and innovative farmers check out this New York Times Magazine article profiling Will Allen (who is coming to NC in November - visit http://cefs.ncsu.edu for more information!) and the slideshow below highlighting some of North Carolina’s very own up-and-coming farmers courtesy of Mule Magazine.

Happy National Farm Safety & Health Week

2009-09-25T15:38:00.005-04:00

On Monday, President Barack Obama declared this week to be National Farm Safety and Health Week. Here's an excerpt:

Working long hours at physically demanding and often dangerous tasks, farmers and ranchers provide for our Nation and countless others across the world. Even as they have faced risks, they have made our agricultural sector more productive and practiced good stewardship of our country's natural resources. This week, Americans express gratitude for the untold benefits we enjoy from their labor, and we honor their achievements by urging continued commitment to the highest standards of safety and health.

While the proclamation evokes images of rolling wheat fields and overall-clad farmers on tractors, what many Americans don't know is that the bulk of the fresh food we eat is harvested by a mostly migrant workforce.

Nobody disagrees that farm work is dangerous. Agricultural workers have the 2nd highest rate of fatalities in the country. Farm workers also face some of the highest rates of chemical injury and skin disorders, and live in some of the worst housing in the nation.

The glacial pace of improvement, though, is often further hampered by workers' geographic isolation, immigration status, and language and cultural barriers. We at Toxic Free NC want to give a special shout-out in honor of our farm worker friends here in North Carolina for National Farm Safety and Health Week. And we also wanted to remind everyone that, while many farm workers already know the rules of workplace safety, they may not always be in control of what happens down on the farm.

That said, please take a minute to watch our new video below. We made it over the summer with the help of our fantastic Student Action with Farmworkers intern Laura Valencia, and it features farm workers from right here in North Carolina speaking directly to the heart of this issue. Enjoy, ¡y que vivan los campesinos!

Questions about (Toxic) County Mosquito Control in Coastal NC

2009-09-08T11:46:00.004-04:00

guest post by Amy Freitag

Glass of cold ice tea, hibiscus and green tea with just the slightest hint of lime. Check.

A good novel, one prepared to take me off to someone else’s world of romance and fantasy. Check.

Hammock, gently rocking in the wind, the taste of the air ever so slightly just flavored by the tomato plants nearby in full summer glory. Check.

I sat down, prepared to have a wonderful, relaxing afternoon to myself when I hear ‘bzzzzzt’. I would know that noise anywhere even if it weren’t directly in my ear. A mosquito.

‘Buzz, buzz, buzzzzzzut’. It tries again to get a good bite and then is joined by a friend. Great. So much for my afternoon.

I hate mosquitoes. I mean, who doesn’t? My afternoon scene isn’t foreign to anyone living in coastal North Carolina, that’s for sure. And apparently, this year’s the worst mosquito year in quite awhile, so the county has stepped up efforts to chemically decrease their numbers, as evidenced by the spray truck that comes by my house about once a week in the early morning under the banner of public health.

Wait, what?

As much as I hate mosquitoes, I’m not sure I’m ready to give in to the sacrifices of this practice that makes me think I’ve been surreptitiously transported back in time to a bygone era. One before Rachel Carson, the EPA, and the general understanding that pesticides are dangerous and should be handled with care.

So what about the cloud of chemical smoke that graced my porch this morning? Did I just become consumed in my little life bubble and miss the announcement that the county was spraying? Or was it really not announced? Did I ever have the chance of voicing concern over the practice?

A little bit of internet searching later, I found the section of the local government responsible for making such decisions: the Carteret County Mosquito Control Division, linked to Animal Control (yep, not linked to the state’s departments in charge of agriculture or pesticides, but entirely under local control). A quick call to their offices asking about the spraying I had observed that morning yielded the following information:

mosquito control is done entirely on a county level, though practices are fairly standard and haven’t changed over the last couple of decades
the control program uses a combination of sprays and pellets distributed in roadside ditches
the following brands are used: Aqua-Reslin, Altosid SBG, Aquabac XT, and Altosid briquettes.

She asked if I had any more questions, but not wanting to get on my activist high-horse quite yet, I politely said no and hung up the phone.

After a bit more time poking around the manufacturers’ websites (www.backedbybayer.com, www.altosid.com, and www.teamaquafix.com), I could identify the active ingredients and start connecting them to other information I knew in terms of impacts to human health and the environment. Like other chemicals, these pesticides are required to have a comprehensive label describing all the potential risks that come along with use and giving specific directions for proper handling in order to minimize those risks. This sheet was a good first stop for information – these sheets are federally required and under strict federal oversight to report all known risks. All of the products said to wash eyes or exposed skin for 15 minutes and to contact poison control if swallowed (do not induce vomiting or give them water). Here’s more specifics from what the labels say, my reactions and comments follow:

Aqua-Reslin: Active ingredients are permethrin and piperonyl butoxide. It’s intended to be a space spray for adult mosquitoes. It is not to be applied within 100 feet of lakes and streams and exposed drinking water (such as fountains or cattle troughs). My favorite is the environmental hazards section: “This pesticide is extremely toxic to fish and aquatic invertebrates. Do not apply directly to water, to areas where surface water is present or to intertidal areas below the mean high water mark… This pesticide is highly toxic to bees exposed to direct treatment on blooming crops or weeds. Do not apply this product or allow drift when bees are actively visiting the treatment area.”
Altosid SBG/briquettes: Active ingredient is s-methoprene, designed to kill larvae as dosed in their breeding pools. They mention no particular risks other than “do not contaminate water when disposing of rinsate or equipment washwaters”.
Aquabac xt: Active ingredient is Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacteria that kills larvae of a wide variety of insects. They include the same statement about contaminating water as Altosid. These directions seem innocuous enough, easy to follow, and targeted at the nuisance. However, upon closer examination of the coastal environment upon which these chemicals are being applied yields a number of questions followed by surprise that these chemicals are standard practice considering the total effects.

First, we assume the good sense of the applicators and people exposed to the spray to give themselves the 15 minute shower flush and maybe even check in with poison control, consequently avoiding direct exposure the next time. There are even classes for applicators to take from EPA to minimize their risk of exposure. However, the labels give no information on the length of time after application the chemicals remain active. What if I had not noticed the truck go by at 7am and then sat down on the porch swing at 7:15am to enjoy my breakfast? What kind of exposure did I just put myself through?

Second, I’d like to tackle the 100 feet of lakes and streams directive. I live pretty close to the center of a fairly small island, surrounded by water on all sides just a few blocks from my house. Presumably, also, the spraying truck also covered the streets closest to the estuaries where some of the densest housing is located. Did they stay 100 feet from bodies of water that contain productive fisheries? Not if they went over a bridge.

Third, related to the question of bees. Most people by now have heard of colony collapse disorder (CCD) occurring across the country in honeybee colonies. These colonies are critical to agriculture, bringing pollen to stamens everywhere and allowing us to enjoy squash, tomatoes, eggplant, apples, peaches, and the list goes on. I’ve personally noticed a lack of honeybees in my personal garden this summer, rendering my beautiful vegetable plants sterile. I’ve even tried to do the job myself, out in the early morning with a q-tip trying to think like a hungry bee, but to no avail. I’ve had one tomato out of a plot of 3 tomato plants, 4 squash, 4 eggplants, and a more wildflowers than I can count. CCD (see http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/agnic/bee/ccd.htm for more information) is as of yet unascribed to any particular cause, but I have my guesses.

Finally, the more general point about “do not contaminate water” with the anti-larvals. Although this sounds simple, a couple of considerations may require a second thought. The area is comprised of soil made up almost entirely of sand, which allows water, pesticides, and any other runoff to directly enter the drinking water supply that sits directly below our island. Also, the tablets are applied to roadside ditches and puddles that connect directly to…you guessed it, bodies of water! Work by Costlow and Bookhout, professors at the Duke Marine Lab, in the 1970’s established that methoprene and permethrin directly kill blue crabs, shrimp, and other invertebrates in the estuaries. This not only disrupts the ecology of the estuaries (which, incidentally are federally protected preserves, the Rachel Carson Estuarine Research Reserve and the Lookout National Seashore), but directly costs the area jobs in terms of declining fisheries.

I encourage everyone to look into their local pest control programs and find out what the operating practices are. You might just be surprised.

guest post by Amy Freitag

Furry, Friendly Weed Whackers... No Kidding!

2009-08-17T15:19:00.003-04:00

Goats are revered worldwide for their handy milk, cheese, hair, and (eek!) meat. But here in the States, people have very little interest in goats outside their use as the (head)butt of jokes about animals who’ll eat just about anything. Late last month, however, the city of Carrboro put all “kidding” aside and decided to employ the goat’s oft-derided skill in clearing a dog park full of poison ivy. Articles from the Indy and WRAL chronicle the city’s efforts to rid the park of the itch-inducing weeds with the help of The Goat Patrol.

The Goat Patrol is an environmentally friendly shrub removal service run by Ms. Alix Bowman with the help of some awfully talented goats capable of clearing 1,000 sq. ft. of vegetation a day. Ms. Bowman became interested in goats as vegetation-clearing-devices after learning of their use on the west coast to beat back invasive plant species and to mitigate the risk of wildfires (Google even uses goats!). Both Ms. Bowman and Google praise the goats for their ability to clear land without the use of fossil fuels, unlike conventional mowing methods.

Along with the much-touted fuel efficiency comes the added benefit of non-toxic weed removal. Typically, toxic chemicals are used to kill obtrusive and unwanted plants and weeds. The city of Carrboro’s decision to use goats instead of the common practice of spraying, is another heartening example of how a little creative thinking and ingenuity can greatly reduce the amount of toxic chemicals so prevalent in lives today.

Also, a big WHAT UP to our founder and board member Allen Spalt for sharing these pics of the goats' handiwork.

BGP (Before Goat Patrol), and AGP

Even Colbert is getting nervous about endocrine disruptors

2009-07-15T11:28:00.004-04:00

guest post by Toxic Free NC volunteer Lowell Wood

A few weeks back I was watching The Colbert Report, when the only anchor I trust to give me the news (Stephen Colbert) sat down with New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof. Kristof addressed how the endocrine disrupting chemicals found in pesticides and other agricultural and consumer products are deforming wildlife living in polluted watersheds.

In the video below, Kristof manages to excite Colbert with mention of male genital deformation. Before the interview completely deteriorates into potty humor and genital jokes (like all Colbert's interview inevitably do), Kristof manages to convey the growing concern many environmental scientists have with the abundance of endocrine disruptors.

(Warning: video contains potty humor and genital jokes as referenced above - sensitive audiences please beware!)

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Nicholas Kristof

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Jeff Goldblum

A week prior to Kristof's appearance on the Colbert Report, he published an op-ed column in the New York Times on the same topic. In the article, he discusses a recent scientific statement from The Endocrine Society which cites mounting evidence that endocrine disrupting chemicals are having negative effects on our health, and urges increased precaution. Kristof goes into detail in the article about the chemicals' disruptive effects on reproduction and growth in animals, and the growing evidence that endocrine disruptors are negatively effecting humans as well.

This reminds me of our old friend Tyrone Hayes and his astounding work on hermaphrodism in frogs caused by the herbicide atrazine and other chemical pollutants.

Articles and videos like these underline the importance of environmentally sustainable practices in all fields; whether they be the products we use and interact with daily, or the less visible ones a few steps removed from us, like the pesticides used on the foods we buy. Information like this inspires me to raise awareness about how our actions are harming not only the world around us, but us human beings as well. It also encourages me to use the power I have as a consumer to change these evil ways by purchasing organic goods.

Join me! Watch the video, read the article, take action, and make change! Check out Toxic Free NC's website for ideas to help you get started, or call our office at 919-833-1123 to get more involved.

FOOD, INC - A Film Review

2009-06-25T14:10:00.004-04:00

Food, Inc - a documentary on the American Food System - will be opening in select cities around the country this summer, including Raleigh's Colony Theater on July 17th. Here's a review of the film from a Toxic Free NC volunteer, who saw the film this week in Texas.

Guest post by Ronald Wade.

There are simply not a lot of documentaries that capture and hold my attention. So, when I went to the screening of Food, Inc this week and the “shorts” and “previews” started, I paid attention thinking that at least I could be entertained by the trailers. And, I’d have something interesting to pass on after I did the compulsory words to the readers about how the director could have done a (fill in the blank) job while doing the (fill in the blank).

But, surprise! The absolute only negative thing that I can pass on was that it should have been twice as long. So, you won’t even get to know what the previews were since I’ll use the rest of the space to tell you what you’ll miss if you don’t see this MUST SEE film.

The documentary is not about the roaches in the restaurants and has very little about the unsanitary conditions of processing and packing plants, although it does exist. It doesn’t even dwell on excessively on the safety in the industry for the workers or the misuse of pesticides and chemicals; they are however mentioned as a by-product of the main theme.

Oh yes, the Main Theme: in our quest for fast, economical, and easy to prepare food, industry has stepped up to the challenge and provided us with the answer. Food production is controlled by a few very large organizations that have the ear and seats in government to ensure that farm subsidies can continue to provide profits in their pockets while producing products that are the unhealthiest in generations.

The film takes you thorough industrial mechanization where chickens are engineered to be the same size, weight, and consistency in order to facilitate production. It doesn’t matter that the animal can’t support its own weight and wallows around in the filth until sent to market. The film exposes you to the reality of corn fed beef, which produces bacteria within the animal which in turn produces toxicity for us when processed. Oh but they have developed ammonia baths that can kill the bacteria before it gets to us. Just what I wanted, cooking an ammoniated hunk of meat on the grill on Sunday.

One of the vitally important sub-themes to the film that will be of interest to each of you who regularly read this blog will be the emphasis put on buying organically produced and locally grown food.

Be prepared to hear about how toothless the regulatory agencies are in the face of what big business is doing. Be prepared to hear about the ruthless nature of a seed company that controls 90% of the soybean market because of patents that they hold on the seed, preventing anyone from competing in the market. Be prepared for how companies will help the government fulfill illegal immigrant quotas in return for quid pro quo of no raids on the production plants for the illegals.

Be prepared to hear how food is engineered to make us happy. Interestingly the point is made that salt, fat, and sugar occur in non-engineered and non-industrially produced natural environments in small percentage quantities. However since these are also foods that stimulate our brain's pleasure points, you will learn how those ingredients are leveraged in the foods we buy thus creating an appetite for more.

Be prepared to hear a mother tell the story of Kevin who went from being a healthy young boy on vacation, and 3 hamburgers later is being mourned because he was the victim of e-coli that shut down his vital functions in only 12 days. You'll hear her describe the tribulations of her advocacy work, trying to make the industry safer for all of us.

You’ll walk away understanding his SIMPLE solutions have their origins in our agricultural history. The movie will prepare you for the future battle: “The consumer’s right to know what is in their food.”

Watch a trailer or find out more at these websites:
Food, Inc - the movie website
The Humane Society
Review from The Chicago Tribune
Eating in Raleigh, NC - a North Carolina Perspective

Note: You’ll want to use caution when attending with children. There are graphic scenes that would have been disturbing to my family members had they decided to go to the matinee with me.

Time to end Endosulfan

2009-06-08T00:47:00.000-04:00

There aren't many pesticides as nasty as endosulfan still on the market. Endosulfan is a highly-toxic insecticide from a family of chemicals called organochlorines. If that term sounds familiar, you might recognize some of the other now-banned cousins from this group of highly-persistent pesticides: DDT, chlordane, aldrin and heptachlor.

Endosulfan has been blamed for severe poisonings and even deaths among farmers and farm workers, not to mention reproductive damage and birth defects. So why are we still using this stuff?

EPA is re-thinking its continued registration of endosulfan, and has recently re-opened a 60-day public comment period on the antiquated chemical. Take a minute to sign the United Farm Workers' petition to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson asking her to ensure that this dangerous pesticide is finally removed from the US market.

In North Carolina, endosulfan is still used on some vegetable crops, though there are myriad alternatives available. The National Agricultural Statistics Service reported that in 2007 endosulfan was applied to about 22% of tomato fields in our state - putting both farm workers and consumers at unacceptable risk of exposure. Because endosulfan is so persistent in the environment, traveling long distances and bioaccumulating in the food chain, it has been banned in more than 60 countries.

It's long since time the U.S. joined their ranks. To sign the petition, click here.

Why do so many doctors oppose the Titan cement plant?

2009-06-01T14:29:00.007-04:00

The medical community is coming out in force against the proposal to build a massive cement plant in New Hanover county.

In his article (pdf, 144 KB) for Wilmington Parent magazine, pediatrician Dr. David Hill discusses how mercury in the environment affects children's brain growth and development, and the damage to growing lungs caused by particulate pollution in the air - both of which the Titan plant will bring in spades. Dr. Fred Opper, Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the UNC School of Medicine, reminds us in his statement (pdf, 44 KB) that no level of mercury exposure is safe for children, and that more than 8,000 children live or attend school within 5 miles of the proposed Titan site.

Titan officials love to argue that the toxic pollution that will be emitted by the plant will be completely legal - all within federal and state limits. Small comfort when there are already more than 30 species of fish so polluted with mercury that the state of North Carolina recommends children and women of child-bearing age avoid eating them altogether. Mercury isn't just a passing cloud - once it's in the environment, in our food and water and bodies, it's there for life. Adding another significant mercury source to our state's already-full lineup is just a bad idea, and physicians get that better than anyone. You know what they say about an ounce of prevention.

Want to know more? Check out StopTitan.org.

How an herbicide in "organic" compost is destroying organic soils - A cautionary tale.

2009-05-21T16:19:00.008-04:00

Guest post by Bruce Olive, hobby gardener, Olive Farms in Orange County, NC.

On February 9, 2009, Dow Chemical registered the website URL www.BanAminopyralid.com. They haven’t developed a website yet, just purchased the domain and squatted on it. Kind of strange for the company who actually makes a product called Aminopyralid. For those of you who are not farmers or gardeners, the word Aminopyralid most likely has no meaning. But for UK gardeners last year, and for many US gardeners this year, this hormonal herbicide used to kill weeds in hay and straw fields has become a nightmare.

Early signs of aminopyralid poisoning include leaf cupping, fernlike growth, and twisted vines. Photo by Bruce Olive.

Here’s the deal. In the tightly knit coven of commercial chemical and seed producers (often one and the same), agricultural extension services and growers/producers, “programs” is how the work of the farm gets done. A “program” consists of soil amendments, herbicides, pesticides and seed stock genetically modified to flourish in this chemical bath. You plant the right seed, you spray the right chemicals, and everything comes up roses. But unintended consequences have a strange way of showing up where you least expect them. Take the case of Aminopyralid for example. You get a great yield of hay and straw with the “program”, using Dow herbicide products such as Grazon and Forefront. You sell the beautiful, thistle-free, weed-free straw and hay to local horse and cattle farms, who are totally pleased with the thistle-free product. The horses and cows eat the hay, and bed on the straw. You compost their manure and the straw bedding, let it cook for a year or so, and then sell it to compost packagers and vegetable gardeners as “organic” compost, just the way you always have. But you don’t have any idea the compost contains a toxic herbicide with a 533 day half-life. Then the local extension service begins to get calls about twisted tomato vines with curly leaves, wilting eggplant, and droopy potato plants. Strawberry producers loose a season’s crop. Suburban gardeners report wilting zinnias.

And then you suddenly realize that the herbicide was in the manure, passed on through the animals, and has now contaminated the soil. And may continue to contaminate the soil for years to come. Recently pulled by Dow from the UK market due to its devastating impact on vegetable and flower gardeners, the true impact of Aminopyralid is only just now being felt in the US. While there were some reports of impact last year, it seems to be in the application of aged compost this year that is being felt on a growing basis. We appear to be running a year behind the UK in our cycle, but the spring of 2009 will be remembered by many local farmers and market gardeners as the “Spring of Aminopyralid”, and the cascade of unintended consequences that followed its use. Soil remediation is possible but can take several years. For certified organic farms this contamination will be treated as “an act of God,” so they will not lose their certification but will lose the infected land until it can be remediated.

So when Dow registered www.BanAminopyralid.com back in February of this year, they were undoubtedly expecting someone else to want to register it shortly after. Or perhaps they were simply being good corporate citizens, preempting the public outcry. Where this will go is anybody’s business. Being America, the likelihood of a class action lawsuit is probably greater than the likelihood of a ban on the chemical. In the meantime, beware of putting any manure-based compost on your garden, whether from a big box store in a plastic bag or from a local farmer in the back of a truck. Not to place any blame, but to understand that folks may not even know their compost is toxic. Test all compost and manure with small plantings BEFORE you apply to your garden. Unlike herbicides such as Roundup, the hormonal herbicide lets the plant grow for quite a while before destroying it. What looks like a curly leaf virus or aphid problems may not be what you think it is.

Our own garden is ruined for this year, with hundreds of greenhouse raised seedlings destroyed. We are currently remediating this land following directions from the Rodale Institute. Not to be defeated, we have in the meantime plowed up another patch and put it behind some electric fence.

The first step in remediation is don’t give up – plant a new garden with a deer fence!

By all means, continue to buy local, but buyer beware….the Dow slogan "bringing good things to life" is not necessarily referring to the life of the things in your deer protected patch of Piedmont heaven.

Opposing modest improvements for farmworkers

2009-05-12T17:20:00.008-04:00

NC Policy Watch has an excellent article today about the NC Department of Agriculture's efforts to block the legislation to better protect farm workers from pesticides.

This dynamic of inaction at the NC Department of Agriculture has been a problem throughout the Ag-Mart case and ensuing efforts at reform. Too bad we can't legislate compassion.

Pesticides in child care - not a pretty picture

2009-04-28T17:45:00.005-04:00

We've all done our homework and gotten the pesticides out of our homes, yards and gardens, right? Many of us have even worked with our schools over the years to get them to switch to safer Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs. But what about child care centers?

A new report out this week from Toxic Free North Carolina, Avoiding Big Risks for Small Kids, takes a look at how child care centers are managing pests in our state – and reveals a less-than-heartening picture. Compared with public schools, who are rapidly adopting IPM in North Carolina, child care centers are lagging way behind.

_ Most of the child care centers we surveyed use old-fashioned, higher-risk practices like broadcast pesticide spraying inside the facilities. Even when the center contracted with professionals, the survey found both widespread overuse of pesticides, and a troubling lack of safety precautions like warning signs or safety information provided about the chemicals being used.

_ The survey also found very limited adoption of safer practices, such as IPM. The US EPA recommends IPM for schools, child care centers and other sensitive areas because it focuses on preventing pest problems and minimizing pesticide spraying. In contrast with NC public schools, child care centers have hardly begun to adopt this common-sense practice. Fewer than 24% of child care providers reported using practices that qualify as IPM – but those who did also reported fewer serious pest problems.

So what can parents & child care providers do about this? Check out the list of five questions that parents should ask their child care providers to find out what they’re doing. There's also a resource for child care providers on how to contract for safer pest management in their facilities.

We know well that kids and pesticides don't mix, but this report makes clear that North Carolina child care providers still need to hear that message. So let's get it out there!

Download the report, get the fact sheets and learn more at Toxic Free NC's website.

Food Safety Bills in Congress

2009-04-09T14:22:00.003-04:00

Guest post by Toxic Free NC volunteer Christopher Grohs.

US Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) has issued a proposal for revamping the current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that’s causing an uproar among advocates of organic farming, and has generated a lot of chain emails about protecting organic farms. The proposal would split the FDA into two separate groups, establishing a new Food Safety Administration. With all the recent outbreaks of salmonella and food contamination, it’s of little surprise that Americans are pushing for stricter regulations and greater accountability in the food production sector. Though the bill is coming from a place of concern for food safety, some advocates for organic farming contend it contains many provisions that could be detrimental to small-scale organic farmers.

According to Gov Track's article on HR 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, the bill will “establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes.” To accomplish these goals, the government will increase its power and presence over the food industry by giving a newly created Food Safety Administration control over all farms, which will be reclassified as “Food Production Facilities.”

The proposed regulations appear to be prohibitively hard for small farmers to comply with, and so would favor massive, corporate factory farms. Organic farming advocates argue that the string of food safety scares in the US are the result of mishandling by large, corporate agricultural facilities and not small-scale organic farmers, so why punish them?

Interestingly, Elanor over at The Ethicurean reports that HR875 isn't moving much in Congress, but meanwhile several other food safety proposals might be bigger threats. Read her post here.

Whatever the case may be with these different proposals flying around Capitol Hill, it's clear that most would, in effect, put a small band-aid on a huge problem. The current commercial food system is a failure on food safety, and on many other fronts as well: labor rights, sustainability, humane treatment of animals, public health and more. We won't achieve food safety without a significant overhaul.

With our new, more food-minded administration in the White House and the USDA, we can't let our guard down. Rather, we must redouble our efforts to support our local farmers, talk to our neighbors about supporting organics, and let our state and federal representatives hear that local and sustainable farming is important to us.

Ag-Mart receives a slap on the wrist in worker endangerment case

2009-02-20T12:07:00.009-05:00

The North Carolina Pesticide Board has completed their deliberation on the case against Ag-Mart, the tomato company accused of the largest pesticide violations case in state history.

More than 200 charges of worker endangerment were at issue in the case. On Thursday, 2/19, The Pesticide Board found Ag-Mart guilty of just six charges of sending workers back into fields before the “re-entry interval” (REI) had expired, for a total fine of just $3,000. The hundreds of charges originally filed against Ag-Mart first came to light in 2005 when three babies with severe birth defects were born to Ag-Mart workers who worked in tomato fields in North Carolina and Florida during their pregnancies.

Get the full details from the Raleigh News & Observer's article.

The $3,000 fine highlights just how low the penalties are for cases of worker endangerment, and how difficult such charges are to prove. The state does not require pesticide applicators to keep records of compliance with the re-entry intervals that are designed to protect workers from hazardous pesticide residues in the field. Without these records, there was no documentation to corroborate the charges brought by state investigators resulting from Ag-Mart’s spray tickets and worker testimony.

The Pesticide Board’s judgment underscores two very serious shortcomings in North Carolina’s pesticide laws and regulations:

At just $500 per violation, fines for companies who violate the state’s pesticide regulations are far too low. In a case where workers were put directly in harm’s way, a $3,000 total fine is a pittance, and a shameful conclusion to a case with such serious consequences.
North Carolina needs a robust record-keeping requirement in order to be able to enforce its worker protection standards. Without clear records, it is next to impossible to know whether or not growers comply with the law.

Unless the NC General Assembly and the NC Pesticide Board correct these critical problems, bad actors have no incentive to comply with North Carolina’s pesticide laws and regulations that are intended to protect workers and the public. Ag-Mart has shown just how flimsy those laws can be.

Toxic Free NC will be fighting hard this year, together with our allies in the Farmworker Advocacy Network, to win this campaign so that another Ag-Mart case will never be repeated in North Carolina. Donate now to support this fight.

More background

In 2008 the NC Pesticide Board found Ag-Mart in violation of 42 counts of improper pesticide use, such as improperly mixing pesticides, and using pesticides that were not labeled for use in North Carolina. The Board fined Ag-Mart $21,000 for those violations, and revoked the farm manager’s pesticide license as a result.

Ag-Mart is also facing close to a million dollars in fines for hundreds of new charges of pesticide misuse and worker endangerment in New Jersey. In addition, the company has already paid out a civil settlement to workers who contend that pesticide misuse led to the severe birth defects in their son, who was born with no arms or legs after both his parents worked in Ag-Mart fields in North Carolina. The amount of the settlement is undisclosed, but it is believed to be in the millions.

by Fawn Pattison

Government report slams EPA for poor regulation of chemicals

2009-02-17T09:44:00.006-05:00

Guest post by Toxic Free NC volunteer Christopher Grohs.

The financial meltdown isn’t the only crisis resulting from poor government regulation facing the American public right now.

In its 2009 High Risk priority report released January 22, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) sharply criticized the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) track record of safety testing for hazardous chemicals. This includes, of course, pesticides, which EPA is charged with regulating.

Recent articles from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and AScribe Newswire explain the numerous problems the EPA has had providing accurate and timely information to the American public. From the Journal-Sentinel article:

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lacks adequate scientific information on the toxicity of many chemicals that may be found in the environment - as well as on tens of thousands of chemicals used commercially in the United States," the GAO said. "EPA's inadequate progress in assessing toxic chemicals significantly limits the agency's ability to fulfill its mission of protecting human health and the environment."
(...)
"The EPA's ability to protect public health and the environment depends on credible and timely assessments of the risks posed by toxic chemicals, the GAO found. Its Integrated Risk Information System, which contains assessments of more than 500 toxic chemicals, "is at serious risk of becoming obsolete because the EPA has been unable to keep its existing assessments current or to complete assessments of important chemicals of concern."

The EPA urgently needs to streamline and increase the transparency of this assessment process, the report says."

Weaknesses in EPA's system of chemical regulation ultimately hurt American families who are exposed to a plethora of toxic chemicals through their use of everyday household products - pesticides, cleaners, plastics, cosmetics, and more. The public is also exposed to a variety of chemicals in our food, water and air because of their use in agriculture and industry.

For tips on how to reduce your exposure to pesticides and other toxics at home, from eating locally to staving off annoying bugs, check out the many resources available on our website. Toxic Free NC provides useful information for parents, resources for getting involved in the pesticide-free movement and a list of toxins commonly used on our crops (so you can make the healthier decisions!).

Triclosan - the secret pesticide

2009-02-11T15:22:00.005-05:00

Guest post by Toxic Free NC volunteer Amy Freitag.

Ever wonder what makes "antibacterial soap" antibacterial? Since the 1960’s, triclosan is often the active ingredient, working to keep you healthy and safe.

Or is it?

Triclosan is actually a pesticide that should be handled as the dangerous chemical it is. And yet, it can be found in regular old hand soap, and a whole mess of other consumer products.....pretty much everywhere! Just take a look at this list of places triclosan is commonly found:
- cosmetics
- children’s toys
- toothpaste
- plastic utensils
- deodorant
- shoes
- mops
- kitchen accessories
- bedding
- mattresses
- food storage containers
- sponges
- phones

Triclosan is considered nontoxic to humans because large doses are necessary to show negative effects. However, a few cases have been reported where ordinary daily use of a product containing triclosan caused the skin become photosensitive and break out in a rash. According to the CDC, the chronic effects of triclosan exposure can include interfering with thyroid hormone metabolism, which could cause hypothermic effects and central nervous system depression. Research has also shown that triclosan is a major contributor to antibiotic resistance because of the specific mechanism it uses to kill bacteria, and its widespread use in almost every household and workplace.

How does it work? According to General Chemistry Online, the molecule enters the cell and binds to an important bacterial enzyme called the enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase, which is crucial to the production of fatty acids needed for building cell membranes and molecules for communication. What all that chemistry boils down to is basically that triclosan gums up the keyhole necessary to lock the cell up, leaving the bacteria wide open, like a house in a bad neighborhood with the front door hanging open. However, all it takes for the bacteria to escape this bad fortune is to alter the keyhole a bit so that the triclosan can’t fit. Once one figures out how to do this, it survives to reproduce a population of resistant bacteria.

Although it may be less than totally effective at killing the offending germs that cause illness, triclosan and related antibiotics are highly effective at wiping out entire populations of natural, healthy bacteria that are necessary for the ecosystem and even human health. By removing the normal bacterial flora from our environments, we aren’t exposed to normal parts of the ecosystem, and then when we finally are, the result may be.... achoo! Seriously, one theory of allergy formation is that exposure to bacteria (within reason, of course) is actually a normal and necessary part of developing a healthy immune system.

As for the ecosystem, those bacteria fill niches in food webs, nutrient cycling, and disease resistance that contribute to the resilience of the environment in the face of threats such as global warming and development. The story with algae in streams and rivers is similar – they show drastic negative effects in the presence of triclosan, often downstream of wastewater treatment plants that don’t treat for pharmaceuticals. These algae provide the base of the aquatic food web that supports the entire system. If we remove that protection through our use of hand soap, we exacerbate the other environmental problems humans have come to bear on earth.

As if that all weren't bad enough, triclosan itself is not the only threat associated with triclosan use. How, you might ask? When exposed to sunlight, triclosan converts into carcinogenic dioxins. Research on the effects of triclosan and metabolites such as dioxin is still ongoing, which begs the question why the chemical is allowed to be so widely used without full knowledge of its impacts. That is a policy question that could take a book to analyze the answer to, but the future of these effects is in the hands of the consumer at this point.

So, convinced you want to avoid this ubiquitous chemical? Good luck! Heres's a "cheatsheet" with tips on avoiding products with triclosan from Environmental Working Group. It's a lot of information to digest, but there are two main changes you can make quickly and easily that will help a lot:

1) Wash your hands with good old fashioned soap and water. According to an epidemiology group out of the University of Michigan, it's the best way. The FDA is also beginning to figure this out, finally.

2) Read ingredient labels for soaps and cosmetics. Don't buy stuff that lists triclosan or the closely-related triclocarban.

No matter what type of soap you use, most germs are removed from your hands by the simple act of wiping them off. Soap and water help a lot, but you don’t need to go beyond that. If the germies are already off your hands and down the drain, does it really matter if they're also dead? For regular handwashing and personal hygiene, the relative ineffectiveness of antibacterial products combined with the very real threat of antibiotic resistance from their over use mean that antibacterial soaps could actually be doing more harm than good.

Remembering a good friend

2009-01-15T16:57:00.006-05:00

It is with great sorrow that I share the news that my friend Joan Phillips-Trimmer passed away last December. She was a great friend of Toxic Free NC who worked with us to reduce pesticide use in Chatham County Schools in 2007 - 08 while working at the Chatham County Health Department. She was a joyful, funny and thoughtful person who gave 110% to the projects she cared about. I'll miss her very much, and send my condolences and best wishes to her family and friends.

I wish I had a photo of her to share - preferably one with her head thrown back in a hearty laugh, which she did all the time - it made other people feel so happy and welcome. But I don't, so here's a beautiful autumn sunset over an organic farm in Chatham County instead - if warm, hearty laughter were colors, it might look something like this.

There will be a memorial service for Joan at Community Church of Chapel Hill this Saturday at 1 PM. Details here.

Here's a link to the Chatham County Schools IPM policy, which is among Joan's many accomplishments.

Environmental Causes of Autism

2009-01-14T17:53:00.004-05:00

Rates of autism nationwide have skyrocketed over the past 15 years. Scientific American reported this week on new research coming out of CA finding that chemicals in our environment may be responsible for most of the rise. Which common but easy-to-avoid chemicals are high on those scientists’ list of suspected culprits? Some are things you might guess, and others maybe not.

From the Scientific American article:

"Dozens of chemicals in the environment are neurodevelopmental toxins, which means they alter how the brain grows. Mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls, lead, brominated flame retardants and pesticides are examples.
While exposure to some--such as PCBs--has declined in recent decades, others--including flame retardants used in furniture and electronics, and pyrethroid insecticides--have increased.
Mothers of autistic children were twice as likely to use pet flea shampoos, which contain organophosphates or pyrethroids, according to one study that has not yet been published. Another new study has found a link between autism and phthalates, which are compounds used in vinyl and cosmetics. Other household products such as antibacterial soaps also could have ingredients that harm the brain by changing immune systems, Hertz-Picciotto [the lead researcher in the study] said."

Yikes! Maybe you're a parent or want to be one, or maybe you aren't - either way take heed that these chemicals are at the top of a list of things that are bad for babies' brains, and it stands to reason that they're not great for your brain either. Many of the same chemicals listed here are also linked with increasingly common health problems in adults, like cancer and Parkinson's disease.

So here's your list of stuff to avoid based on this article, and some tips for avoiding them:

* Flame retardants found in furniture or electronics. Tips from Environmental Working Group on avoiding them.

* Pesticides in general, with special caution about pet shampoos and other products that contain organophosphates and pyrethroids. There are lots of ways to avoid these, but I'll share a couple of the most relevant highlights: 1) Eat organic. (It's a perfect time of year to join a CSA - more on that in an upcoming tip!) 2) Use non-toxic methods to get rid of home and garden pests - check out ToxicFreeNC.org for more info, and also my past NewRaleigh posts. And, 3) if you have pets, use least-toxic alternatives to flea shampoo.

* Phthalates, found in vinyl, some cosmetics, and some plastics. Also associated with reproductive system disorders in male children. Augh. Tips for avoiding phthalates from the Pollution in People project.

* Antibacterial soaps, which commonly contain triclosan - actually a pesticide. Did you know that studies have found that regular soap gets just as much bacteria off your hands as antibacterial soap does? Tips for avoiding triclosan in soaps and other antibacterial products.

I'm planning to address each of these chemicals in more depth as part of my "Toxic Free NC Tips of the Week" series for NewRaleigh.com. If there's any in particular that you're keen to learn more about ASAP, please drop me a line.

Gulf War Syndrome is real, and was caused (at least in part) by exposure to pesticides

2009-01-09T15:59:00.008-05:00

A new report linking exposure to two chemicals with Gulf War syndrome was recently presented to the US Secretary of Veterans Affairs. One was a drug given to soldiers to protect against nerve gas, and the other a pesticide applied to protect against sand fleas. According to the authors of an article that appeared in November in the LA Times, titled Report to Congress: Gulf War Syndrome is Real, this latest report to Congress contradicts nearly two decades of government denials that the syndrome is real.

Dr. Beatrice Golomb is an associate professor at the UCSD School of Medicine who headed up the team that worked on the report to Congress. She links the chronic fatigue, severe muscle pain, memory loss and other illnesses that about 250,000 Persian Gulf War veterans are experiencing to the drug pyridostigmine bromide they were given to protect against nerve gas attacks, and exposure to organophosphate pesticides.

It is really frightening to know that many organophosphate insecticides are still registered for use in the United States. These powerful nerve poisons are closely related in chemical structure to sarin and other nerve gases used as chemical weapons. For more information about organophosphate pesticides and what you can do to help get them off the market, check out PANNA's campaign on organophosphates.

- Guest post by Toxic Free NC volunteer Sylvia Durell

Sustainable Holidays: Minimize the Meat

2008-12-22T09:43:00.005-05:00

The holidays can get stressful. Whether driving long distances to see family and friends, preparing a meal for 10 or just trying to find a gift for everyone on your list, the holiday season can be hard work!

All of the above examples actually come from my festive woes for the upcoming holiday. This year, I plan on trekking the 500 miles to my parent’s house by car and cooking a dinner for the whole family; the perfect gift will be a successful run at both pursuits. As I plan out the dinner to satisfy all the different tastes of my family members, which now range from vegans to hearty meat eaters, I find myself wondering what to make for the centerpiece, the main dish. Years ago, I would have made some type of roast, or possibly a glazed ham. Probably not turkey; as my Dad was never a fan. Now, though, it’s proving much harder to decide.

The more I learn about the meat industry, the less I want a roast to sit at the center of my table, let alone the center of a family member’s stomach. Nothing says love and care like hormone-injected beef or some factory farmed chicken, right? So where does this leave me, and all the others staring at the hole in the table? It leaves us with a chance to reevaluate our eating habits and bring fresh ideas on food into the new year.

More than two years ago, I made a big step toward a healthier lifestyle by choosing to give up meat all together. During this time, I learned the value of spices and the immense variety of vegetables and fruits we can enjoy. It also gave me more respect for the farmers that grow it and a careful eye for picking out the best produce. It brought me to farmer’s markets in mid-summer to pick the juiciest heirloom tomatoes and showed me how to create something delicious when someone handed me a rutabaga. The journey brought me many places and my views changed constantly, evolving with all that I learned. One thing that has consistently resonated within me is a deep respect for life and a strong connection to the Earth. This respect has made me rethink the role of meat in our diets, at the center of our tables and as the largest portion on our plates.

Americans eat far too much meat without even realizing it. A turkey isn’t a turkey anymore, it’s a package of deli slices for lunch; chicken is drenched in BBQ sauce and conveniently microwaved for dinner. Stopping to think how much meat the typical American eats in a given day, let alone the whole week, is absurd. Meat prices are so artificially low that we can enjoy our favorite dishes everyday instead of reserving them for special occasions - like the holidays. Meat should be regarded as a delicacy, honoring the life that was given so you may enjoy it. It used to be a smaller part the meal. It wasn’t the whole dinner and it certainly wasn’t the meat most of us know today.

So this year, as you stare at the hole in your holiday table, think of what you are thankful for. Think of what you are celebrating or whom you are honoring. If you do eat meat, respect the animal and yourself enough to buy it from a local farmer who raised it on open pastures instead of in a CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation). Check out LocalHarvest.org to find a farm near you. And make sure to try out some new recipes like the ones below. I can personally attest to the harvest stuffed squash from chooseveg.com; it was a big hit during Thanksgiving!

Alternative holiday recipes:
http://www.chooseveg.com/stuffed-acorn-squash.asp

A complete vegetarian Christmas dinner:
http://www.theveggietable.com/recipes/christmas.html

- Guest post by Christopher Grohs, Toxic Free NC Volunteer

Why I am thankful this year

2008-11-25T17:32:00.004-05:00

Here is some good news for you: our President-elect reads. And it is a possibility that he reads this very blog. In a recent interview with Time Magazine reporter Joe Klein, Barack Obama mentions having read Michael Pollan's letter to the next Farmer-in-chief in the New York Times Magazine. How did Obama find out about the article? Surely, he has been reading Fair Ground posts.

And not only that, an ABC News article released today about Barack Obama's new White House Budget director, Peter Orszag, contains this quote from the President-elect:

"There's a report today that from 2003 to 2006, millionaire farmers received $49 million in crop subsidies, even though they were earning more than the $2.5 million cutoff to qualify for such subsidies. If this is true, it is a prime example of the kind of waste I intend to end as president."

It seems that Barack Obama has also been studying up on U.S. Farm Policy. It is true that since World War II, subsidies for farmers have focused on commodity farmers; those who raise vast quantities of corn, wheat, and soy, for example. A myopic intensity of increasing productivity while making food as cheap as possible has lead to the predominance of monoculture (one crop) industrial agriculture. Over the years, fewer and fewer farmers have grown more and more of one thing, with those singular crops traded on global markets, throw in big subsidies, and that's how you get millionaire farmers. Not very many of them, of course.

So thanks, President-elect Obama, for your recent reads. While I've got your attention, sir, I would direct you and our other Fair Ground readers to the USDA's article U.S. Farm Policy: The First 200 Years (pdf, 83 KB). I hope everyone enjoys the fruits of their harvest this Thanksgiving!

-Guest post by Kate Pattison, Toxic Free NC volunteer

We (still) need you.

2008-11-10T12:58:00.016-05:00

TO KEEP WORKING FOR CHANGE!

Election season has had Raleigh buzzing these past few months. I have LOVED seeing people so interested in what's going on, passionate about the issues, and generous with their time and support. Knowing that the same thing was going on in communities all across the state and across the country has made me feel so proud of us all, and hopeful about our future.

Now that the results are in (for the most part!), the campaigns have packed up and left town, and everyone's had a few days to recover from election-night parties, I beg you, people of NC and beyond: Don't stop being interested, passionate and generous. No matter whether your candidates won or lost, no matter how much or how little time or money you have to give, let there be no doubt that we (still) need you.

Much like an election campaign, non-profit advocacy organizations like Toxic Free NC need the energy of volunteers and activists to create change. But, unlike election campaigns, non-profits like ours are working at it all year, every year, no matter who's in office. Toxic Free NC helps people make changes at the personal, institutional, and political levels that fight pesticide pollution and promote health and justice in our state.

So, I invite everyone out there who's recovering from election fever to check out Toxic Free NC's volunteer opportunities, consider making a donation, or work with us on one of several exciting campaigns for local and state-level change. Just a few of the things we're working on right now:

As our friendly volunteer coordinator, I'm always here to talk with you about the opportunities we have available, and am also happy to suggest other options if we're not the right thing for you. So, please don't hesitate to call me at 919-833-1123 or write me to discuss the options, or at least to get yourself on our list to receive volunteer updates. Thank you!

Get out there and vote!

2008-10-30T09:00:00.000-04:00

Vote early by this Saturday or vote Tuesday November 4th
Get all your voting questions answered at: www.ncvoterinfo.com

With national and state candidates crisscrossing the state, it's clear that North Carolina is headed for a historic level of voter turnout this year. Don’t be left out! You have two options for voting in North Carolina:

1. Vote on Election Day next Tuesday, November 4th . The polls open at 6:30AM and close at 7:30 PM. Find your precinct at the State Board of Elections website.

2. Vote early through this Saturday November 1st. Early voting gives you added flexibility to vote when you have the time rather than trying to fit it in on Election Day. Find your early voting locations and times here. Remember that you can go to ANY of the locations listed in your county.

Early voting is also your last chance to register and vote in North Carolina for next Tuesday’s election. If you’ve moved since you last voted then you need to re-register through early voting. You can also check your current registration status, or contact your local board of elections for more information.

Make sure you know who you’re voting for: go to the State Board of Elecitons site and click on the link for “General Election Sample Ballots.” You can get additional voting questions answered and see bios of the candidates running for state office with this non-partisan voter guide (this is a pdf file download).

Here are some additional resources for other voting and election questions or problems:
- NC Voter Info.com
- Democracy NC's Election Connection
- Or call 1-888-OUR-VOTE

And make sure your friends and family have all the info they need to vote in North Carolina!

Pollan's letter to the next Farmer-in-Chief

2008-10-27T16:54:00.004-04:00

In last week’s issue of the New York Times Magazine, Michael Pollan, the UC Berkeley professor, journalist, and best-selling author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, scribed an open letter to the next president of the United States, or as Pollan terms it, the Farmer in Chief.

Since beginning a study of Sustainable Agriculture at Central Carolina Community College, I have become keenly aware of the breakdown of the U.S. food system and crisis we are facing as a nation. I hope John McCain and Barack Obama have had the chance to read Pollan’s letter, because it is not only the American food system that’s under threat. Pollan’s letter offers up solutions to fix our food system, as well as the obesity crisis, climate change, national security threats, and our addiction to foreign oil.

Think about it this way: since the end of World War II, U.S. Agriculture has focused largely on producing the greatest volume of commodity crops possible. These crops - wheat, soy and corn - trickle down to U.S. consumers as foodstuffs in the form of over-processed, barely recognizable, pre-packaged snacks and meals. It has been relatively cheap to produce food in this way because oil used to be so cheap. Oil, not just for fueling tractors, is also the basis of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides, which are used in incredible tonnages to continually turn out the greatest quantity of the largest possible crops.

Now that we face a crisis in the price of oil, the rest of the world is facing a crisis in obtaining cheap food. At home, our overly-centralized, large-scale agricultural system pumps out foods which are all too vulnerable to bioterrorism. Even if the food supply were better protected, the nutritional quality and long-term safety of consumption is at question. Pollan cites Centers for Disease Control numbers that estimate that one in three American children will develop Type 2 Diabetes, a disease which can result in blindness, amputation of a limb, and early death -- and which is also 100% preventable.

The solution? Pollan urges the next president of the United States to view agriculture, specifically sustainable agriculture, as one solution that can help eradicate obesity, climate change, terrorist threats to our food supply, and our oil addiction. Sustainable Agriculture is based on three main tenets: that farming should benefit of the farmer, the community, and the environment. Pollan’s application of community-based sustainable farming principles to much larger, national threats is elegant and sensible.

Pollan envisions the First Family leading the charge by installing a White House farmer, complete with a productive five-acre garden on the White House lawn. Recipes and gardening tips could be posted and shared on their website. The president, Pollan says, can appeal to all parts of the political spectrum in embracing sustainable food, whether encouraging hunters to supply their families with wild meats, or aiding evangelicals and lefty environmentalists alike who seek alternatives to the fast food diet. As with the Victory Gardens of World War I, we can take control of our food sources and our communities, and face down economic, health, and energy disasters around the dinner table.

- by Kate Pattison, Guest blogger and Toxic Free NC volunteer

The Politics of Food

2008-10-17T09:59:00.005-04:00

Photo by Billie Karel

A few weeks ago, Billie and I were lucky enough to attend the Environmental Leadership Program’s Politics of Food Conference held at NC State. There were tons of workshops and panel discussions on a variety of topics from The Impact of Organic Agriculture, to The Farm Bill Uncovered. My favorite part of the conference, however, was a plenary discussion entitled Equity and Justice in the United States Food System, which had a panel representing three very different efforts to make this title a reality.

Saru Jayaman, co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), was on the panel representing the role of the restaurant worker in our food system. She stressed the importance of economic justice and fair labor conditions for the twenty million people working in the U.S. food industry as integral parts of the food justice movement. Saru also pointed out the link between workers' rights and the quality of the food we eat. She used the term “collective prosperity” to show that fair working conditions and happy, healthy, safe workers in our food system mean safer, cleaner, and in some cases, probably more delicious food. This could apply to the restaurant, food processing, or agricultural settings. When we think about this idea in terms of agricultural workers, a simple connection we can make is between worker exposure to pesticides in the fields and consumer exposure to pesticide residues in the foods those workers grow.

Denise O’Brien also sat on the panel, speaking from the perspective of a female, organic farmer in Iowa. She started the Women, Food and Agriculture Network and nearly became Iowa’s Secretary of Agriculture in 2006, quite an accomplishment in a state where agriculture is so dominated by industrial agriculture, not to mention men. Denise works with farmer women to help them realize their power as farmers (rather than just farmers’ wives) and often, as farm owners after their husbands die. The network is used as a tool for giving women a stronger voice in addressing issues of sustainability, as well as gender, within agricultural communities.

The third panelist, Malik Yakini, is chairman the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, which works toward creating a more just and sustainable food system within Detroit by putting some of the city’s 60-70,ooo vacant lots to use in urban agriculture. Malik emphasized the need to connect food-related struggles to struggles for democratic rule, access to true histories, and the struggles of all oppressed people. Clearly, a just and sustainable food system cannot be realized in a world that is not otherwise just or sustainable.

I thought this panel was especially important to include in this type of conference to remind people working for sustainable agriculture (and sustainable food systems more generally) that these issues are inherently linked to social justice issues of all kinds and that these struggles, struggles to protect the environment and struggles for social justice, must be supportive of each other if either are to be successful.

Billie and I were inspired, to say the least. Please check out the work these great folks are doing, and check out ELP, who put on the conference. They give great trainings to awesome people; just ask Billie!

Reviewing bad ideas on a case-by-case basis

2008-09-30T17:14:00.004-04:00

Cast your mind back to last December, when I was railing at the EPA on this very blog for their wrong-headed and potentially dangerous proposal to allow "Cause-Related Marketing" on pesticide labels.

Cause-related marketing means, for example, selling a bottle of pesticide with the Red Cross logo on it, perhaps promising to donate a portion of the product's sale to the charity. As you can imagine, many people, including many state attorneys general, pesticide administrators from across US states, Toxic Free NC and our allies, went nuts. Good people like you sent in reams of comments to the EPA decrying the proposal, and the agency was forced to extend the comment period to accommodate them all.

The EPA heard us. They heard the public saying "ARE YOU INSANE?" and decided that they never should have told us about the idea in the first place.

Today the EPA released its decision on the matter: they have decided to withdraw the proposal and to discourage cause-related marketing on pesticide containers. This is almost like disallowing the practice, except not. Here's what they had to say about the matter in a news release:

"Although EPA will review any future application it receives, EPA is now generally discouraging the submission of applications to add cause marketing claims or third-party endorsements.

"...If it receives such an application, the Agency expects to decide on a case-by-case basis both what information would be necessary to carefully evaluate the proposed claims and whether a product containing such a claim could meet the applicable statutory and regulatory standards for approval."

What does that mean, exactly? Don't send us an application to put charity logos on your pesticides because it's potentially hazardous to human health and the environment, but if you do, we'll review it on a case-by-case basis.

Come again?

This is like a mild victory for common sense, but without the sting of defeat. Plus the added bonus of secrecy. Something for everyone!

EPA says in its decision: "EPA recognizes that its resources are limited and should be targeted towards activities that will enhance protection of human health and the environment from pesticides." In other words, EPA's shouldn't waste its resources developing standards for evaluating label proposals, then sending them out for public comment again, revising them, notifying the public about pending applications, yadda yadda yadda. If they get an application, they'll just deal with it under cover of darkness - it's more efficient that way.

Is this a lesson in how to make everybody happy by sweeping the issue under the rug?

Under this decision, we won't know when EPA gets an application for cause-related marketing on a pesticide label, nor what standards they would use to evaluate it. If you should happen to find a bottle of Killz-All at the store with your local children's hospital logo on it, you'll know they approved one.

But that probably won't happen, because they're going to discourage it.

Fall eating

2008-09-23T14:59:00.003-04:00

The crisp, cool mornings and shorter evenings are a sure sign of autumn. And so are the beautiful piles of pumpkins, sweet potatoes and winter squash that are beginning to appear in farmer's markets all across North Carolina.

In my house, cooler weather means more cooking, now that it's finally okay to turn the oven on again after a few long hot summer months of melon slices and tomato sandwiches. The garden is leafy and green again, with little chard, kale and lettuce plants soaking up the warm, sunny afternoons. And soon it will be time for boxes of shiny apples, especially my very favorite, Honey Crisp.

If you thought the end of summer meant the end of fresh fruits and veggies from the farmer's market, think again! Many markets stay open right up to Thanksgiving, and some even longer. You may not have known that there was such a thing, but some farms are now offering winter CSA shares to keep you in vegetable heaven all through the cooler months. Check the CSA listings at Growing Small Farms to find one near you.

To get you dreaming of fall culinary delights, here is a recipe for Baked Winter Squash from Toxic Free NC's farmer's market recipe archive:

Baked Winter Squash
by Susan Spalt

- Any kind of winter squash (butternut, acorn, spaghetti squash, etc)
- Butter
- Worcestershire sauce
- Brown sugar
- Grated cheddar cheese

Cut squash in half. Wrap in foil and bake at 350 until tender. Remove from foil. Carefully scoop out squash, saving the skins. Combine squash with 1/2 tsp. butter, about a tsp. Worcestershire sauce, and 1/2 tsp. brown sugar. Place back in skins. Sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese. Bake for 10 minutes or until cheese has melted.

Ag-Mart workers take the stand

2008-09-11T10:40:00.005-04:00

On Wednesday two former Ag-Mart employees finally took the stand in the state's protracted enforcement case against the company accused of hundreds of violations in the largest pesticide case in North Carolina history.

News & Observer photo

Francisca Herrera and Abraham Candelario are the parents of Carlitos Candelario, the little boy whose birth defects stunned the state and tipped investigators off to a pattern of problems. Since the state began investigating the case in 2006, there have been dozens of court hearings, task force meetings, legislative hearings, and many other opportunities for attorneys and "experts" to debate the merits of the state's case, but until yesterday none of the affected workers had been heard. From the Raleigh News & Observer:

Herrera, 22, said she was often told to work in fields that were still wet with pesticides. She said her supervisors ignored her complaints of frequent headaches and stomach pains. "The boss would always be scolding us and telling us that we came to this country to work, not to rest," she said in Spanish. (Source: Raleigh News & Observer article)

Whatever the relative strengths and weaknesses of the state's case against the tomato giant, it was gratifying to finally hear from those whom the case actually affected. Carlitos stayed quiet for two days in the hearing room as his parents waited for their turn to testify. But as his mother took the stand, he cried at being separated from her, and his audible wails outside the hearing room underscored his presence in the hearing.

The Ag-Mart case, at its core, is not about re-entry interval violations, record-keeping requirements, or worker intimidation. It's about what can happen when we use, misuse, or misunderstand the use of toxic chemicals, whether to grow our food, change our environments, or manufacture the consumer products we use every day. With or without negligence, with or without malfeasance, toxic chemicals get into our bodies, and sometimes cause irreperable harm. Whether or not the state collects its $100,000 from Ag-Mart, we need to be looking much harder at the trade-offs we're willing to make for a cheap food supply.

Community Organizing 101: Building community, strengthening democracy, and getting things done.

2008-09-05T14:17:00.022-04:00

It's true, most people don't know what the heck I mean when I say that I'm a community organizer. But even though the term is unfamiliar, I think most people would readily recognize "organizers" in their own communities as leaders and connectors - the proverbial "movers & shakers." Anyone who's ever put together a community event like a fundraiser, service project, strike, boycott, or protest; started a new club, organization, union, or other group; asked people to sign a petition, contact their representatives, speak at a public meeting, or vote for a certain person or proposal was probably doing some community organizing.

Community organizing encompasses a really broad range of activities and issues, and many different kinds of people do it. Some are volunteers or concerned citizens, while others do it professionally; some do it as part of a congregation or organization, while others do it independently. But there are a few common threads that I think are the most important parts:

1. Making changes & getting things done. At the most fundamental level, community organizing is a process by which people get together - "organize" - to get something done. This could be changing a rule or policy, getting someone elected, starting a new group or program, stopping something hurtful to the community, or starting something needed and helpful. Whatever it is, people come together to make a plan and then do it together.
2. Community. Communities of people are built and strengthened by the process of community organizing. When a good organizer runs a campaign or project, the community is stronger when it's over, regardless of whether they actually won or accomplished the original goal. The people involved have built relationships, skills, knowledge, and confidence that make them more active and effective participants in their community, and make future community organizing projects easier and more successful.
3. Power, Equity and Democracy. In theory, a democratic process means that people who are affected by a particular decision get a equal say in how it's made, or at least an equal say in who gets to make it (i.e. through electing representatives). But in reality, that is often not the case. The dynamics of power, privilege, and profit in our society mean that the system isn't always fair, and some people can't get what they need through normal channels. Maybe they can't get pollution out of their air or water, can't get their child's public education improved, or can't get a fair living wage. Community organizing helps to correct injustices and fix an inequitable system by bringing people together to exercise their power as a voting block or a customer base, and demand the changes they need.

In our work at Toxic Free NC, this shows up as parents who want to get their schools or childcare centers to stop using pesticides, farmworkers or farm neighbors who don't want to be sprayed, consumers who want better access to food grown without pesticides, and lots of other things too. So, we work with these groups of people to help them get what they want, and in the process we build community and correct imbalances of power that create injustice and weaken our democracy. It's pretty heady stuff, and we're proud to be doing this important work in North Carolina.

Interested in getting organized in your community, and reducing pesticide pollution? We're here to help - please contact us!

Interested in becoming an organizer? It's a pretty great job, if I do say so myself. Here are a couple of my favorite resources:
Midwest Academy
The Community Toolbox

PS: I really like this quote I just found from Mike Miller of the Organize Training Center:

Organizing does two central things to seek to rectify the problem of power imbalance - it builds a permanent base of people power so that dominant financial and institutional power can be challenged and held accountable to values of greater social, environmental and economic justice; and, it transforms individuals and communities, making them mutually respectful co-creators of public life rather than passive objects of decisions made by others.

Is EPA hiding information about honeybee disappearance?

2008-08-28T16:18:00.007-04:00

We've been hearing about the mysterious illness affecting honeybees for some time now - colony collapse disorder, or CCD. It appears that this year has been even worse than last for beekeepers in the US. Pesticides are one of the leading suspects in this mystery, and attention has turned to a relatively new product called clothianidin, which is made by Bayer CropScience. In Bayer's home nation of Germany, clothianidin was recently banned for suspected effects on honeybees. Here in the US, the product is still very much in use, and the EPA has failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request from NRDC about the chemical's effects on honeybees. So, earlier this month, NRDC sued Bayer.
Get more on this development in the CCD story from NRDC, from Grist Magazine, and from the Raleigh News & Observer.
Want to do something more than fret? Please consider writing a letter to the editor of the Raleigh News & Observer - here are some tips for writing good letters to the editor from the NC Conservation Network, and instructions for submitting a letter to the News & Observer.

WRAL Exposé on Farmworkers and Pesticides to Air Tomorrow Night!

2008-08-19T11:18:00.007-04:00

For the past several months, WRAL-TV has been working on a documentary piece regarding farmworkers, pesticides and North Carolina's pesticide law. The documentary, entitled "Focal Point - Practical Application" will feature farmworkers talking about their own experiences working with pesticides. Many of our allies from the Farmworker Advocacy Network (not to mention our very own executive director Fawn Pattison) will also be featured discussing loopholes in our state's pesticide policy. Click here for the preview. Looks like some good old fashioned hard-hitting journalism!

WRAL will air its documentary entitled "Focal Point - Practical Application" tomorrow, Wednesday August 20th at 7 p.m. Tune in to see farmworkers and advocates making a powerful case for change!

Farmworker Engagement, Documentary Style

2008-08-08T16:31:00.010-04:00

Image (right): A wash bucket used for laundering clothes sits next to a building at a farmworker camp. Photo: A. Duncan Pardo.

This week we're wrapping up a summer audio documentary project interviewing North Carolina farmworkers about their experiences working with pesticides. Student Action with Farmworkers interns Rachel, Pablo, Alejandra and I conducted the interviews and collected workers' recommendations on how best to achieve meaningful reforms for pesticide use as well as other pressing farmworker concerns.

My interview took place in Eastern NC with a man named Bernardo, who comes here every year to work in tobacco and cucumber. He had major concerns about some farmers' tendency to send workers into fields that have been recently sprayed with pesticides. He also talked at length about tobacco workers' inability to distinguish pesticide poisoning from Green Tobacco Sickness. He said that even clinic staff were frequently unable to tell the two apart, and that he was concerned about the potential for misdiagnosis and incorrect treatment. Bernardo is a vocal advocate for the rights of farmworkers, including the right to know when, if and to what they're being exposed. He said he was happy working for his current employer, but he acknowledged that many others weren't so lucky. He had this advice for other workers:

I want to tell my peers not to be afraid...to speak out about what it's like for us in the fields. We have to stop and think and say 'I want to change this' and fight for it.

We plan to continue interviewing farm workers and building the relationships needed to make our policy and program work better informed by what the workers themselves see as the most pressing issues. We'll be posting audio clips and photos from the pilot project in the near future, so stay tuned!

Win in Washington!

2008-08-01T16:14:00.010-04:00

Good news folks! The EPA has recently announced a decision to ban traces of the toxic pesticide Carbofuran on both domestic and imported food, essentially taking it off the US market. Environmental and farmworker advocates have long been fighting for the ban. Carbofuran is responsible for over a million bird deaths per year, and according to the Washington Post's July 25th coverage of the ban, the pesticide also kills bees, important friends we cannot continue to lose.

The Beyond Pesticides daily news blog reported that the "EPA has concluded that dietary, worker, and ecological risks are of concern for all uses of carbofuran. According to EPA’s website, all products containing carbofuran generally cause unreasonable adverse effects on humans and the environment and do not meet safety standards, and therefore are ineligible for reregistration."

This news comes along with the announcement of two suits filed against the EPA by a coalition of public health, farmworker, and environmental groups over the continued use of the toxic pesticides endosulfan and diazinon, as well as congress' decision to ban the use of 3 kinds of phthalates in children's toys. Change seems to be lurking everywhere in Washington right now.

What an exciting time to be interning in pesticide reform! I look forward to seeing what happens with the endosulfan and diazinon cases and updating Fair Ground readers on those and other news stories in the rest of my time here. Stay tuned!

Fewer Pesticides = Fewer Suicides

2008-07-21T13:39:00.001-04:00

A story came out from the German Press Agency (DPA) this week discussing yet another benefit of reducing pesticide use: decreasing suicide rates!

India has been experiencing increasing numbers of farmer suicides in the last decade or so as a consequence of its Green Revolution (a US 'encouraged' movement in the late 1960s to increase crop yields through the development of greater yielding plant varieties) and the resulting structural adjustment policies of the World Bank in 1998, forcing farmers into increased use of input-intensive, single-season crops. Mounting debt due to investment in the expensive chemical inputs (pesticides, fertilizers, etc.) required to grow demanding hybrid seeds have resulted in more than 100,000 government-acknowledged cases of desperate farmers “drinking the same pesticides that created their liabilities”. Not only have these ‘advanced’ technologies racked up impressive debts for farmers in India, they have substantially lowered both water tables and land fertility, furthering the difficulty of survival for the some 600 million Indians who depend on agricultural activities for their livelihood.

But there’s hope! Programs helping farmers return to traditional and organic farming are proving to be successful in lowering suicide rates by bringing in higher yields and incomes. By returning to local pest management techniques and the tradition of saving and trading seeds (saving money on chemical pesticides and GM seeds) farmers have been able to begin pulling themselves out of debt and recovering mortgaged land. The reach of these programs is increasing as the price of chemical pesticides goes up with the price of oil. Vandana Shiva, creator of the founding organization of India’s current organic movement, Navdanya, is confident that “When chemical farming has led to a total collapse, traditional and organic farming is the solution, the way of the future.”

As the price of oil continues to rise, it will be interesting to see its effects on the use of petroleum-based, chemical pesticides and fertilizers in farming around the world. If it can change the way we drive, why not the way we farm? Sustainable agriculture advocates and the like: lets take advantage of this new incentive for organic or pesticide-free agriculture, and act to encourage and support farmers in making the change.

5 great years!

2008-07-18T08:50:00.004-04:00

This week Billie Karel celebrates 5 years on the staff of Toxic Free NC.

As our Program Coordinator, Billie has developed outstanding Volunteer and Community Organizing programs, built our beautiful website, coordinates the Board Development Committee and our new Leadership Committee, keeps everyone in the loop with Action Alerts, and does a million other things to make Toxic Free NC successful. Billie also sings and dances and is generally just fun to be around. That’s why we’ve decided that today is Billie Karel Appreciation Day at Toxic Free NC.

We hope you'll join us in celebrating Billie Karel Appreciation Day today. Together with all our friends, colleauges and supporters, Billie's work is helping us all acheive just & sustainable agriculture, and a toxic-free future for our children in North Carolina.

A challenging victory

2008-07-10T10:45:00.010-04:00

This week the NC Legislature passed a small but important piece of legislation to improve the lives of farmworkers who work in North Carolina's fields.

S 847, "Prevent Agricultural Pesticide Exposure," will not prevent agricultural pesticide exposure. However, it will grant a very basic form of workplace dignity to farmworkers: the right to report safety problems on the job without the threat of being fired, demoted or otherwise punished for doing so. Farmworkers who are punished for reporting pesticide safety concerns will have the right to file a complaint with the NC Department of Labor under REDA, the Retaliatory Employment Discrimination Act, and to win their job or lost wages back.

This legislation also directs the NC Pesticide Board to create new rules that improve how agricultural employers keep records when they use pesticides and workers are present. This step is intended to make enforcement of violations easier for the NC Department of Agriculture, and to eliminate the "he-said-she-said" nature of their enforcement cases now.

This is important legislation, and those who worked to pass it should be proud (particularly Rep. Dan Blue, Sen. Charlie Albertson, Health Director Leah Devlin and Governor Easley). But they also shouldn't be lulled into thinking that farmworkers and their families are now safe from harmful exposure to pesticides, or that a disastrous incident like what has been alleged in the Ag-Mart case couldn't happen again.

Toxic Free NC and our allies in the Farmworker Advocacy Network (FAN) have spent years researching workplace pesticide exposure, talking with farmworkers about their experiences, and examining programs in other states. Only one of our long list of recommendations - retaliation protection - made it into S 847 (read more about FAN's recommendations here).

One of the greatest challenges that we face in advocating for and with farmworkers is actually the democratic process, which is designed to ensure that every citizen gets a vote and a voice. Unfortunately, most of the people who labor to plant, tend and harvest our food in the United States are not citizens, and don't get a vote -- or a voice. No elected official in NC is accountable to farmworkers, except perhaps in a moral sense.

Elected officials don't have to listen to farmworkers - even if they could speak to them - but they do have to listen to their constituents, and they especially listen to the lobby groups and business interests - like the Farm Bureau - who are constantly in their offices demanding specific outcomes.

Many, many citizens joined Toxic Free NC and our FAN partners in advocating for worker protection, both before and during the legislative session. Despite all that, we did not get the best possible legislation for farmworkers. We got the best possible legislation in an environment dominated by business interests.

In the future, we can work harder, we can speak louder, and we can recruit more citizens to call on the moral values of our elected officials. We should and we must continue to work for a just and sustainable future for our state, its workers and its residents. To do that, we must also work for the restoration of integrity to our democratic process, to diminish the power of private profit to act as gatekeeper for our health and safety.

What you can do:

Check out Democracy NC's work to clean up politics in NC
Know your legislators
Sign up to volunteer or to get action alerts about issues like this one
Make a contribution to support our work
Invite Toxic Free NC or one of our FAN partners to come speak at your school, church or community group.

It's fire ant season in NC

2008-06-19T17:06:00.007-04:00

I got stung by several fire ants last week while wearing sandals in a vegetable garden. Besides the usual pain and surprise, my foot and ankle swelled up for a couple days following. Augh....happy summer, I guess. The bites were timely, actually, since I've been working on an article about least-toxic control of fire ants for the summer edition of Toxic Free News (due out in July, stay tuned!). But, I wanted to post a few tips on fire ants now, in case you (like me) are already dealing with these nasty buggers....

Here are few things you might not have thought of:

- Fire ants like to eat trash and drink water from leaky pipes and puddles, just like so many other pests. Keep your outdoor trash and recycling areas tidy, clean up food scraps left after picnics and cook outs, fix leaky pipes and correct drainage issues around the house.

(Image caption: Fire ants swarming a cowboy somewhere in TX. Photo courtesy of Texas A&M University.)

- Lots of other ant species will fight and kill fire ants - they're competitors! So, when trying to get rid of fire ants, don't go crazy and kill other kinds of ants, since they may actually be helping you.

- Mark fire ant mounts with a flag or something else bright and eye-catching, and warn people to avoid them. Fire ants only bite when their nests are disturbed, i.e. by stepping on them. They won't come looking to bite you if you stay out of their way!

- The least-toxic, and most-often-cited strategy for fire ants is plain old hot water. Some sources recommend mixing in a little soap, but either way, it's 2 or 3 gallons of hot water poured slowly over the mound. This drowns many of the ants, and annoys the rest of them enough that they move their nest elsewhere. You might have to do it 2 or 3 times over the course of a week to finish them off.

- And of course, the pretty obvious thing that I forgot when I was in the garden last week: wear socks and shoes, or better, rubber boots (or cowboy boots?!) when working in areas prone to fire ants.

That's all for now! Check out this article from the Toxic Free News archives - it includes a description of the "yellow flag system" used to control fire ants at Elizabeth City public schools. And stay tuned for my article on fire ant management coming up in the next issue of Toxic Free News!

I fell in to a burning ring of fire (ants)....I went down down down, and the flames went higher....and it burns burns burns, that ring of fire....that ring of fire! Too bad we already missed Ashburn, GA's Fire Ant Festival last March. But, it's good to know that other states with longer-standing fire ant problems are keeping a good sense of humor about them....bodes well for NC!

Pesticides and Diabetes..... and Golf!

2008-06-06T16:30:00.005-04:00

Earlier this week, the National Institutes for Environmental Health Science (NIEHS) released new results from the Agricultural Health Study showing that applying some pesticides can increase a person's risk of developing diabetes. From the June 4th press release:

"(...) Researchers compared the pesticide use and other potential risk factors reported by the 1,171 [licensed pesticides] applicators who developed diabetes since enrolling in the [Agricultural Health] study to those who did not develop diabetes. Among the 50 different pesticides the researchers looked at, they found seven specific pesticides — aldrin, chlordane, heptachlor, dichlorvos, trichlorfon, alachlor and cynazine - that increased the likelihood of diabetes among study participants who had ever been exposed to any of these pesticides, and an even greater risk as cumulative days of lifetime exposure increased.
All seven pesticides are chlorinated compounds, including two herbicides, three organochlorine insecticides and two organophosphate pesticides. (...)"

The Agricultural Health Study is a long-term study of health outcomes among about 90,000 pesticide applicators and their families in North Carolina and Iowa.

One of the higher risk chemicals identified in this study, trichlorfon, is commonly used on golf course turf! Check out this Golf and the Environment feature from Beyond Pesticides for more information about chemicals used on golf courses, and safer alternatives.

We miss the bees

2008-05-28T17:12:00.004-04:00

Though this has been a beautiful spring, we have noticed a disturbing absence in our flower garden. We seem to be suffering from a serious shortage of bees.

Our front yard is loaded with white clover, and our flower beds are full of bees' favorites. With names like Bee Balm and Bienenfreund (German for "Bee's friend"), you'd expect the flowers in our garden to be lousy with bees. And in past years, they have been. But this year, it seems eerily silent in our garden. The familiar buzzing is missing around our blooms.

Commercial apiaries are suffering dramatic losses of bee populations due to a mysterious killer called Colony Collapse Disorder, and wild bee populations, like the ones who should be pollinating our garden, are being ravaged by disease and parasites.

Last week Germany took dramatic action to ban an entire class of pesticides, called neonicotinoids, which have been blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees there. Bayer CropScience, one of the main producers of neonicotinoid pesticides like imidacloprid and clothianidin, two chemicals that have been blamed for massive bee die-offs in the US and Europe, denies that the pesticides are dangerous "when used properly."

I don't find their reassurances very satisfying. Surveys from the Apiary Inspectors of America this year report that honeybee populations in the US are down by about 36% over last year, and last year they were down by 31%. Growers who depend on honeybees for pollination, like fruit growers, are paying top-dollar for commercial pollination services, adding to the list of woes driving up food prices around the world.

We haven't had a scientific survey done in our garden, but I'm finding the quiet out there more than a little disturbing. We need some real answers about what's killing off bees around the world, and perhaps we need to be following Germany's example when we've got a good hunch.

Wash that produce

2008-05-22T17:11:00.002-04:00

The US Department of Agriculture is about to cut an $8 million survey program that provides the public (and many government agencies) with data about how much pesticide US farmers apply to their crops around the country. Toxic Free NC uses this vital data regularly. I was interviewed for an NPR Marketplace story about the cuts today - you can listen here.

Read more about the cuts on Jennifer Sass's blog at the NRDC.

Global Food Crisis - Ouch.

2008-05-07T18:19:00.002-04:00

Headlines about the global crisis of increasing food prices are pretty staggering. Here in the US, food prices up as much as 20 or 25% for some staples have added insult to the injuries of record-breaking prices at the gas pump and the housing slump. Local food banks are reporting unprecedented jumps in their populations served over the past couple months. Meanwhile, in poorer nations overseas, where people spend a much larger portion of their incomes on food, and prices for some staple crops like rice have doubled or even tripled in price over the past several months, there have been riots and other evidence that the situation is becoming increasingly critical.

In the midst of this devastating silent tsunami, I ask you to consider some of the causes, many of which are environmental:

1) Climate change. Droughts, floods, and other unusual weather patterns across the globe have disrupted farming over the past few years and hurt local food supplies in many parts of the world. This has made people more dependent on imported food and driven up the price.
2) Gas prices. Food that is trucked, shipped and flown around the country or the globe is costing more to transport these days, with gas hitting new record prices all the time. This is hurting import-dependent developing countries most.
3) Increased meat consumption. It takes about seven or eight hundred calories of grain to make one hundred calories of meat. Consider the impacts on global grain prices of increasing meat consumption in populous countries like China and India, while American appetites for cheap and plentiful meat remains high as ever.
4) Fuel made from food. There has been a great push in the US and several other countries to put more ethanol in people's gas tanks to reduce tailpipe emissions. 20% of the American corn crop was used for biofuel in 2006, a number that has come up from the single digits in just a few years. This has driven up prices for corn, and prompted farmers to divert land from other food crops to corn (driving up prices on those crops), or from "conservation" (un-farmed land near water ways and other sensitive areas). Increasing corn production in turn contributes to water pollution problems (think of the growing "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, and the fact that an herbicide commonly used on corn has been shown to cause hermaphrodism in frogs).

So, what can we do? A few ideas -

* Eat local. May and June are some of the lushest, most productive months on farms and NC. Take advantage by hitting your local farmers market or local foods grocer - you'll find prices on locally produced foods relatively stable, and you'll be helping to ease the pressure on the global commodity market and stabilize food prices for people who don't have other options. Better yet: grow your own. Can't beat free! Also, please keep an eye out for opportunities to get local foods in more places in your community: Local food purchasing policies for cafeterias in your favorite school, childcare center, or workplace? Farm-to-school, office, or church programs? We're here to help!
* Eat less meat. Consider a quality-over-quantity approach to eating meat and other animal products like eggs and dairy. Try eating less of them, and when you do eat them, focus on local and sustainable options, which are often more nutritious and tastier! It'll be better for you, better for our environment, and better for our global food economy.
* Share. There are lots of organizations working to fight hunger, both domestically and overseas, which you might consider supporting this year. One tip - the national "Stamp Out Hunger" food drive is coming up this Saturday, May 10th. The National Association of Letter Carriers has teamed up with food banks across the country to pick up your food donations from your mailbox this coming Saturday. Please consider making a gift - in our area, your gifts will be handled by the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina, which distributes food to many smaller providers across our region.

In the long term, more of us need to recognize that our economic decisions, as individuals and as nations, are having a serious impact on the global environment and on the welfare of our neighbors on this planet. Our global food economy is seriously broken, and we need to fix it. We as a society, and the governments who are working for us, must heed the lesson of this crisis by making long-term investments in *real* energy efficiency, and agricultural practices that are truly sustainable in the environmental, social and economic senses of the word.

So, my dear readers, please keep on eating local, voting your heart, and speaking your mind!

Pesticide Task Force punts on the tough issues

2008-04-23T15:25:00.012-04:00

A Task Force convened earlier this year by Governor Mike Easley to address pesticide exposure hazards in agriculture has sent its recommendations to the Governor (read the press release). The report contains some good ideas and some welcome changes, to be sure, but misses the chance to bring much-needed basic workplace protections to farmworkers who face the threat of pesticide exposure on the job.

Within the report's recommendations you'll find budget requests for several of the agencies that were represented on the Task Force, ideas for the expansion of many voluntary and educational programs, and very little reform. Only one of the recommendations brought by farmworker advocates, a provision that would outlaw retaliation against workers who report workplace safety problems, was adopted by the Task Force.

The Task Force faced several challenges in its structure, including the absence of any farmworker representatives. Because the recommendations were made by consensus, any Task Force member was able to prevent recommendations from going forward. One Task Force member in particular, Commissioner of Agriculture Steve Troxler, was extremely effective in preventing the Task Force from taking up several of the reform measures they discussed.

There were some key issues exposed by the Ag-Mart case that the Task Force chose to put off for future study:

Keep workers' names confidential when they report workplace safety problems.
Require growers to keep records of compliance with Worker Protection Standards by recording when workers are sent back into the fields after spraying.
Increase minimal pesticide fines and remove the standard of "willful" violations.

Panelists also recommended solutions including: require crop-specific pesticide safety training; redesign pesticide labels and ensure that they are also provided in Spanish; encourage the use of organic farming, Integrated Pest Management and less-toxic alternatives; improve regulations of pesticide drift; require adequate showers and telephones in employer-provided farmworker housing; screen workers regularly for health impacts; increase the number of bilingual pesticide inspectors, and many others. None of these were mentioned in the final report to the Governor.

Whether Governor Easley and the NC Legislature can look beyond the limitations of this report remains to be seen. But they will have to if they intend to fix the problems that Ag-Mart has so painfully pointed out.

You can download the report (PDF, 232 KB) by clicking this link.

Earth Day, everyone?

2008-04-17T14:42:00.003-04:00

Earth Day is coming up on Tuesday, April 22, and that means the Toxic Free NC team is busy gearing up for events and festivals all over the state. I hope we'll be seeing you at some of them!

Stop by and say hello to our staff and volunteers, color a bug or make a veggie painting like this guy, who had a ball at 5% Day last week, thanks to Whole Foods Market in Raleigh.

The Whole Foods stores in Raleigh and Chapel Hill dedicated their 5% Days last week to Toxic Free NC. We are so grateful to them for the generous donation, and for the chance to talk with so many new people (not to mention smashing beets for the sake of art).

Here's where we'll be celebrating Earth Day this year:

Saturday, April 20
Raleigh: Burt's Bees Planet Earth Celebration
Winston-Salem: Piedmont Earth Day Fair
Goldsboro: Wayne County Earth Day

Saturday, April 26
Fayetteville: Dogwood Festival
Washington: Beaufort County Earth Day

Sunday, April 27
Fayetteville: Dogwood Festival

There are lots more community events coming up where we'll be out meeting folks around the state, and we'd love to see you there. Check out our calendar of events to find one near you. If you're interested in helping us get out the word about Toxic Free NC and alternatives to pesticides, email Billie and let her know you'd like to volunteer with us at an upcoming event.

And happy Earth Day!

Farmworker Awareness Week

2008-03-31T10:44:00.003-04:00

This is Farmworker Awareness Week, and a time to reflect, learn more, and support the millions of farmworkers whose labor puts food on every American table.

It's estimated that in North Carolina, about 100,000 - 150,000 farmworkers plant, tend and harvest our crops every year, particularly in labor-intensive crops like tomatoes, vegetables, Christmas trees and tobacco. The large majority of North Carolina's farmworkers are migrants who move from place to place following the harvest. The average annual income for a farmworker in the United States is about $11,000, or about $16,000 for farmworking family (though pay on the East Coast is lower than the national average). Farmworkers live in overcrowded housing, few receive health care or unemployment benefits, and about half of North Carolina's farmworkers cannot afford enough food for themselves and their families.

Farmworkers are also disproportionately exposed to hazardous pesticides on the job. A recent study in eastern North Carolina found multiple pesticide residues on the hands and in the urine of farmworker chidren. Many of you have followed the Ag-Mart case: last week the company settled for millions of dollars with the family of a boy, Carlitos Candelario, who was born with multiple severe birth defects, which his parents attribute to their hazardous working conditions at Ag-Mart.

This week you can attend events to learn about the rich history and culture of farmworkers in the United States, and you can take action to support better working conditions for the people who harvest our food. When you sit down to your next meal, please also take a moment to give thanks for the hardworking hands who brought it to you.

Preventing poisonings

2008-03-18T17:18:00.005-04:00

It's National Poison Prevention Week, and the US EPA is touting its big message to prevent childhood pesticide poisonings: lock up your pesticides. That's the word from Assistant Administrator Jim Gulliford in a podcast out this week from EPA. Poison Control Centers report that more than 50 percent of over two million exposure incidents each year involve children under six years of age, so to combat the danger, EPA wants us to put locks on the cabinets where we keep the poisons.

What a radical message. Every week EPA reviews new studies about how low-level pesticide exposure can increase children's risks for cancer, harm neurological development, increase the risk and severity of asthma, and on and on. Amendments to the Federal Pesticide Law in 1996, in response to the groundbreaking National Research Council report "Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children," recognized that children are exposed to many pesticides at once through their diets, water and surroundings -- at potentially hazardous levels -- and required new restrictions on agricultural pesticide use to reduce those aggregated exposures. EPA funds dozens of programs around the US to reduce children's pesticide exposure in schools, public housing and child-care centers through Integrated Pest Management.

So when it comes down to the public message, why is EPA telling people that the way to protect kids is to keep on using pesticides -- just lock them up when you're done? How about this for a protective message: hey, you've got kids in the house, and you really ought to quit spraying pesticides altogether. No exposure, no storage problems... no risk of accidental poisoning. That's a simple, straightforward message that will actually protect children.

For every category of potential household poison that Gulliford enumerated in the podcast, there is a simple non-toxic replacement. That's what the IPM programs that EPA supports are all about -- eliminate the risk by eliminating the poison in the first place. Is there a safer way to control pests? You betcha. It's also the safer way to prevent childhood poisonings.

Noisy spring, silent summer?

2008-03-13T10:57:00.005-04:00

This is a story about sludge, worms and songbirds, and it starts in your bathroom cabinet.

When we treat our wastewater to remove "biosolids" -- a polite term for our human waste -- all sorts of other things end up in the leftover sludge, including the drugs we take and the "personal care products" like lotion, shampoo, makeup and cologne that we slather on our bodies, which have been absorbed through our skin and then excreted in our waste. The treated wastewater is usually discharged into the local river, and the sludge that's been removed from it frequently becomes fertilizer for agricultural production.

Researchers at the US Geological Survey have found that the hungry earthworms who feed on this sludge in farm fields contain concentrated levels of our drugs and personal care products in their bodies. In fact, a USGS study published in February found that the compounds bioaccumulate in earthworms, meaning that the worms bear higher levels of these pollutants than the surrounding soil does. The USGS researchers note that worms could become monitoring species to help us determine the relative pollution levels in soil, but state that the pollution in these worms have "unknown effects" for wildlife [read the story in Science News].

"Unknown" maybe in that particular study, but researchers in the UK published a disturbing study about a week later that provides some insight into what happens to the polluted worms: Birds eat them.

This particular study examined Eurpean Starlings in the wild, who like to forage in farm fields where fertilizer from sewage sludge has been applied, because the soil is rich in earthworms and other organisms who are busy feasting on the nutrients in the fertilizer. But they're also feasting on the contaminants in the fertilizer, and those contaminants have an impact on the foraging birds [read the story in the New York Times].

The contaminants in sewage sludge can contain hormone-mimicking compounds that act like estrogen in the birds' bodies (Following the thread here? Those compounds are the drugs and personal care products the USGS was examining in the earlier study).

The UK researchers found that the contaminants boosted development in the part of the male birds' brains that control their songs, making them sing longer and more complex songs. The researchers also found that female starlings preferred the long, complex songs of the contaminated male starlings.

The bad news is... they're contaminated. The same endocrine-disrupting compounds in the male starlings that made them attractive as mates make them unfit as fathers, because the compounds suppress the birds' immune systems and make them sick. While that might be good news for American birders who aren't fond of invasive starlings, it's rather bad news for birds everywhere who like to eat worms. While that fat earthworm might taste good and improve a male songbird's chances of attracting a pretty lady bird, it could actually be crippling his chances of producing a healthy brood of babies.

This might seem like just a scientific curiosity if the same kinds of effects hadn't also been noted in many other species, including fish, reptiles and amphibians. Sort of makes you think twice about that nice body spray in your bathroom cabinet that's supposed to make you more attractive to a mate, doesn't it?

The case against Ag-Mart marches forward

2008-03-11T15:56:00.004-04:00

The NC Department of Agriculture's case against giant tomato grower Ag-Mart took another step forward at today's NC Pesticide Board meeting. The Board ordered Ag-Mart to pay $21,000 in fines, and revoked the pesticide license of Jeffrey Oxley, the Ag-Mart employee named in the case.

The Board also decided that an Administrative Law Judge had been hasty in tossing out hundreds of charges of endangering workers by allowing them back into the freshly-sprayed fields before protective "re-entry intervals" had expired. The Pesticide Board wants to hear the evidence on those 201 charges, and will hold hearings this summer. In the mean time, it's very likely that the Department of Agriculture will be looking for Ag-Mart workers (or former workers) who can testify in the case.

It's about time the workers' stories are brought to bear in this case. It is amazing that in a case that came to investigators' attention because of the tragic injuries to workers' families, their stories have never been heard. But Ag-Mart's legal counsel will work hard to limit the introduction of "new evidence" -- like workers' statements -- into the record.

Whether the truth will ever come to light, and whether the state's case will withstand the lengthy appeals process that it seems likely to endure, is anybody's guess.