Agricultural company fined for not following instructions when applying fumigant

Thursday, October 23, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

A southwestern Ontario agricultural company was fined $40,000 plus a $10,000 victim surcharge after being convicted in Norfolk County court earlier this month of failing to apply a pesticide fumigant according to the product’s label instructions.

Sylvite Agri-Services Ltd. was convicted Oct. 9 after it had pleaded guilty to one count of applying a pesticide that didn’t follow the product’s label instructions, which is contrary to the Ontario Pesticides Act, says Kate Jordan, spokesperson for the Ontario Environment and Climate Change Ministry. The product was being applied to ginseng.

Jordan says the incident involving Sylvite incorrectly spraying the Pic Plus Fumigant, also called Chloropicrin, on June 5, 2012 in the Highways 6 and 24 area was one of three situations of spraying Pic Plus in 2012 in Norfolk County.

Other companies were involved in the other two incidents. They’ve also been charged under the Pesticides Act with applying the Pic Plus pesticide not in accordance with the label instructions. Those charges are still before the courts.

All three incidents happened around the same date but Jordan didn’t have the dates of the other two episodes.

In the incident involving Sylvite, Norfolk County emergency services responded to a reported chemical spill in the area around Highways 6 and 24 in Norfolk County. The matter was also reported to the environment ministry’s Spills Action Centre and it initiated an emergency response. “People were exposed to it (the pesticide) so the symptoms they reported were similar to being exposed to tear gas, such as tearing and a burning sensation of the eyes,” Jordan notes.

Emergency personnel closed the roads and “there was a voluntary evacuation of the area,” she says, adding she didn’t know how long the roads were closed, how many people were evacuated nor how long they had to stay out of their homes.

An investigation found the pesticide was sprayed adjacent to buildings inhabited by people. But the label states the product must not be sprayed adjacent to fields growing valuable crops or next to buildings inhabited by people or livestock.

Pesticides Act violations are uncommon, Jordan says. “Charges under the Environmental Protection Act could be considered more common.” The ministry enforces three Acts – pesticides, water resources and environmental protection.

Environmental lawyer Dianne Saxe, owner of the Saxe Law Office in Toronto, which specializes in Canadian environmental law, says in a May 14 news and analysis blog Ontario Pesticides Act prosecutions haven’t been as frequent since the environment and climate change ministry discontinued its specialized enforcement staff. But it’s hard to know how much the actual offences have decreased, she notes.

Jennifer Kalnins Temple, a lawyer with the Saxe firm, says they keep tabs “on cases that come out and if ones are interesting to us we blog about them.” She notes in her Aug. 27 blog there were seven pesticide violations so far this year and the violations mainly focused on the operator’s failure to carry a license or permit.

Kalnins Temple’s total number doesn’t include the Oct. 9 conviction of Sylvite. BF