Worker Protection Standard Newsletter - December 2019
Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection sent this bulletin at 12/10/2019 11:51 AM CST
Worker Protection Standard Newsletter
December 10, 2019
This is the third periodic newsletter to discuss changes to the federal Worker Protection Standard (WPS) that will take effect starting January, 2017. You can read past issues on our website.
EPA Proposes Revision to Application Exclusion Zone (AEZ) – Comments due January 30, 2020
On November 1, 2019, EPA proposed changes to the existing worker protection rules to simplify the Application Exclusion Zone requirements. Changes to the AEZ are the only changes EPA is currently planning to make to the worker protection standard.
Comments to EPA are due on or before January 30, 2020.
Background The 2015 worker protection standard rule added more requirements to protect agricultural workers and other persons in areas adjacent to pesticide applications, from pesticide exposure through drift. EPA established the application exclusion zone for outdoor production areas such a farms, forests or nurseries. Essentially, the AEZ is an area that extends outward from the application equipment. (Imagine a bubble that surrounds the application equipment and travels through the field with the equipment.) Farm owners must keep agricultural workers and other persons out of the AEZ during a pesticide application. The size of the AEZ ranges from zero to 100 feet, depending on the type of equipment, droplet size and distance from the planting medium. The AEZ is in addition to the existing “do not contact” provision. This means that pesticide applicators must not contact any agricultural worker or other person either on or off the farm, forest or nursery, through pesticide drift or overspray.
Since the AEZ requirements took effect however, state agencies responsible for WPS, have expressed concerns about the complexity and enforceability of the regulation.
The 2015 worker protection standard rule added more requirements to protect agricultural workers and other persons in areas adjacent to pesticide applications, from pesticide exposure through drift. EPA established the application exclusion zone for outdoor production areas such a farms, forests or nurseries. Essentially, the AEZ is an area that extends outward from the application equipment. (Imagine a bubble that surrounds the application equipment and travels through the field with the equipment.) Farm owners must keep agricultural workers and other persons out of the AEZ during a pesticide application. The size of the AEZ ranges from zero to 100 feet, depending on the type of equipment, droplet size and distance from the planting medium. The AEZ is in addition to the existing “do not contact” provision. This means that pesticide applicators must not contact any agricultural worker or other person either on or off the farm, forest or nursery, through pesticide drift or overspray.
Proposed Revision
The EPA proposes the following changes to the AEZ:
Maintain the application and spray height criteria for determining the size of the AEZ but eliminate spray quality, droplet size and volume median diameter as criteria.
Remove the requirement for pesticide handlers to suspend applications when persons are within the AEZ but are outside the boundaries of the agricultural establishment. (Again, handlers are still subject to the “do not contact” provision.)
Add exceptions to allow persons working on or in an easement to remain within the AEZ during the application so the handler does not have to suspend the application. An example would be utility workers who are not employed by the farm. (Handlers are still subject to the “do not contact” provision.)
Exempt owners of agricultural establishments and their immediate families from the AEZ requirements.
Update pesticide handler training to reflect the rule change.
Farmers, farm worker advocacy groups, pesticide applicators and other interested person are encouraged to provide comments to the federal EPA. Comments are due January 30, 2020. Go to https://www.regulations.gov. Reference the docket identification number EPA-HQ-OPP-2017-0543.
At this time, it is not known when these changes would take effect. The EPA has no plans at this time to make any other changes to the worker protection standard.
2019 Worker Protection Inspections
Wisconsin completed 50 worker protection inspections. Staff focused on non-food producing establishments, mainly greenhouses and plant nurseries. Also inspected were a few orchards, vegetable producers and cranberry operations.
The most common violations were not providing workers with pesticide safety training and having no worker protection program in place. Next were violations connected to central posting such as missing information on pesticide applications, no safety poster or safety data sheets for pesticides used on the operation.
Before agricultural workers can perform hand labor tasks (weeding, planting, watering, pruning, etc.) in areas where pesticides were applied in the past 30 days, those workers must receive full pesticide safety training, on an annual basis.
2020 Worker Protection Inspections
In 2020, our field investigators will focus on food-producing establishments such as cranberries, fresh vegetables, orchards, vineyards, berry farms and ginseng. Staff will also re-inspect operations that had significant violations in 2019.
New Training Materials Available
If you need worker protection training materials, you have many options available at the Pesticide Educational Resources Collaborative website at www.pesticideresources.org. There are training flipcharts available in seven languages and pesticide safety posters in eight languages. You can download or link to worker protection pesticide safety videos on YouTube. The training videos are for general WPS training for workers or handlers and commodity specific training videos such as greenhouse, orchard, vineyard, nursery, forestry or vegetable. Many of these videos are available in Spanish. A mega-thumb drive is now available for purchase. This thumb drive has all the WPS products in one place so you don’t need to rely on Internet access.
The PERC website adds new material often. Sign up for email notification on the site so you stay up to date.
Please note: we are in process of developing a Hmong language training flipchart.
Train the Trainer
A reminder that to train your workers or handlers, you must be a currently certified pesticide applicator or complete an EPA approved Train the Trainer course. There is an on-line course available through PERC. The course is self-paced, costs $35 and can be completed in a few hours.
