By Valley Ag Voice Staff
The California Department of Pesticide Regulation has several rules ranging from worker safety to drift, but mistakes in application and management are not entirely avoidable. Enforcement actions for a violation include civil penalty or disciplinary action, which can refuse, revoke, or suspend a permit. In order to combat the frequency of certain violations, DPR shared the Top Ten violations for 2022 for growers to avoid.
NO. 1 — LABELING
The most common violation is the misuse of a pesticide against its registered labeling. DPR explained that “the label is the law,” meaning any inadvertent or blatant product misuse — such as not following application requirements or applying to a site or crop not listed on the label — will result in a violation.
NO. 2 — PPE
The second most common violation is improper personal protective equipment required for any application activity. This violation extends to the maintenance, inspection, and cleaning of PPE to meet regulations.
NO. 3 — CARE PLAN
The third violation is the lack of an emergency medical care plan in the case of an exposure. If an employer does not take an employee suspected of pesticide illness to a medical facility immediately or does not have the contact information of the facility posted at the worksite, they are in violation of the law.
NO. 4 — REGISTRATION
The fourth prominent violation is the failure to register for pesticide use in the county. California requires any person who advertises, solicits, or operates a pest control business to be registered annually with their County Agricultural Commissioner.
NO. 5 — RESPONSIBILITY
Not having the name of the person or company responsible on the service container or the signal word indicating the precautionary statement on the container is the fifth most common violation.
NO. 6 — SIGNAGE
Growers must display application-specific information before any fieldworkers can enter a treated field, along with the date and time the application began and ended. Failure to post ASI is the sixth most common violation.
NO. 7 — RECORDS
The seventh violation is the grower’s failure to maintain pesticide use records within the last two years for each pesticide at a central location accessible to the grower or Farm labor Contractor employees. Growers must display a copy of the Pesticide Safety Information Series A-9 leaflet and ensure pesticide use records are readily available.
NO. 8 — HANDLING
Improper handler training is the eighth most common violation. It most often entails that the employer did not maintain training records within the last two years or the training did not include new pesticides being handled.
NO. 9 — REPORTING
The ninth violation is failing to submit a pesticide use report to the county commissioner every month.
NO. 10 — FLUSH STATION
The tenth most common violation for 2022 was not having an emergency eye flush station at the mix and load site when protective eyewear is required by pesticide labeling. A decontamination site must be located at the mixing and loading site within one-fourth of a mile from other handles.
Avoiding these top ten pesticide violations will go a long way in providing a safe work site for employers and their employees while also minimizing the amount of DPR oversight on their facility.
