Pesticide Company Fined & Fruit Foragers

Spraying a bug killer… ends in a woman dying.

This is The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.


A pest management company has gotten --what some consider to be-- a slap on the wrist by the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2005… Fred and Florence Kolbeck hired Swanson Pest Management Company to fumigate the coulple’s home in Eugene, Oregon.

When the Kolbecks got back home, 76-year-old Florence collapsed and died a short time later. Her husband started having trouble breathing, called for help… and before it was all over six more people including emergency responders got sick.

The EPA fined the company for misapplication of pesticides… but the total fines amounted to four-thousand-550-dollars. Angela Kellner has been covering this story… Angela… why was the fine that amount… I mean a woman died.



A PEST MANAGEMENT COMPANY HAS RECEIVED WHAT SOME CONSIDER TO BE A SLAP ON THE WRIST BY THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY.


THE COMPANY WAS FINED BY THE E-P-A FOR THE ILLEGAL APPLICATION OF PESTICIDES. ANGELA KELLNER REPORTS.



76-YEAR-OLD FLORENCE KOLBECK DIED OF CARDIAC ARREST A FEW HOURS AFTER RETURNING HOME. SWANSON’S PEST MANAGEMENT HAD JUST FUMIGATED THE HOUSE.
HER HUSBAND WAS HOSPITALIZED WITH BREATHING PROBLEMS. SIX OTHERS WHO ENTERED THE HOME, INCLUDING EMERGENCY RESPONDERS, ALSO BECAME ILL.

THE E-P-A INVESTIGATED AND FINED THE COMPANY FOUR-THOUSAND, FIVE-HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS FOR MISUSING PESTICIDES. CHAD SCHULZE WITH THE E-P-A SAYS THAT IS THE MAXIMUM FINE ALLOWED UNDER THE LAW.
“new quote”
THE PERSON WHO APPLIED THE PESTICIDES HAD FAILED HIS LICENSING EXAM SEVEN TIMES. THE COMPANY DENIES LIABILITY AND DISAGREES WITH THE E-P-A’S DECISION. THE WOMAN’S HUSBAND SUED FOR 2-POINT-5 MILLION AND SETTLED OUT OF COURT FOR AN UNDISCLOSED AMOUNT. I’M ANGELA KELLNER REPORTING.

(((STING)))

This is The Environment Report.

With everybody looking for ways to save money, free food has never looked better. Devin Browne followed around a group of people who forage for fruit in the city. They look for fruit trees on private and public property to see what they can grab.



d: It’s perfectly legal here in Los Angeles to pick fruit from trees that are planted on private property as long as the fruit drops into a public space—like a sidewalk or an alley. There are rules, though, to proper, legal urban foraging and the group Fallen Fruit knows them well. Woody Sandberg is with the group.

w: You’re not allowed to reach across someone’s fence. You’re not allowed to reach into someone’s yard. You’re not allowed to crawl up people’s fences or lean ladders on their fences.

d: Most of the people in Fallen Fruit ride bikes, sometimes mopeds. A lot of them carry fruit pickers on their back like you might carry a bow and arrow. There’s something almost primal in the way they all look together, fanning out into the street like a band of hunter/gatherers in search of fresh food.

(fade up street ambi—birds and cars and a faint freeway)

w: We’re looking for trees or any thing that produces food that hangs over the fence so we can pick it and eat it.

d: Sandberg’s not actually picking fruit today—he’s just finding fruit trees and making maps of where they are.

w: Over here we got nopalitos and a lime and some nasturiums.

d: People sitting on their porches seem not to mind at all when the group stops outside their house—no one in Fallen Fruit can remember a time when a fruit tree owner yelled or screamed or tried to kick ‘em off the sidewalk.

(second or two of active tape, foragers giving directions to each other)

d: Which none of the foragers seem surprised by. Fallen Fruit is highly convinced of their mission. Part of this sense of legitimacy comes from the fact that the group originally conceived of itself in biblical terms—the name Fallen Fruit even comes from a verse in Leviticus: “You shall not pick your vineyard bare or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.”

Sandberg thinks people are going to be amazed when they learn how much free fruit is out there, just for the picking.

w: Cause when they look at a map and see it dotted everywhere with fruit trees hanging over the fence I think its going to blow people’s minds about how much food is out there. Because the current mindset is that food is in the grocery store.

d: It’s a mindset not even the most dedicated of fruit foragers can escape—after the mapping mission, Woody Sandberg left on his bike for the supermarket, because, he says, unfortunately chocolate soymilk doesn’t grow on trees.

For the Environment Report, I’m Devin Browne.