Less than a year after state inspectors found heptachlor epoxide in Moloka`i cucumbers, Lonnie Williams’ 40-acre farm has gone belly up after only four years of farming on the island. Concerned that his produce might be contaminated, last year he withheld his onions and green beans from sale so that they could be tested. While his crops turned out to be heptachlor-free, the results came too late. His crops had gone bad in the time it took for him to receive test results, he says.
Now, nearly a million dollars in debt, he’s announced his intention to sue the state Department of Agriculture and Moloka`i Ranch, his landlord. The DOA, he says, gave him inaccurate information, and the ranch did not disclose to him the presence of heptachlor in the soil he farmed. (Heptachlor, a now-banned pesticide used to control ants in pineapple fields, was used on Moloka`i extensively in the past.) Adding to Williams’ woes, the ranch has now given him notice he must be off the land by February 29.
Williams’ problems began last June 1, when the state Department of Health (DOH) recalled cucumbers grown on Larry Jefts’ Moloka`i farm after finding samples in which heptachlor epoxide levels exceeded federal standards. This concerned Williams. His own farm, on which he grew a variety of crops, is near the field where Jefts’ contaminated cucumbers were grown. When Williams called the DOH to find out if his crops might be contaminated, he was referred to the state Department of Agriculture’s (DOA) Pesticide Branch. (The DOH and DOA share duties in testing for pesticide residues in food.)
Shortly after Jefts’ recall, Williams says he spoke with an official at the Pesticide Branch. He specifically asked whether it was likely that his sweet onions and green beans would be contaminated with heptachlor. He was told that it was almost a certainty that the onions would be contaminated. Whether green beans would be affected was unknown, he says he was told.
After discussing the situation with his distributor, Fresh Foods Hawai`i, Williams asked Pesticide Branch manager Bob Boesch if the DOA would test his green beans and onions for heptachlor contamination. Williams said he would suspend sales and packing until the results were completed. Neither Williams nor Boesch recalls the exact date of their conversation, but both agree it was in early June.
Boesch told Williams the testing “would take a while,” Boesch says. Still, Williams called his office nearly every day inquiring about his tests. Boesch had asked the Department of Health’s residue monitoring program for help, since it can generate results in 24 hours. While they agreed to do the tests, “They had ‘geared down’ and didn’t pick up the sample” from Fresh Foods Hawai`i. “I personally went and pick it up on July 19 and delivered it to the lab the same day,” he says.
The shelf life of onions is six weeks; for beans, it’s two weeks. Williams says he expected the results one week after he and Boesch first discussed the matter. After the samples were finally delivered to the DOH, the turn-around was speedy. Still, the results did not arrive until July 19.
The interval between Williams’ request and the release of test results was “long enough for me to lose 250 sacks of onions at Fresh Foods Hawai`i, 1,000 sacks packed, destined for California, 1,000 sacks left in the field ready for harvest, and three additional blocks that would have yielded 1,000 sacks each,” Williams says. Each sack holds 50 pounds of produce. Had the DOA done its homework, and had Moloka`i Ranch disclosed the presence of heptachlor on the land he leases and farms, he would not be in his current situation, Williams says. Right now, he adds, it has cost him $62,000 to get 22 acres ready for onions and beans, but he can’t plant anything since he has no money for seed or water. Because he has no water, and no operating capital, his other crops — including cabbage, okra, eggplant, turnips, collard greens, and squash — are failing, as well.
Who’s the Expert?
On July 13, 1999, while Williams’ waited for test results, James Nakatani, head of the state Department of Agriculture, sent a letter to Moloka`i farmers, asking them to participate in an investigation of heptachlor residues.
“Because heptachlor was heavily used on former pineapple lands, the Department of Agriculture is asking all farmers in Ho`olehua and Maunaloa on Molokai to participate in a sampling survey to test heptachlor epoxide residues in crops grown in these areas. Commodities of greater concern include root crops (daikon, sweet potato, onion), and winter and summer squash (pumpkin, zucchini). In addition, the Department is advising farmers against planting food crops near structures that may have been treated with any termiticides….
“It’s in the best interest of Hawai`i’s farmers to maintain consumer confidence and the safety of our food supply. Another heptachlor scare will seriously affect consumer confidence and the safety of our vegetables grown here. The intent of this survey is to provide information on heptachlor epoxide residues to reaffirm the safety of vegetables produced on Molokai.”
This letter, Williams feels, was misleading. Since his crop loss, he has read up on the subject of heptachlor contamination and now believes that the state was giving Moloka`i farmers incorrect information.
An online fact sheet from the EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water states that heptachlor and heptachlor epoxide adsorb strongly to soil.
“Heptachlor epoxide will adsorb strongly to suspended and bottom sediment when released to water,” it states. Another EPA fact sheet on the chemical and physical properties of heptachlor epoxide states that the chemical is insoluble in water.
“With that in mind, most plants have to have nutrients in solution. If heptachlor doesn’t go in solution, it won’t go into most plantsÉOut of what [the DOA listed as crops of concern], the only crop to be concerned with is winter and summer squash,” Williams told Environment Hawai`I, adding that, “with the right root structure and conditions,” daikon might pick up heptachlor epoxide. Sweet potatoes, turnips, and other root crops will not pick it up, he says.
Williams concedes that the state agencies in charge of testing are understaffed, “There’s no doubt about it,” he says. “But all they had to do was their homework. It’s on the internet for chrissakeÉ They should not have got in a panic. They should have got their facts straight before. George Mokuau, the biggest sweet potato grower on Molokai, nearly had a heart attack when he read [the DOA letter]. He’s got 150 acres of sweet potato.”
Playing it Safe
While Williams believes the state wronged him by telling him onions may pick up heptachlor epoxide, the DOA did not act out of ignorance. Like Williams, the agency was playing it safe, given the information it had.
According to Boesch, Williams is wrong in thinking that cucurbits (squash, melons, cucumbers, and gourds) and grasses are the only plants that pick up heptachlor epoxide. Boesch refers to article from the Bulletin of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station titled, “Pesticide Residues in Produce Sold in Connecticut 1996,” by Harry Pylypiw, Jr. and others. The authors found small amounts of chlordane, another now-banned pesticide used once to control termites, and/or heptachlor epoxide in beets grown on an organic farm.
“From our data, it appears that certain vine and root crops selectively extract POC [persistent organic chemicals, including heptachlor and chlordane] pesticides from farm land, while other crops that are grown under identical conditions do not,” the authors write.
As early as 1970, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization issued a report indicating that carrots, maize, and pineapple can pick up heptachlor epoxide. Potatoes as well have been found to take up heptachlor, as reported by Wayland J. Hayes, professor of biochemistry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in his 1975 book Toxicology of Pesticides.
After losing his crops, Williams sought a loan from the DOA to help him continue farming. However. because of tax liens resulting from the crop loss, the DOA could not grant him the help he sought. Williams then asked Nakatani for other possible sources of assistance. In his reply, on December 3, 1999, Nakatani wrote:
“I hope the attached information is useful to you. [Nakatani had attached two photocopied pages of a Honolulu Advertiser article listing possible sources of loans for small businesses.] However, there is another issue that I would like to clarify pertaining to heptachlor. It appears that you may not fully understand the role of the Department of Agriculture in regard to the heptachlor issue. You seem to be under the impression that you were ordered not to grow certain crops. This was not the case as growers were advised that cucumbers were recalled from lands where heptachlor may have been applied and that DOA was available for testing of crops as a service. You were one of the farmers that had taken advantage of this service. These tests verified that your squash were at risk to heptachlor residues. However, your onions and beans were not affected as indicated by tests conducted on July 19, 1999 by the [DOH].
“DOA’s role was to provide information to assist you in your farm management decisions. How this information is used is your discretion. DOA did not make any farm management decisions on what you should or should not grow and market. I trust that this clarifies the role of DOA with respect to the heptachlor residue issue.”
Virtue Punished
Not all produce farmers were as conscientious as Williams. As Environment Hawai`i reported in December, some farmers continued to grow cucumbers on heptachlor-contaminated land even after being advised not to. Commenting on this in a November 11, 1999 letter to The Honolulu Advertiser, one Daniel Wells wrote, “It is a total disregard for our health that these farms continue to grow contaminated produce.”
Wells’ concern is nothing new, yet over the years since heptachlor contamination has been recognized as a problem, little has been done to identify, let alone clean contaminated agricultural lands. As early as August 12, 1991, Rick Scudder, project director of the Hawai`i Heptachlor Research and Education Foundation, wrote a letter to then-DOH director John Lewin asking what the state had done to address the possibility of heptachlor contamination in diversified crops.
Scudder mentioned an incident in 1983 in which heptachlor was found in game birds on Lana`i, and the state issued a health advisory regarding their consumption.
“Now, with the phase-out of pineapple, on Lana`i, other crops are being grown. Has consideration been given to soil residues of heptachlor, and possibly other pesticides? Uptake by different crops grown in these fields, or by the wildlife that forage there, may be consumed at the new hotel or by residents and should be checked for residues, if not done already,” Scudder wrote.
Lewin replied on September 10, 1991. His letter states that the DOH and the DOA had been testing for heptachlor, heptachlor epoxide, and 33 other pesticides in alfalfa grown on former Lana`i pineapple land for many months. No heptachlor was detected in the alfalfa sampled, possibly because the soil was not deliberately treated with large amounts of heptachlor, Lewin wrote.
Exactly which crops will pick up heptachlor epoxide is unclear, since, as Hayes writes, “Not only do various root crops differing their propensity for absorbing pesticides from the soil, but this difference may extend to strains of the same vegetables.”
Unknown Risks
So far, the state has not pursued research to determine what should and should not be grown on contaminated lands. This frustrates Williams.
“There has not been a directive from the DOA other than this stupid [July 13, 1999] letter. There has been nothing that says, ‘Hey, farmers, these are the items that you need to be concerned with. Take your chances. Cucumbers, squash, and gourds may be affected. Don’t worry about lettuce, tomatoes, okra and collards,’ ” Williams complains.
“If it’s not a problem, leave it alone. If it is, quit beating around the bush and get it out of the ground,” Williams says.
In researching what picks heptachlor epoxide up, Williams has stumbled upon possible ways to reduce levels in soil. As a result, he and Alton Arakaki, the University of Hawai`i extension agent for Moloka`i, have worked on developing a demonstration project to extract heptachlor and heptachlor epoxide from soils of abandoned pineapple fields on Moloka`i. The object of the project is to draw heptachlor out of the ground using plants susceptible to contamination. On Moloka`i, more than 17,000 acres of land were used for pineapple cultivation and may have been doused with heptachlor.
In the process of testing crops, it was found that the roots and stems of certain squashes and pumpkins picked up enormously high levels of heptachlor epoxide. Results of the 1999 Moloka`i sampling shows that the roots of green summer squash (Filipino squash) has 387 parts per billion of heptachlor epoxide, and the stem had 185 ppb. The fruit of the squash had only 15 ppb heptachlor epoxide.
Williams and Arakaki have proposed to plant eight to ten varieties of cucurbits and see which ones best pull heptachlor epoxide from the soil. After a prime candidate is identified, they propose to repeat plantings in the same plots, then look at pre- and post-planting soil samples. The biomass from these experiments would be composted; samples of the compost would then be tested to determine residue levels.
“We’ll see how many plantings are needed to bring the heptachlor to an acceptable level…. One planting may be $500 an acre” plus the cost of treating the crop to remove the contaminants, Williams says. His “horseback guess” of the cost of cleaning an acre is about $1,000.
Last December, Williams, Arakaki and pesticide chemist Qingxiao Li, with the University of Hawai`i’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, sent a proposal for this type of heptachlor soil treatment to the Rural Economic Transition Assistance — Hawai`i (RETAH), a federally funded program that gives grants to promising agriculture projects. The proposal was denied.
While the DOA also funds agricultural research projects, there is little chance it will support Williams’ project. With regard to heptachlor epoxide, the DOA is simply seeking to identify contaminated lands.
“Heptachlor is probably used in several magnitudes higher in urban areas. If it is a cleanup that’s necessary, you’d have to clean up all of urban O`ahu,” Boesch says. In addition, there may be little demand for a clean-up. Boesch says Williams was the only Molokai farmer to hold back his crop when Jefts’ contaminated cucumbers were found.
— Teresa Dawson
Volume 10, Number 8 February 2000