Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much. Mr. Hill? STATEMENT OF THOMAS HILL, DIRECTOR, TRI-COUNTY (MIGRANT) HEAD START OF FRESNO, MONTEREY, AND SAN BONITO COUNTIES, FRESNO, CA Mr. HILL. I run the Head Start Program in the three counties of Fresno, Monterey, and San Bonito. And we work directly with farmworker families. In our program alone, we service about 600 families per year. And during that time, we see all matters of problems that the families have. And especially-usually we do not see a lot of the problems the families have, except through the children. Because we serve the children, we are able to help the families. But all the things that Mr. Cuellar, and Mr. Ramirez, and Dr. Sandoval talked about, we see in Fresno County, and Monterey County, and elsewhere. I was involved with the McFarland cancer cause from when it first began. And the things that we saw there were outrageous. Some of the children with swelled heads, water in the brain, and things like that. It is awful. Birth defects, different kinds of things that chemicals-the way chemicals affect the system, the body. Our families are affected by the fact that they work in the fields. We try to educate our families to, when they come home from work, that they wash their clothes, wash themselves, before they handle the children. But, you know, it is very difficult to do that. You cannot be there every day, and you cannot be helping them all the time. And invariably, they will not-they will hold the children before they clean themselves. And that, you know, that hurts our children extremely. We have seen a lot of cases where you have to take the children to the hospital for either burns on their skin, blisters on the skin, different things that are caused by the chemicals. And we know it is caused by chemicals when we asked the doctor, you know, "What would cause this kind of an injury?" They say, "Well, I think it is chemical poisoning," or you know, chemical burn, or that kind of a thing. We have a center that is located directly across from a field. And every year, we have a battle with a farmer who wants to spray. This year, we won the battle. By that I mean that the farmer could not spray until we were able to close down our center. But he wanted to spray, and say, you know, "Can you close down your center for three or four days while I spray our field?" And I had to contact the Department of Agriculture. And they said he could not spray while the children were there, he could not spray. And, "We will call him and we will talk to him." So the Department of Agriculture helped us in that regard. And, you know, some other times, we have not called, and he would have probably sprayed, and the children would have been exposed to it. As I was driving up from Fresno just today, off Interstate Five, in the Valley we could see a cropduster spraying a field. And I thought it was kind of like an omen, because I am coming to this kind of thing. And if you could see the spraying. It was not even-it did not seem like he was landing, or three-fourths of the spray, or whatever it was, was not even landing on the crops or the field that he was spraying. It seemed to be drifting with the wind. And it is going to be drifting, you know, to people's homes, to the farmer's home, to other places where people are located at. And invariably, people are going to get sick because of that. Some of our State Legislators have said-especially the ones from the Valley-say that they do not believe that there is any poison on the crops and things like that. And I would like to challenge them to drink a cup of a chemical that they put into each one of these sprayers, drink a cup of that in front of the Capitol steps. And if they do not die, it is safe, you know. [Laughter.] But every time I see one of these cans that is labelled "toxic," toxic to me means poison. And you see the skull and crossbones. Whenever you teach children that that is danger, you know, that is death, that is poison, stay away from that. And all these cans have that skull and crossbones on each one of the cans. So that is poison. And to me, everybody is getting poisoned. And it is not restricted to the fields any more, and to the farmlands. In Fresno alone, they have closed 15 wells in the City of Fresno because of contamination. In the City of Clovis, a suburb of Fresno, they have closed six wells already. My child-my two children-have to go to elementary school drinking bottled water because they had to close a well that serviced that school, and the area there. And this has been about eight years that they had to drink bottled water. And some schools do not even get the bottled water. I recall one of the elementary schools, they were asking for, the parents were asking for bottled water for the children. And they had bottled water in the teachers' lounge, and in the principal's office, but they did not have any bottled water for the children. So those are the kinds of things that we see. Every time, if you hear Mr. Ramirez talking about the things that he is talking about, and Dr. Sandoval, you may be shocked, but that is happening every day. Here in the Valley, in California, and I am sure it is happening in every agricultural area in this country. And until we do something about it, some local communities, you know, stonewall it because they are afraid. You know, their tax base is built on agriculture and these other things. And I think, you know, you cannot blame them for being afraid. But it is going to have to come from the Federal Government, and you are going to have to help us out. Because we are going to have to have intervention from other sources. And if you have any questions, I am willing to answer whatever I can. [Prepared statement of Thomas Hill follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF THOMAS R. HILL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TRI-COUNTY MIGRANT HEAD START, FRESNO, CA Tons of Pesticides Reported Used California, 1987 Rankings In Numbers Among All Counties Causes Of Field Residue Poisoning Cases Chart Of Selected Acute & Delayed Health Effects Tri-County Migrant Head Start I. Narrative/Overview Since its inception in 1965, Head Start has provided education, social, medical, dental, nutrition and mental health services for over eleven million children and their families across the nation. Specifically, Head Start's efforts are designed and directed at breaking the "cycle of poverty" through family oriented, comprehensive, and community based programs, which focus upon "developmental goals" of children; employment and self-sufficiency goals for adults and support for parents in their work and child rearing roles. Further more, Head Start is based upon the premise that "all children" share certain needs and that children of "low-income families" in particular, can benefit from a "comprehensive developmental program" to meet those needs. In Fresno and Monterey Counties, Tri-County Migrant Head Start provides educational and support services specifically to "migrant children and families" at nine 99) different Head Start centers located in the rural areas; seven (7) of which are located in Fresno County and two (2) in Monterey County, and are as follows: Tri-County Migrant Head Start Centers Currently, approximately five-hundred "migrant" families are receiving Head Start educational and support services. However, as of this writing efforts are underway to expand the "scope of services" currently offered, from five-hundred to "onethousand migrant families" participating in Head Start. A recent Needs Assessment Survey conducted by Tri-County Migrant Head Start (1989) of 217 migrant farmworker households, indicated that average family unit size was 5.39 and yearly income was approximately $9,267 per family unit, well below standard poverty levels for a family averaging 5.39 members per unit. As "rural migrants", employment typically consists of agricultural manual types of labor usually "seasonal" in nature. Suffice it to say agriculture, is the San Joaquin Valleys number one source of income and as "historically has been the case", Hispanics usually comprise "all" or a "significant percentage of the workforce", required to harvest the agricultural crops. II. Statement of Problem According to research, approximately "375,000 tons of pesticide" are spread on America's farmland every year, however, less than one-tenth of one percent actually reaches a pest. The other 99.9 percent is contaminating our soil, our water, our food supply as well as "imperiling the health and safety" of "farmworkers and the general public". It is estimated that chronic poisoning accounts for an estimated 20,000 cancer cases annually from pesticide residues on food alone. Environmental damage is severe and long-lasting, affecting both plants and wildlife and the integrity of our soil which may prove to be irreversible. The USDA estimates that fifty million Americans drink from water sources that may be contaminated by "toxic agricultural chemicals". Each year in the U.S. approximately 550,000 tons of pesticides, including insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides are used. Approximately, 70% of that is used in "agriculture". Result 62% of the crops land in the country is treated. Research indicates that "less than a thousandth" (.1%) of pesticides applied "actually reaches a pest". Of the 750 million pounds of pesticides applied annually to crops the greatest portion is free to move into our water and food supplies, funding its way to our tissues, liver and nervous systems. As a result of "high chemical agriculture", the following outcomes have occurred: Acute poisoning incidents causing 200 deaths and roughly 3000 people hospitalized annually; As many as 20,000 cancer cases a year from chronic exposure to residues in food for the entire national population; - Shortened life expectancies for farmworkers due to occupational toxic exposure; - Sterility, birth defects, and other unquantified health problems resulting form chronic exposures to chemicals on the farm and in residual amounts in food and drinking water; and - A threat of contamination of the water supplies; The side effects of pesticides happen quickly; farmworkers ingest, absorb, or inhale "massive amounts" in accidents and because many poisonings are "not reported" to health authorities, by both farmers and farmworkers, and because "pesticide poisoning is easily misdiagnosed, "the incidence of pesticide poisoning is not know for sure. Estimates range form 45,000 to 300,000 people poisoned each year. However, one thing for certain is that one of the most important consequences of all of this "chronic exposure to agricultural chemical", is a large number of cancer cases. As of October 1989, the EPA considered 53 active ingredients in pesticides used on foods to be "tumor producing". However, the EPA has sufficient testing data on only 289 out of the 700 "actual ingredients" currently used in pesticides, but if further tests are conducted many of these "untested ingredients will be likely to be found harmful as well. |