WAIMEA — Ten students and one teacher from a P.E. class at Waimea Canyon Middle School spent yesterday morning in the emergency room at Kaua‘i Veterans Memorial Hospital after inhaling a noxious odor that caused dizziness, headache and nausea. While
WAIMEA — Ten students and one teacher from a P.E. class at Waimea Canyon Middle School spent yesterday morning in the emergency room at Kaua‘i Veterans Memorial Hospital after inhaling a noxious odor that caused dizziness, headache and nausea.
While school and county officials cited a harvested weed in a nearby field as the cause, some parents were concerned the illness was due to a recent pesticide application.
The Waimea Fire Department, HazMat and the Kaua‘i Police Department responded to the call of a strong odor at 9:36 a.m. The Department of Health, Department of Agriculture, Department of Education and Hawai‘i State Teachers Association later arrived on the scene to determine whether the school needed to be shut down.
Representatives from Syngenta were also present.
Bill Arakaki, complex area superintendent for the DOE, said all teams responded quickly.
“They did what they needed to do,” Arakaki said. “We’re making sure the students, faculty and staff are safe by following the protocol, the plan.”
Despite the trip to the hospital, Arakaki said the student body and faculty were not in danger at any time.
A letter sent home with students yesterday says the cause was yet to be determined, but after surveying the scene, several piles of weeds identified as stinkweed, or cleome gynandra, were spotted in a field west of the school. Authorities suspect the weeds could be the source of the odor.
Syngenta was asked to remove the weeds and dispose of them.
Doug Tiffany, Kaua‘i manager for Syngenta, said the big patch of weeds were on land leased by Syngenta for cultivation and unreachable by tilling machines. The weeds had been hand-pulled Wednesday and Thursday and left to dry.
“When the weeds are pulled, they release a noxious odor,” Tiffany said.
The plants were gathered yesterday by nightfall and taken to the landfill, Tiffany said.
But not all on campus believe the plants were the source of the odor.
Pastor Olaf Hoeckman, whose daughter attends the school, was on campus yesterday morning and said the smell resembled that of pesticides.
“A teacher asked me what I smelled,” Hoeckman said. “I said diazinon.”
According to the National Pesticide Telecommunications Network, diazinon is an insecticide that has a low to moderate toxicity to humans, depending on the product. Diazinon poisoning symptoms in humans include headache, nervousness, weakness and nausea. Residential use of diazinon was canceled in 2004, but it is still approved for agricultural uses.
Also concerned about the potential causes of yesterday’s incident, state Sen. Gary Hooser, D-Kaua‘i/Ni‘ihau, flew to Kaua‘i to meet with Miyazaki and Tiffany after hearing about it.
“I asked (Syngenta) to not spray until we get to the bottom of this,” Hooser said.
Tiffany said the company was not responsible for what happened.
Last Nov. 14, several students at Waimea Canyon complained of headaches, dizziness and nausea. Other students and staff went home sick, because of a noxious odor.
A report by the Department of Agriculture determined the smell was from stinkweed, not application of pesticide from Syngenta on Nov. 9. According to the report, Syngenta applied the weed killer legally.
Hooser recently responded to community concerns of pesticide use near the school by drafting a bill to establish a pesticide-free buffer zone around elementary schools.
“The bottom line is spraying poison near schools is inherently unhealthy,” Hooser said. “The bill is a starting point for discussion.”
The bill is intended regulate pesticide use in the proximity of schools in three ways.
• Backpack application of pesticides within a 1,500-foot radius of school property will be prohibited, with the exception of law enforcement or emergency state application.
• Application by air must not come within a half-mile radius.
• And any pesticide application within a five-mile radius must be reported to the Department of Education.
“I owe it to (parents and students) to protect the health and safety of the children,” he said. “This unhealthy activity shouldn’t be happening around schools and children.”
According to Hooser, the bill is likely to be scheduled for a hearing in the upcoming weeks.
“I don’t see this as something that threatens the agriculture industry,” Hooser said. “Health and safety comes first.”
• Rachel Gehrlein, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or rgehrlein@kauaipubco.com
