The Kaua‘i director of the state’s teachers association requested by letter yesterday that the Department of Health conduct toxicology tests of students and teachers exposed to pesticides near Waimea Canyon School. In the letter, Tom Perry, Kaua‘i director for the
The Kaua‘i director of the state’s teachers association requested by letter yesterday that the Department of Health conduct toxicology tests of students and teachers exposed to pesticides near Waimea Canyon School.
In the letter, Tom Perry, Kaua‘i director for the Hawai‘i State Teachers Association, asks Chiyome Fukino, M.D. with the DOH, to gather scientific evidence to help determine the reason 61 students went to the school’s health clinic Jan. 25, 10 of whom were later taken to the hospital via ambulance.
Though the DOH did come to Waimea Canyon School Jan. 25, its representatives didn’t take any samples or conduct any tests, states the letter.
The school is adjacent to an agriculturally zoned spot that Syngenta Seeds leases; the company agreed to halt spraying last week after the HSTA agreed to drop its request for a temporary restraining order against the company’s pesticide spraying. Syngenta has not sprayed since the agreement and will only spray after it erects a 12-foot-high dust-fence along the vegetated buffer zone separating the field from the school.
Syngenta was allowed within the agreement to spray one last time before installing the buffer either Friday or Saturday but opted not to; that canceled visitation plans that had been set by Bill Arakaki, complex area superintendent for the DOE.
Though the DOH has yet to take samples following the Jan. 25 complaint, it did take samples following a Nov. 14, 2006, complaint filed by Waimea Canyon School teachers and found that Syngenta’s spraying of pesticides in an adjacent field didn’t produce an unsafe level of toxins.
The Nov. 14, 2006, complaint was filed by teachers after 60 students went to the health room with complaints of nausea, headache, stomach ache, dizziness and vomiting; 34 students went home that day, according to the DOH report.
Officials had concluded that a weed called cleome gynandra, also known as wild spider flower, was the reason for the children’s and teachers’ sicknesses.
The DOH also investigated following a Jan. 23, 2007 complaint; however, the findings of that report also demonstrated pesticide was applied according to its labeling instructions, according to its report.
But testing needs to continue, Perry’s letter states. Without it, the health of teachers and students will be at risk, he said.
“HSTA requests your help to provide scientific evidence as to what’s making the students and teachers sick,” Perry said in the letter.
“The Hawai‘i State Teachers Association feels it is imperative that the Department of Health come to Waimea Canyon School now while Syngenta is not spraying. This will enable the Department of Health to obtain the necessary baseline tests while the students and teachers are healthy and not suffering (from symptoms of illness).”
Neither Fukino nor the DOH public affairs office returned calls to The Garden Island.
