Month: April 2016

PBS did a great documentary on contaminated soil as a result of historical apple farming. It made me think about the new developments going up in Chelan. Especially a very expensive development called “The Lookout”. They’re selling some really expensive homes (upwards of a million dollars!) up there. They have great views, but how is the soil? The land used to be an orchard, and 1946 is the farthest back data I could find.

The Washington State department of ecology has found that old orchard sites prior to 1950 are ripe with soil issues. If there was an orchard there before 1950, chances are the soil is contaminated with Lead and Arsenic.

I found some great high res aerial photographs from 1946 at the USGS website. Sadly, it was indeed orchard in 1946, and sadly they used Lead Arsenate in those days to control Codling Moth.  Even worse, around 1950 the industry stopped using Lead Arsenate and switched to DDT. Now they use chlorpyrifos. It seems like the apple industry just switches from one toxic chemical to another! I can’t beleive they still use chlorpyrifos today. The EPA is about to ban it completely! Over 80,000 people contacted the EPA and urged them to ban it. WILL THE APPLE INDUSTRY EVER LEARN? DON’T USE TOXIC CHEMICALS TO GROW YOUR “FOOD”!!!!

I know folks who have just bought houses for upwards of $700,000 there. They might be interested to know the history of their land. Certainly, I would not buy here. I haven’t tested the soil, but the main reason being it is right next to current operating orchards and I HATE spray machines that blast chlorpyrifos pesticides, and other junk way up into the air.

 

 

 

 

 

Washington apple farms can sometimes be very depressing places. When you see how and where a lot of these farm laborers live, it can be pretty depressing. The orchard owners will often pack them in there as tight as possible, in conditions that most Americans would find deplorable. Some of them have public bathrooms that are shared among many units.

It’s a matter of opinion, but I see the Washington Apple industry using cheap labor. Sometimes these people are not US citizens, and do not speak English. One Apple grower, Broetje Orchards, was hit with a $2.25 million dollar fine for hiring illegal immigrants.

In 2007, the Department of Homeland Security estimated 260,000 illegal immigrants living in Washington State. This makes our state the 10th largest center for illegal immigration in the US. While not all agricultural laborers are illegal immigrants, the State decided that illegal immigration was a big enough problem that they did a study on how much it costs our state. It’s important to remember that many people are here legally, and they are working hard for the Apple Industry. It just doesn’t appear that they are being justly paid. See below for pictures of where some of them live.

Washington Apples are made with cheap labor and harsh pesticides. Is this a product you want to support? Not me.

Define “very toxic”. Ok, let’s do that. Let’s take a look at what the Chelan apple growers don’t want to talk about.

From about 1900 to 1950 the Manson area of Lake Chelan was an apple mecca. Sadly, the apple growers of this time widely used Lead Arsenate as a pesticide to control insect issues. It contaminated the soil badly. That was a long time ago, right? Wrong. Lead Arsenate–exactly what it sounds like: lead and arsenic, sticks around in the soil for decades.

The soil in the Manson area of Lake Chelan is so contaminated that the Washington State Department of Ecology initiated an in-depth soil contamination study for the area. What they found wasn’t exactly comforting. They took aerial maps from 1947 and traced out where they thought all the orchards were, and created a kind of Lead & Arsenic contamination map.

Wow.

You can see the full DOE report here: https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/publications/documents/0309048.pdf

Sheesh, look at that map! There’s my favorite vacation spotWapato Point, and Hyacinth Road, Roses Lake, Wapato Lake, and a whole lotta million dollar vacation homes!

The problem is so bad, they replaced the soil at the Manson Elemenary School to protect children’s health.

You know this problem is really bad when they have to scrape the playground soil from the local Manson Elementary School and replace it with fresh non-Arsenic and non-Lead tainted soil. In fact the Washington State Department of Ecology did its own official consultation report on the Manson Elementary soil contamination. There is a huge problem area-wide with Arsenic and Lead contamination on the school playground: http://www.doh.wa.gov/portals/1/Documents/Pubs/334-113.pdf

Apparently Manson isn’t the only school that is affected. Lake Chelan’s school district is also contaminated! Here is what the DOE recently had to say about the Lead Arsenateimpact, and the Toxic Cleanup site of the Lake Chelan school district’s recreational fields:

“Due to their chemical structure, lead and arsenic tend to bond with soil particles and often remain at or near ground surface level for decades, creating an exposure pathway through inhalation and/or ingestion.

Although lead and arsenic are naturally occurring elements, elevated concentrations have been proven to have a negative impact on human health. Young children are generally more susceptible than adults, which is why Ecology has focused remediation efforts on schools.”

 

The sad thing is, the apple growers are still using toxic chemicals to this day. They’re just using different ones like chlorpyrifos. They use giant spray machines to blast chlorpyrifos and other nasty things all over the trees. This, of course, can drift to neighbors and onto the general public. You can smell it in the air often times in Lake Chelan between April and August.