(Posted 11\/1\/07)<\/b><\/p>\n
Dibromochloropropane, a nasty pesticide that continues to lurk in Hawai`i\u2019s aquifers long after the pineapple fields have gone fallow, was used throughout Central America as well \u2013 and with consequences equally disastrous. In November, a Los Angeles jury found that Dole Food Co. had deliberately exposed six Nicaraguan banana workers to DBCP, rendering them sterile. A Nicaraguan court had found Dole culpable earlier, but lawyers for the plantiffs said the workers were unable to collect on their judgments in that country. The jury ordered Dole and Dow Chemical Co. to pay compensatory damages to the six totaling $2.8 million, with Dole bearing 80 percent of the responsibility; punitive damages may still come.<\/p>\n
According to the Los Angeles Times,<\/i> \u201cafter Dow Chemical Co. discontinued production of the pesticide in 1977, Dole insisted that Dow fill its contracts to supply the fruit company with the pesticide.\u201d DBCP had been ordered off the market in the United States as a result of concerns over its impacts to worker health and the environment, but out-of-country sales of existing stocks continued. Dole executives \u201crejected a recommendation that workers be advised about the sterility problems,\u201d the attorney for the workers said, with Dole officers saying such a recommendation was \u201cnot operationally feasible and need not be implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not about an accident,\u201d the lawyer, Duane Miller, told the court. \u201cThis is not about executives who were forced to make a decision on a few moments\u2019 notice. They had plenty of time to think about it, and to do the right thing, and they consistently put a different priority above human safety: production. Tons of bananas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Claims from six more workers were rejected. Meanwhile, some 4,000 more Central American workers have pending lawsuits in Los Angeles over exposure to DBCP, while elsewhere around the world, the lawsuits over DBCP exposure number in the tens of thousands.<\/p>\n
Dole general counsel C. Michael Carter said the six verdicts against Dole \u201care flat wrong and the result of junk science, raw emotional appeals and false testimony. These six men were not injured by DBCP or Dole\u2026 We are appealing to set the record straight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Environment Hawai`i<\/i> has published extensive articles on DBCP and other chemical contaminants in Hawai`i. See especially our articles in the May and June 1996 issues (available through our archives):<\/p>\n
May 1996, In Midst of Crisis, State Rises to Defense of Growers<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n June 1996, Pineapple’s Lasting Legacy: The Poisoned Wells of Maui<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Posted 11\/1\/07) Dibromochloropropane, a nasty pesticide that continues to lurk in Hawai`i’s aquifers long after the pineapple fields have gone fallow, was used throughout Central America as well – and with consequences equally disastrous. In November, a Los Angeles jury … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[351,341],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-7045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eh-xtra","category-pollution","tag-patricia-tummons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}