Family Believes it was Poisoned by Crop Spray

-
by Larry Powell
A west-central Manitoba man says his family got sick from exposure to chemicals from crop dusting planes this summer.

Lloyd & Donna Burghart. In the foreground, a sow with several piglets. PinP photo

Tens of thousands of acres in the Swan Valley, and around Roblin to the south, were sprayed with crop pesticides from spray planes in July and August, following a serious outbreak of Bertha armyworms, which destroy canola crops.

The Swan Valley area is in the far west region of Manitoba, near the Saskatchewan border.
Now, Lloyd and Donna Burghart of nearby Bowsman said they believe Lorsban (chlorpyrifos), an insecticide that was being sprayed on a canola crop across the road from them, has made them and their four children ill.

"I started shaking and a-sweatin' and I kind of was panicking and I didn't know … how severe the symptoms would be," Lloyd Burghart recalled.

"I didn't know if I was going to actually make it to the house."

The hog and cattle farmer described one August morning when he went into his yard to do chores. A stiff breeze came up and he was almost overcome by the strong fumes.

Burghart said he, Donna and their four children packed up and left the house for the next two days.

"When we ran out of the house, I could actually feel my chest tightening — and we were just from the house to the car getting all the kids out," Donna Burghart said.

"And then, [I] just didn't feel good for the next day or so. And our children, their eyes got infected and just red and bloodshot from it."

That week, all members of the family developed problems, including nausea, vomiting, bloodshot eyes, headaches and dizziness.

Ken Cameron of Ken Kane Aerial Spraying in Minnedosa, Man., said it's possible people on the ground could have been exposed to Lorsban, but he's not sure what can be done about it.

"Certain things can affect certain people differently, and I guess if the weather conditions are such that the fumes were blowing into his yard, that can affect him, and I'm not sure how you combat that," Cameron said.

An official of U.S.-based Dow AgroSciences, which makes Lorsban, told CBC News that it needs more evidence before any link can be proven between the Burghart family's ordeal and their product.

Read THIS story on the CBC website.

The Burgharts also worry about their animals following the spray exposure.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Conservative MP Absent From a Child Poverty Forum in Southwestern Manitoba.

-
Image
Are hungry kids a priority for the Harper government? by Larry Powell The forum (for the riding of Dauphin - Swan River - Neepawa) was sponsored by the Mission and Services Committee of the Neepawa United Church. It drew about 80 people to the church on Wednesday. But only four of the five candidates (see below) took part in the debate -  Ray  Piché  (Liberal),   Kate Storey (Green Party),  Inky Mark (Ind.) and  Laverne Lewycky (NDP) . The 5th candidate, the sitting Conservative MP for the area, Robert Sopuck (represented by the empty chair on the right), did not attend. His office manager in Neepawa, Christine Waddell, said he was in Inglis, a small community in the western part of the riding for the evening. She did not elaborate. But she did explain that a campaign worker was mistaken when he told forum organizers earlier that Mr. Sopuck would, in fact be there. Piché , the Liberal candidate, said the MP's absence showed “disrespect” for the rest of the candidates
Read more

A Candidate's Forum on Child Poverty Touches a Nerve in Manitoba.

-
Image
by Larry Powell Planet In Peril has sorted through some of the confusion surrounding the absence of Robert Sopuck (above), the Conservative Member of Parliament for Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa,  from a candidates' forum on child poverty in Neepawa on Wednesday.  About a month ago, his office told forum organizers that he would be attending.  But his office manager in Neepawa, Christine Waddell, later announced he could not attend due to "scheduling conflicts." She said the night of the event, he was in Inglis, a small town in the western part of his riding.  This morning, however, Sopuck himself told PinP he had actually been in Roblin, a larger town just north of Inglis. A newspaper ad indicated it was a "meet and greet" affair. But that was in the morning in Roblin, a town within a 3-hour drive of Neepawa. So it's still not clear what the event in Inglis was which took priority over a candidate's forum. The MP bristled at my suggestion th
Read more

The Bio of Larry Powell - publisher of this blog.

-
Image
Larry Powell Powell is a veteran, award-winning journalist based in Shoal Lake, Manitoba, Canada. He specialize in stories about agriculture and the environment. For decades, he worked for broadcast outlets in all four provinces in western Canada. This included a 5 years stint as Senior Editor for CBC Radio News in Saskatchewan. He is authorized to receive embargoed news releases on important, global stories, through the Science Media Centre of Canada, the Royal Society, Nature Research and the World Weather Attribution Network. He's a member of the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada, the Canadian Association of  Journalists and a past member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2020, Powell joined an international team of writers providing articles for the Swiss-based online journal, Focusing on Wildlife - celebrating  the biodiversity of Planet Earth. In June, 2014, he was a panelist at a world conference in          Winnipeg entitled Holding
Read more