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

Dear Editor, It was a day in late July. A spray plane swooped low, dumping its payload of Lorsban onto a canola field in the Swan Valley, to control an infestation of Bertha army worms. Nearby, the owner of a small acreage and her son were outside doing chores. The woman says her son got a dose of what she calls the “direct drift.” According to the woman, both became “instantly nauseous with burning eyes.” Her husband developed the same symptoms, even ‘though he didn’t arrive home ‘till about 20 minutes after the incident. They’re all are okay now, but she says she suffered from a low-grade headache for about three weeks afterward. (And she doesn’t normally get headaches.) She even noticed one of her miniature horses became unusually listless right after the incident. She says they now wonder whether they should even keep grazing the animals on the grass that has also been sprayed. No one can seem to help them with advice. The woman claims agricultural authorities were wa