At first, when Stephanie Douglass saw the orange spots covering plants and trees all over the ten-acre organic farm she manages, she thought it might be some sort of fungus or bacterial infection. The spotting on the leaves was indiscriminate, attacking everything from tomatoes to peppers to cucumbers to basil to sunchokes to spinach. Within two weeks the tissue on some of most heavily affected plants necrotized and developed holes, giving their leaves the texture of Swiss cheese. Douglass figured at least 85 percent of the crops were affected.
And that made sense given what they’d observed earlier in their neighbors’ fields. Douglass says the previous Monday—Memorial Day—she noticed someone with a mobile pesticide applicator spraying in the fields to the north and west of the property. That Tuesday she was in the city, but her assistant says she saw someone in the field to the south spraying with a much larger rig. That’s not unusual, unless it’s a windy day. And it was windy.
The state inspector arrived a week later. Douglass says he voiced skepticism that the farm had suffered any pesticide spray drift: most of the incidents he was called out for turn out to be petty disputes between neighbors. “He said, ‘We’re probably not going to need to do any tests.’ And then as soon as he saw it, he starts walking to his car. I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’ He’s like, ‘I’m going to get my testing kit.’” The inspector took plant samples and left, and Douglass continued to wait.
A few months later Koehler announced Illinois’s participation in DriftWatch, an online registry where farmers, beekeepers, and vintners can plot their farms on a GIS map. The idea is that applicators will also register on DriftWatch and consult the map for any “sensitive targets” in the areas they would be spraying, and then proceed with an abundance of caution.
We were waiting for the inspector from MOSA to arrive. He had canceled a few previous appointments, and in the intervening weeks the afflicted plants had slowly begun to recover. New plant growth was unaffected by the spotting, but you could still see the damage on plants that were now stunted, weakened, and made more vulnerable to pests and disease. You could see the shredded leaves on hardy weeds like milk thistle and lamb’s-quarter, and the peach and plum trees near the southwestern corner of the farm near the road looked like they had been blasted by a flamethrower. Douglass was certain they’d sell no peaches this year.
The report says that the applicator—Duffy—sprayed the pesticide on a day when winds were blowing between 11.5 and 13.8 miles per hour, with gusts of up to 17 miles per hour. This is contrary to the instructions given on the pesticide’s label, which say to apply it only when the wind is blowing ten miles per hour or less, and blowing away from sensitive areas.
