Now the HSE has tried to answer questions raised by PAN UK about these delays by setting out how the Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL), Sheffield, analyses samples during pesticide incident investigations.
Samples of vegetation or soil are supplied by the Health and Safety Executive Field Operations Directorate (FOD) inspectors to the Sheffield laboratory. No HSE survey has been done of the inspectors’ response time to incidents, and decisions about sampling are taken during investigations. Out of 120 samples taken in 1998, about half were from spray drift incidents related to the Food and Environment Protection Act (FEPA).
HSL – which is contracted to HSE on the sampling work – suggests that the other half of the samples were part of the FOD agricultural inspectors’ survey of bulk products under the Control of Pesticide Regulations. This would include checking that containers were approved and not illegally imported, as well as ensuring there were no unacceptable impurities in the products.
From the remaining 50-odd samples, HSL usually analyse groups of five, which means they examined about ten pesticide incidents during 1998. HSL figures are estimates because about two years ago, agricultural inspectors stopped publishing case-by-case records of incidents they investigated, which included sampling details. Case summaries are still produced, but HSL would have to do more research to find sampling details.
Taking the example of a spray drift incident on an arable field next to a housing estate, HSL would take about five samples of vegetation from two categories: the field itself (the treated zone), and a garden on the estate (untreated zone). A sample would be taken right away from the site, which could be material from one of the inspectors’ gardens or some organic vegetables (the blank); and a representative sample of vegetables, for example, which HSL scientists treat with a chemical from the incident to see how it behaves under analysis and to ensure their procedures are right (the control).
Last year, even fewer samples were supplied by FOD: according to the Pesticide Incident Appraisal Panel (PIAP) report for 1998/99, only six prosecutions were taken against pesticide-users by the HSE. PIAP only looks at cases where ill health is alleged.
The HSL says that samples are only taken when the decision to pursue legal action has already been taken by the FOD agricultural inspector. Cost is evidently a decisive factor in sampling policy: a set of vegetation samples and controls for FEPA enforcement taken according to the protocol agreed between FOD and HSL averages £2,000, or about £300 per sample.
[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 47, March 2000, page 16]