Mattawa apple pickers file lawsuit for spraying incident


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MATTAWA, Wash. -- Three apple pickers have filed a class-action lawsuit against a Connell-based pilot for allegedly spraying dozens of workers in Mattawa last year with a toxic herbicide.

Filed in Franklin County Superior Court in Pasco, the lawsuit seeks compensation for injuries the workers say they suffered when Bernard Eskildsen, a pilot with B & R Aerial Crop Care Inc., sprayed them with Clethodim, a restricted-use herbicide. The lawsuit says Eskildsen was spraying an adjacent alfalfa field but also sprayed 15 feet above the apple pickers while they were eating lunch.

The pilot sprayed even while workers waved their arms hoping to get him to stop, according to a news release by the workers’ lawyer, Ernest Radillo of Columbia Legal Services in Wenatchee.

Eskildsen has not yet returned a phone call requesting comment.

Approximately 60 workers suffered exposure symptoms, including headaches, nausea and vomiting, blurred vision, dizziness, shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat and tightness in the chest, according to Radillo. Most were treated at local clinics.

The alleged incident occurred Sept. 10, 2008.



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