Tainted Melon Crop Plowed Under

An 87-acre watermelon field south of Bakersfield, with a crop valued at $80,000, was plowed under this week after state agriculture inspectors found traces of the pesticide Orthene on the melons, Kern County Agriculture Commissioner Robert A. Edwards said.

Agriculture officials said none of the tainted melons made it to market.

The incident comes one year after the Independence Day poisonings of more than 1,000 people who ate Kern County melons contaminated with the highly toxic pesticide aldicarb. Civil suits filed against three Kern County growers by the state Agriculture Department in that incident allege that the growers illegally applied the pesticide to their melon fields. The suits are awaiting trial.

The Orthene-tainted melons were discovered in the field late last week and were plowed under on Wednesday, according to Edwards. Orthene, a relatively mild organophospate insecticide used legally on other fruit and vegetable crops, has not yet been registered for use on watermelons, but such registration is pending, he said.

Edwards refused to identify the grower, but he said the farmer voluntarily destroyed the melons. “He didn’t want to risk another watermelon scare,” Edwards said.

The Orthene drifted onto the melon crop as nearby bean fields were being sprayed legally with the pesticide, Edwards said.

State Agriculture Department investigators are trying to pinpoint exactly how and why the Orthene drifted into the fields, according to Rex Magee, the department’s associate director. “We’re not sure yet why the whole field was contaminated, but we know that the fields were sampled before the harvest and none of the melons went to market.”

State law prohibits the application of pesticide when weather conditions or other factors could cause it to drift onto adjacent crops, Magee said. Magee also refused to name the farmer, saying, “We’re still investigating the case.”

Last summer’s aldicarb contamination resulted in the “largest food-borne pesticide outbreak in North American history,” according to Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, director of the California Health Services Department. There were 692 poisonings reported in California and another 483 elsewhere in the Western United States and in Canada, according to health department officials.