Officials Call Deaths on Farm Accidental

As family and friends mourned the deaths of two farm workers, investigators determined Thursday that the tragedy at Sespe Ranch just outside the city was an industrial accident, not the result of foul play.

Exactly how Oxnard residents Miguel Lopez, 43, and Palemon Rangel Yanez, 44, died is still a mystery to authorities, who are continuing to search for clues. The men’s bodies were found Wednesday afternoon floating in a tank of fertilizer they had been told to clean.

“There are still so many unknowns,” said Dean Fryer, a spokesman for Cal/OSHA, the state agency that oversees worker safety regulations.

Sheriff’s Department officials said Lopez and Yanez likely climbed into the 1,000-gallon tank of fertilizer Tuesday afternoon and were overcome by deadly fumes or drowned in the nearly full tank. But nobody understands why the men would voluntarily have gotten into the 3-foot-tall tank, which is 9 feet in diameter and has a 20-inch opening.

“This is, to me, a rather bizarre incident,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “With that style of tank and that small of an opening, I would have never thought of somebody going inside of it.”

It is one of the worst industrial accidents in Ventura County since 1994, when three oil workers were killed and four others injured at an oil production plant north of Ventura after inhaling fumes from a hydrogen sulfide gas leak.

Lopez and Yanez also may have inhaled hydrogen sulfide, a colorless toxic gas that can be absorbed so quickly into the bloodstream that it is sometimes fatal by the time a person smells it, speculated ranch manager Mike Mobley.

“It would be rather ironic and sad if it was the same cause,” said Ventura County Fire Battalion Chief Ranger Dorn, who worked on this case and the one in 1994. “It would show us the danger. But we really don’t know yet.”

Results from the autopsy and details about a cause of death will not be released until toxicology results are completed in a couple of months, but coroner’s officials said the bodies revealed no signs of trauma or foul play.

The men’s bodies were discovered after Lopez’s wife called to say he and Yanez did not return to their Oxnard homes Tuesday evening.

Mobley, who found them floating in the tank about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, said the men were instructed Tuesday afternoon to clean the tanks, which are in a lemon grove on a 150-acre farm near Fillmore. The ranch is at 3095 Telegraph Road and is owned by Prasad D. Mummaneni of MVP Properties in Oxnard.

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Cleaning the fertilizer tanks is normal procedure every couple of months, Mobley said. But the men were not supposed to get inside the tank for the cleanup job, he said. Rather, they were supposed to spray water from the outside. They were not wearing protective gear because it shouldn’t have been necessary, Mobley said.

“Unfortunately, we’re learning the hard way the precautions that need to be taken,” said Mobley, a former president of the farm bureau. “We’re going to change the manner in which we clean the tanks to make sure it is safe.”

Mobley, who has worked on citrus and avocado farms for nearly 30 years, said he plans to get the word out about the potential hazards when working around fertilizer tanks.

The tanks contained a “compost tea,” he added, made of compost, gypsum, potassium sulfate and molasses. The fertilizer is used to stimulate growth on the orange, lemon and avocado trees at the ranch.

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Laird, of the local farm bureau, said he has seen similar polyurethane tanks around the county, but that farmers used them to store other materials.

Yanez had worked for Mobley at Progressive Land Management, which manages about 600 acres of farms around Ventura County, for seven years and on the Sespe Ranch for the past year and a half. Mobley said Yanez had received formal training on cleaning the tanks. But Lopez, who had only been working for Mobley since May, had not. Both men were farm workers on the ranch and were responsible for picking, pruning, irrigating and controlling weeds and pests.

Fryer, of Cal/OSHA, said anybody responsible for cleaning fertilizer tanks should wear protective gear, such as gloves and clothing that guard against splashes. He also said workers responsible for cleaning such tanks should be trained in the proper procedures and dangers.

Cal/OSHA will probably finish its investigation within about three months, Fryer added. If officials find any safety code violations, they could issue fines ranging from a few hundred dollars to $70,000. The report, which will include safety recommendations, will also be turned over to the Ventura County district attorney’s office.

There have been other fatal industrial accidents in Ventura County this year. In January, one man was killed and two others injured in a pipe-testing explosion at Baker Oil Tools in Oxnard. And in April, an industrial worker from Santa Paula died from lack of oxygen after an accident involving a tractor.