Syngenta pesticide fine lowered by EPA

Critics are blasting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for dramatically lowering a fine on agribusiness company Syngenta for violations of pesticide regulations.

Syngenta, under a settlement announced last week, will pay $150,000 for improperly using the pesticide chlorpyrifos at a seed corn field in Hawaii in 2016 and 2017. It will also spend at least $400,000 to train farmers, particularly small-scale growers, in pesticide use.

The EPA initially proposed a fine nearly nine times larger — or $4.9 million — for just one incident. This amount was proposed in December 2016, under the Obama administration.

Syngenta “got off with a ridiculously small fine,” said Paul Achitoff, managing attorney for mid-Pacific office of Earthjustice, an environmental law organization.

He said that the EPA often asks for the maximum penalty when it files a complaint and then lowers the amount for the fine that is ultimately imposed. But, in this case, he said “there’s such a huge difference.”

He also said the EPA and Syngenta were close to resolving the case for a larger amount in 2016, when President Barack Obama was in office. But he said Syngenta pulled back after the 2016 election, figuring they could pay less under the Trump administration.

“And now a year and a half later, we see that they’re absolutely right. They could get a much better deal under Trump,” Achitoff said.

Achitoff declined to say how he knew the EPA and Syngenta were close to reaching a deal before Trump’s election, saying he didn’t want to compromise his sources.

Syngenta did not answer when asked by email if the company was close to a deal in 2016 and then decided to wait, betting the fine would be lower with Trump in office.

The company said in a statement: “Agricultural worker safety is a top priority for Syngenta and safe use training has for many years been an integral part of the way the company does business worldwide.”

Dean Higuchi, a spokesman for the EPA in Honolulu, defended the settlement as the largest of its kind in the U.S., said the fine sends a strong message to potential violators and will also protect farmworkers by providing training.

First developed by Dow Chemical in the 1960s, chlorpyrifos is among the most widely used pesticides in the world and is commonly sprayed on citrus fruits, apples, cherries and other crops.