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Parents meet to discuss pesticide problem at local athletic complex

By BEN NELMS
bnelms@TheCitizenNews.com

What some Peachtree City parents said was the exposure of several children to pesticides on city athletic fields was reason enough to call a meeting of all interested parties to discuss problems and possible solutions. Nearly three dozen parents and others at the Aquatic Center Aug. 25 received an overview of parents’ concerns, heard reports of pesticide exposure and comments from local and state elected officials. By meeting’s end, parents said they would continue to work with the city to resolve the problem and work with each other to draft a document to forward to the General Assembly for consideration.

Present at the meeting was Peachtree City council member Steve Rapson who, after listening to reports from parents, acknowledged the ongoing concern from both parents attending the meeting and those who did not. Rapson said he would take up the issues with city council.

“A lot of this has to do with the cost, the implementation and the time frame,” said Rapson. “All three of those are critical. We could have the best fields in the world but if the parents and the kids can’t get on them then it really wouldn’t make a difference.”

Parent Kevin Pfeifer opened the meeting, explaining the situation with pesticide exposure and presenting a brief history of that exposure. The initial exposure occurred in fall 2003 when a blue/green dye was found on player’s socks and shoes. Parents inquiries revealed that the pesticide applicator had failed to provide the required 24-hour notice, he said. The city noted the mistake and said it would not happen again, Pfeifer continued. But it did happen again, one year later in fall 2004. A number of children manifested what could be mistaken for flu-like symptoms. One soccer player, Kelsey Langworthy, suffered a much more severe allergic reaction.

Pfeifer said the city was responsive, setting aside one of the fields as a test field and was in process of treating the area organically. Pfeifer implored parents to be vigilant in gaining and maintaining an increasing awareness of the problems associated with pesticide exposure and calling for the continued exploration of alternative methods of treating the city’s athletic fields.

Nurse and mother of two children, Corinne Risch opened displayed a shirt worn by a young soccer player at the Baseball/Soccer Complex in fall 2004. The shirt was discolored with a blue/green tint. Though it is more likely to occur with younger children, soccer brings with it, she said, the reality that players will end up on the ground.

“If the child is running and rolling and sweaty and hot they are also going to increase their exposure and the rate of absorption to whatever chemical is on the grass,” Risch said, as she displayed the shirt. “This shows you where the children contact the pesticide. Not just on the soles of their feet. These kids had it on their hot, sweaty faces, on their arms and their legs. This shirt is permanently dyed. The dye is a carrier of the pesticide. It was lucky for us because we were able to identify the exposure because of the dye.”

Risch gave an explanation of exposure characteristics in young children, citing the reduced ability to break down various toxins that enter the body.

“The toxins sit in their body, continually poisoning them over and over again,” she said. “So they are at greater risk because of age and the areas of the body where exposure occurs and they have a decreased ability to detoxify and that equals disease.”

Parents were given a primer on research related to pesticide exposure showing that chronic exposure includes worsening of asthma, headaches, dizziness and flu-like symptoms. Other exposure levels can be much worse. Risch said pesticide exposure can lead to serious, even fatal, allergic reactions and even cancer. The specific cancers associated with pesticide exposure are leukemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma and brain tumors, she said. Though not implicating pesticide at the soccer fields, Risch said non-Hodgkins lymphoma is present in two children today in the city’s soccer population.

“The list of symptoms pretty much looks like it could be anything, like pollen in the air, like something they picked up at school, pretty much anything. When they come home sick you don’t make the connection. I didn’t make the connection,” she said. “The night that Kelsey (Langworthy) went to the hospital our son was sick. He had a headache, a sore throat and malaise.”

Kelsey Langworthy’s father, Bill shared his daughter’s severe allergic reaction after being present on city’s soccer fields in fall 2004. He recalled the helplessness and despair of watching a child unable to breath, a 14 year-old athlete who had never experienced any breathing problems. Since that time and as recently as August, Kelsey has had three other episodes. On each occasion, said Langworthy, the only common denominator was her presence on the fields. And like Pfeifer and Risch, Langworthy called for parents to be aware and stay aware of the things, however apparently innocuous, that can cause illness, even life-threatening illness, in children.

“That’s one of the reasons I’m helping out with this cause now, because I don’t want another parent to go through what we did,” Langworthy said in an earlier statement. “To watch her be taken away in an ambulance is an unbelievably ill feeling.”

Parents heard a report from companies hired to conduct the the field test at the Baseball/Soccer Complex. City Recreation chief Randy Gaddo responded to questions on the potential effectiveness and the cost of using an organic and botanical alternative to chemical pesticide. He maintained that the city will continue with its research effort and the test process to gain the most objective results, acknowledging that a thorough testing process might take time. The time and cost of determining a successful alternative to chemical pesticides, he said, is outweighed by the safety factor.

“My issue is not so much the cost. The issue is how do we fix this problem,” he said.

Also present at the meeting was District 72 Rep. Dan Lakly, who said he attended the meeting because he was invited by Risch. Her call reminded him of the article he read about Kelsey Langworthy’s exposure to pesticide at the soccer field, he said.

“The first thing that came to mind is, why would we not take some immediate action. If people got sick from it, which apparently there were at least two people that got sick from it and one at least two times, why wouldn’t we just shut down the fertilization program and have it examined?” Lakly asked emphatically. “We have the CDC here in Atlanta don’t we? Did the shirt get analyzed? Did the shoes get analyzed? Did the socks get analyzed? Who has done anything along those lines? I’m all for working with the city and getting citizen input, but if you’ve got kids at risk you’ve got to take some action. The city has the ultimate responsibility.”

In the end, Risch said she and other parents will continue to work with Peachtree City officials to resolve the issue. The group intends to draft a document for hopeful presentation in the General Assembly that would keep pesticides off athletic fields.