La Cooperative Agricole d’Embrun Limitee offers agricultural products and services including a Crops division that performs custom pesticide applications.
On or about June 7, 2019, the company was engaged by a farmer to perform a pesticide application to soybean fields on Colonial Road in Ottawa, Ontario. The pesticide mixture being applied to the soybean fields contained the herbicides Eragon LQ and IPCO Factor 540. The purpose of the pesticide application was to kill weeds prior to soybean plant emergence.
On the morning of June 7, 2019, the company began applying the pesticides via a spray boom. The windspeed during the pesticide application was not recorded but was described as “highly variable.”
The property adjacent to the soybean fields housed a greenhouse operation. On the morning of the June 7, 2019, the walls of the greenhouses were open. Operators working inside the greenhouse noticed that the wind was blowing towards the greenhouses from the soybean fields and could smell and taste pesticides in the air.
The following morning, greenhouse operators inspected their crops and found that the plants in the row of greenhouses nearest to the soybean field had been damaged with burn spots.
Ministry staff obtained vegetation samples from the greenhouse plants and five trees along the property line. Testing confirmed that glyphosate was present in all of the samples.
A ministry expert concluded that the application of the pesticides had drifted from the soybean fields and came into contact with sensitive downwind receptors, including the greenhouse plants and trees.
The ministry’s Environmental Investigations and Enforcement Branch investigated and laid charges which resulted in one conviction.
