Crop duster sprays Delaware Department of Transportation workers with pesticide

Seven DelDOT maintenance workers were being evaluated at a health facility Wednesday after a crop duster, spraying a soy bean field with pesticides east of Bridgeville, contaminated the workers, state officials said.

A Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control's emergency response team was dispatched about 10:30 a.m. to the area of Coverdale Road with a decontamination unit to begin treating 13 workers exposed to the pesticide, said agency spokesman Michael Globetti.

Seaford firefighters responded and decontaminated five of the workers with a soap-and-water process, bagged their clothes and put the workers in Tyvek suits, said company spokesman Ronnie Marvel.

"They had been sprayed across the road from where they were working," he said.

The five workers that Seaford firefighters attended to were then taken to WorkPro Occupational Health on North Shipley Street in Seaford to be evaluated, Marvel said.

Sandy Roumillat, a DelDOT spokeswoman, said none of the employees showed or complained of symptoms, but seven DelDOT workers were taken to WorkPro for evalutation. Earlier, officials had said they were taken to Nanticoke Memorial Hospital in Seaford.

She said the pilot "continued to spray the area" after the substance made contact with the workers.

"They had taken refuge in the vehicle and since the crop duster continued to spray the area, the vehicle was considered contaminated," Roumillat said. "They were covered with a green liquid. We don't know what the liquid is at this point."

The plane is believed to have flown out of Laurel Airport.

Daniel Shortridge, spokesman for the state Department of Agriculture, preliminarily identified the combination of fungicides sprayed as Topsin, Ridomil Gold and Brigade Insecticide (bifenthrin).

He said information regarding the owner of the plane was part of the investigation and would not be immediately released.

The workers were doing tar-and-chip road paving work along Coverdale Road and Del. 404.

The workers, as well as Delaware Department of Transportation vehicles, were sprayed in the area of Booker T. Washington Street and Coverdale Road.

Each of the affected workers went through a decontamination process at the scene.

The Agriculture Department regulates pesticide usage and investigates reported aerial application incidents in Delaware, and Shortridge said the agency is involved in the Coverdale investigation with DNREC.

The agency typically investigates a "handful of aerial application incident reports" each year, but most investigations do not involve exposure to humans, Shortridge said.

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