Darryl Ivy was so disturbed by what he was seeing in Douglas County that he began to document the dangers on a daily basis and later provided the cache of photos and videos to Oregon Live.
One of the videos, shot from inside Ivy’s pickup truck, shows an Applebee Aviation helicopter spray a wide and heavy mist directly over his vehicle.
Even allowing herbicide mist to drift onto workers is against the law, to say nothing of spraying them directly. The law even requires work crews to avoid the area for two full days after the dispersal of some of the chemicals used in this job.
“Don't worry about it, it won't hurt you,” Ivy quoted one of the pilots saying.
He provided photos and videos of chemical trucks moving across a road that was freshly eroded, a driver dipping a chemical laced bucket into a stream, and workers being sprayed repeatedly.
After just a few days of exposure to the toxic chemicals, Ivy says he began to cough up blood and broke out in welts all over his skin. After 17 days, he’d had enough and walked off the job and went straight to the emergency room. He was diagnosed with acute chemical exposure and acute contact dermatitis.
The spray job sought to disperse herbicides to prevent weeds and allow space for Douglas fir trees to grow.
Ted Reiss of Seneca Jones Timber Co., which hired Applebee Aviation for the job, denied any wrongdoing when provided with three of the videos by Oregon Live.
Reiss stated he "did not observe anything during the applications in question that would substantiate Mr. Ivy's claims, but we take such accusations seriously and are fully cooperating" as the incidents are currently under investigation.
There has so far been no comment from either the owner of Applebee Aviation or the pilot, David McDaniel.
In 2014, an Applebee pilot, as well as the company as whole, were fined just $407 after allowing their poisons to drift into a front yard causing residents to become ill. Oregon Live pointed out that a driver would have received a stiffer penalty for speeding just 11 mph over the legal limit in the same neighborhood.
Ivy plans to file a workman’s compensation suit against the company.
