Since the Worker Protection Standard became law in 1992, this federal program has moved through various phases of federal and state implementation, including (1) education/compliance assistance, (2) product-labeling inspection, and (3) employer-compliance inspections. During the summer of 2004, the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) inspected greenhouses, nurseries, seed-production operations, commercial spraying operations, vegetable farms, and sod farms specifically to assess compliance with the Worker Protection Standards (WPS). For each site, compliance was gauged against 115 specific responsibilities within 13 sec-tions as outlined in USEPA's The Worker Protection Standard for Agricultural Pesticides-How to Comply.

WPS compliance section averages are provided in Table 1. In addition, specific responsibilities are listed for which average violation rates were 5% or higher. Overall, the compliance rate was 98%. Individual site violation rates ranged from 0% to 12%, and 65% of the sites were in full compliance. However, you should note that I opted to remove one inspection site before calculating the numbers provided in this article. This particular inspection site had a 67% violation rate and was well above the violation range of the other sites. By removing this statistical outlier and focusing on those sites that are making an effort to comply, WPS employers and trainers can more easily discern which WPS responsibilities may need additional attention.

To prepare for future WPS inspections, please consult USEPA's The Worker Protection Standard for Agricultural Pesticides-How to Comply manual (revised July 1993). Note that Appendix B in the How to Comply manual includes a variety of useful compliance checklists, forms, and fact sheets. For a free copy of this manual, call Scott Frank or Jerry Kirbach with the Illinois Department of Agriculture at (217)785-2427. In addition, you can obtain several helpful WPS resources (for example, The WPS Resource Guide for Illinois Agricultural Employers, The WPS in Illinois, and Recordkeeping Manual for Private Applicators) from your local U of I Extension office or via www.pesticidesafety.uiuc.edu/facts/facts.html.

(Bruce Paulsrud)