Luis Medellin and his three little sisters, aged 5, 9 and 12, live in the middle of an orange grove in Lindsay, CA--a small farming town in the Central Valley. During the growing season, Luis and his sisters are awakened several times a week by the sickly smell of nighttime pesticide spraying. What follows is worse: searing headaches, nausea, vomiting.
The Medellin family’s story is not unique. From apple orchards in Washington to potato fields in Florida, drifting poisonous pesticides plague the people who live nearby--posing a particular risk to the young children of the nation's farm workers, many of whom live in industry housing at the field's edge.
This situation also often exists in schools in agricultural areas where it's not uncommon to have a school next to a field.
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