Hawaii Ag Dept Heavily Redacts Public Documents at Syngentas Request By Sophie Cocke 12/23/2013 Nick Grube/ Civil Beat Hawaii’s Department of Agriculture says it will cost $1,800 to review public records related to its investigation into whether Syngentas pesticide spraying on Kauai sickened students and faculty at Waimea Canyon Middle School several times between 2006 and 2008. Civil Beat requested the case files in October to get more details about the four-year investigation. Some Kauai residents have worried for years that pesticides sprayed by biotech companies on Kauais leeward side might pose a health hazard. The Waimea Canyon Middle School case provides a window into those concerns and into the responsiveness of state regulatory agencies that have been accused of lax oversight of pesticide use. On several occasions, students were sent to the hospital when some grew dizzy, vomited and had trouble breathing, according to news reports at the time that cited people saying they smelled a pungent odor before coming down with those symptoms. Some teachers and parents came to suspect that the cause was pesticide spraying on a nearby field owned by the biotech company. Ultimately, the investigation was inconclusive, with agricultural officials saying that the source of the problem could have been pesticides, stinkweed or even a wave of hysteria among students. The Cost of Public Records The high cost of the records highlights flaws in Hawaii’s public records law that allow the state to effectively make public records inaccessible. Civil Beat’s recent series on Hawaii’s public records law reported extensively on how such fees were being used to keep government information secret and undermine administrative transparency. In many cases Civil Beat looked into, government agencies asked the public for hundreds or thousands of dollars for copying fees for large printed files, the time it took to compile documents and for the cost of redacting sensitive information. Civil Beat is being billed for the time it took a Department of Agriculture employee to redact information at the request of Syngenta, a multi-billion dollar biotech company with headquarters in Switzerland. Syngenta argues that disclosing the information could harm its competitive business interests. The Department of Agriculture said that a Honolulu law firm previously filed a local records request and ultimately received a full unedited version of the files dealing with the investigation. But Syngenta later complained to the department that some of the information should be confidential, according to state officials. The department then redacted more than 1,000 pieces of information from the 500-plus pages of information requested by Civil Beat, according to Thomas Matsuda, the states pesticides program manager. He said that it took environmental health specialist Avis Onaga more than two weeks — or 93 hours of work — to blacken out the information. Civil Beat is being asked to pay $20 per hour for Onagas work, which was done under the states public records law. The names and personal information of Syngenta employees in the document have, not surprisingly, been redacted, but other information that has been blotted out is of clear public interest. It includes the location of fields where pesticides were sprayed, the rate of pesticide application and the chemicals dilution rates, photographs of fields that could indicate the distance from the school and any information related to pesticides that were mixed together, according to Matsuda. Civil Beat is still considering whether to pay the $1,800 cost. “I saw one page with about 15 different blackouts and another form had no blackouts,” said Matsuda when asked for a sense of how much information is ultimately being withheld. Syngenta claims the redacted materials contain confidential business information that, if publicly disclosed, could undermine the companys ability to compete in the marketplace. The biotech giant — along with others that operate on Kauai — has been under fire from Kauai County Council members in recent months over their unwillingness to disclose details about pesticide use. Kauai recently passed a hotly debated bill that requires biotech companies to disclose what they are spraying, where and in what quantities. A similar bill was introduced on Maui earlier this month. Matsuda said that the agriculture department pushed back against some of Syngenta’s requests for redactions — in particular, the location of fields. But ultimately, the Office of Information Practices, which oversees Hawaii’s public records law, said that Syngenta should be able to redact the information, he said. OIP Director Cheryl Park specified that her office did not instruct departments on what specific information should or should not be redacted from documents. In this case, she said the department provided informal advice on the law. And Jennfier Brooks, an OIP attorney who was consulted on the matter, said that it is ultimately up to the Department of Agriculture, not Syngenta, to decide what is or is not confidential business information. By law, all government records must be made available to the public for review, with certain exceptions. If disclosing information will frustrate a government function, then it can be redacted. Confidential business information falls under this frustration exemption, said Brooks. The law doesnt specify what constitutes confidential business information, but OIP guidance suggests that it can include trade secrets or confidential commercial and financial information where there is a likelihood of substantial competitive harm, for example, where disclosure would allow competitors to selectively under-price, estimate profit margins, or determine market and supply weaknesses. Syngenta spokesman Paul Minehart said that Syngenta used an outside firm that specializes in issues related to confidential business information in requesting the redactions. He said he didnt want to comment on how the information could cause competitive harm without getting more information from the company. Matsuda said that the agriculture department was caught between releasing the files, in accordance with the states public records law, and running the risk of being sued by Syngenta. “On one side, you have to look at it as we are protecting the taxpayers,” he said. Much of the cost being charged for the documents might have been avoided if the agriculture department had required Syngenta to simply redact its own documents, as is required of private companies that file information with the state’s Public Utilities Commission. (All PUC documents are available online to the public.) Matsuda said the department would consider doing so in the future. Onaga, who couldnt be reached while on vacation, has previously asserted to Civil Beat that she wasn’t able to do her job of investigating possible pesticide violations because of the volume of public records requests she has received in recent years. Despite the attention Onaga says she gives to such work, it is unclear why she is processing the public’s records requests given that taxpayers cover the salary of the Department of Agriculture’s public information officer, Janelle Saneishi — a salary that is between $51,312 and $75,960, according to state records. Its Seneishis job to respond to media requests for information. Matsuda argued that Saneishi isn’t qualified to handle such requests. “The pesticide issue, you have to have the background on that,” he said. “And if you’re not a specialist in the field, it’s very hard to distinguish what would be considered confidential business information.” DISCUSSION: Are the Department of Agricultures charges for public documents reasonable? Where is the line between cost and transparency?
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 23:43:15 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015