I'd file a complaint,,,that sounds terrible.
3 AM ? There are some rules governing crop dusters. A bit here:
Oren wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Dunno. Probably airport as I've not seen it parked anywhere around here. Probably one or more airport-based services for all the area.
Dean Hoffman wrote in news:l9db6f$58h$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org:
I'll Google for the local FAA office (maybe c/o local airpaort?) address and snail them.
I hesitate though because farming here is done by very large agriculteral corporations, not private farmers. I'm concerned about retaliation against one annoying complaining little mobile-home-and-its-lot owner - me - in this very Republican state and area.
Maybe one if the reasons the values are so low is because they poison the owners by crop dusting at 3AM. Until that stops, values might not go up much. I wonder if you have to disclose that when you list.
When SWMBO and I were looking for a house, one very nice one was recommended by the real estate agent. The price was right and it had just about every feature we were looking for. Since it was close to the airport, I called the airport and asked them when their busiest time of day was. I then scheduled an appointment to look at the house during that time frame.
Very nice house on a very quiet street - until the planes started taking off. As they flew over the house, the glass in the built-ins next to the fireplace rattled. We thanked them for the tour and left. The agent gave us the standard line: "You'll get used to it." I told him that I grew up a few miles from LaGuardia Airport in Queens, NY. In the 20 years I lived there I never got used to the planes flying over the house. When we would watch a home Mets game, we could hear the planes fly over the stadium on the TV and then hear them fly over our house. When they were landing, it was house first then TV. 2 for the price of 1. Never got used to it.
What type of retaliation are you concerned about? Examples please.
On 12/25/2013 11:02 AM, KenK wrote: ...
I'll bet it's good probability those "large agricultural corporations" are in fact, family corporations. IOW, the odds are pretty good they _are_ family farms.
You can almost rest assured they're within the EPA/USDA requirements and they're spraying when they are because it's when conditions are right to do so. Otherwise, they'd likely have to do even more.
Just think how glad you are that you can go to the local market and buy inexpensive and quality fruits and veggies and you didn't have to do anything difficult to have the opportunity.
"Don't complain to the farmer with your mouth full." :)
DerbyDad03 wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@nntp.aioe.org:
'Accidental' irrigation spillover from adjacent field flooding my property? (Has happened before.) Plowing or cultivating close by in the middle of the night (thet do field work during the night sometimes). Whatever. There are lots of employees - someone surely could come up with something annoying or worse.
You put 'accidental' in quotes, implying that you don't believe it was actually accidental. You then said "has happened before". Are you claiming that the company has actually retaliated against a home owner and flooded their property on purpose?
Again, do you believe that the nighttime field work was a form of retaliation against someone who complained? Could it be that it's nothing more than standard operating procedure?
I wonder how many of those "lots of employees" would be involved in deciding how to retaliate against a home owner who filed a complaint against the company. Is it really possible that the dishonesty and evil thoughts run company wide? Not only would the retaliation plan have to be thought up in the first place, someone with boots on the ground would have to implement it. That means that employees from the top of the food chain (no pun intended), like the lawyers and management who had to respond to the complaint, all the way down to guy who let the irrigation overflow or drove the tractor at night would have to be involved. Even if the underlings weren't directly involved in the decision, don't you think someone along the chain would question why they were being told to allow the irrigation to overflow or to drive a tractor next to someone's home at
3AM?Hey, you live there, not me, so you obviously know what's possible better than I, but it just seems like retaliation would be a very involved process and could ultimately be very bad for the company if ever discovered. In any case, good luck.
On 12/26/2013 12:40 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote: ...
Reckon the farm operation was there long before the housing development?
I'd be pretty confident there's no "retaliation" at all involved and the operation is simply doing what's the best they know to do for the season, crop and problem (whether that be insect/weed/irrigation issue).
And, I'd also be _quite_ sure they wouldn't have deliberately wasted irrigation water on several grounds the least amongst that being the cost not to mention likely screwing up a planting schedule or the like if it was, indeed, an overflood. More likely, however, if it is actually flood irrigation it was a case of a breach that let it escape. If it were a center pivot, occasionally one gets stuck and it may be a while before it gets caught--"stuff happens".
Again, w/o knowing where/who it's impossible to say precisely but it's highly unlikely to the point of absurdity it's anything deliberately planned for the nuisance factor aspect; they're just trying to raise a crop the best they can.
Timing on herbicide applications is particularly important for control of many species of weeds including factors of maturity of both the weed and the crop, the temperature and even relative humidity which is one reason besides the more mundane factor of generally less wind they would choose to spray at night. There are times where the optimum window may only be a day or so and if one has a significant number of acres to cover that might mean only a few hours available to hit that for any given location.
We're out in the middle of essentially nowhere and we do the same thing on occasion if it's a critical time and we're not even raising delicate crops such as would be the case in, say, much of CA, some of AZ, etc., etc., ...
Your instincts are correct.
The herbicides and pesticides that crop dusters spray can be highly toxic.
Some of this stuff can cause cancer 10 years after exposure.
Yet as a practical matter, there is nothing you can do.
The chemical companies will claim all their products are totally safe.
The crop duster service will tell you they obey all regulations and apply the material as prescribed.
The farmer will just blow you off with some lame comment like "Do you want cheap food or not?"
Personally, I'd move.
Pioneer, Monsanto, and Mycogen have seed corn plants nearby. The seed companies aren't shy about spraying. They also put up warning signs at all the field entrances. Some just say it's a secondary entrance. Others have an actual warning after a field has been sprayed. Phone numbers are posted. I think they also list the spray used plus some antidote info. The waiting period before field reentry is listed too. The detasslers have to wear reflective hats, t shirts or whatever. It looks a bit weird seeing them in the fields. I remember when Parathion was used. There was something like a ten day waiting period. It was used to kill corn borer if memory serves. Now genetically modified corn can resist corn borer. Aerial spraying is done with planes here. There is one bi-plane. No helicopters. The coops use mostly the 4 wheel spray coupes. Corn and soybeans predominate. I mentioned to a farmer that there is a lot more milo again. He said one reason is the shattercane issue has be resolved. By the way, I know you know this stuff. I'm guessing most of the posters haven't actually set foot in a crop field.
A big grass fire started at night? O_o
TDD
On 12/26/2013 7:01 PM, Dean Hoffman > wrote: ...
Helicopters for spraying are pretty much limited to restricted flight space locations such as what OP apparently has...and some areas use them for residential mosquito control and I've seen cases when visiting areas in CA where they've had emergency control for outbreak of Med fruit fly in citrus areas...
Planes here widely used altho w/ the advent of no-till virtually every farmer has one or more spray rig of own to do mostly herbicides rather than pesticides. The biplane is still around but the newer single-wing cropdusters are far more prevalent around here...there are about a half-dozen within 30-mile radius I know; probably another 10 or so with whom I'm unacquainted. Just ran into one at the post office in town last two mornings... :) Nothing going on in that arena this time of year here.
On 12/27/13 11:46 AM, dpb wrote:
Farmers can't apply NH3 here in the fall until November 1 due to the nitrate levels in the groundwater. There isn't much time before the first snow or the ground freezes some winters of course. Some of the tractors look like they have aircraft landing lights compared to my dad's old 50s era tractors. The coops have been applying dry fertilizer so they're busy too. It looks odd watching them running in the snow some years. I haven't noticed if the feedlots are spreading manure yet. One of the feedlot owners said he hasn't purchased any commercial fertilizer for several years now. Rumor has it eating brown snow isn't a good idea. The liquid runoff goes into catch pits. Farmers usually run that through center pivots. One advantage is the owners have their own little ski slopes after digging the pits and don't need a tow like this:
...
Feedlots haul year-round here, but fertilizer application is completed in August/early September for winter wheat planting starting mid-September or so and most apply for corn either just ahead of or with the planting. Anhydrous use here has really fallen out of favor compared to years ago; it doesn't hang around as well as other forms in these sandy soils and at the higher input costs, any loss is significant.
Costs for everything have indeed skyrocketed but the size factor makes up for a lot...when I was a kid we planted with a four row lister at
3-3.5 mph whereas now it's a 24 row (or even larger, one of the big operators here just debut'ed a 56 row planter this spring; they could cover a circle in 10 yrs; annual here is about 18". Last year, however, here at the house we were stretching to break the 10" mark and only slightly better than that the year before.The exceptional drought area has shrunken and while we're better off this year than the previous two, it's still between the extreme and exceptional here in the SW KS corner, SE CO, OK/TX panhandles and on south and north. We just can't seem to get anything to set up far enough south and west again -- it's a period much like the '30s and early '50s. Did get a 5" snow that actually came w/o wind last weekend (a truly rare event here, the snow with no wind part, that is) that helped a little but just 20 mi east was as much as 10" and some areas had 15". Then again, another 50 mi west and north and they were missed entirely so much be thankful for what did get...
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.