How Todd Staples’ Negligence Led to a Child’s Death

The Death of Vantashia Samules

According to internal Texas Department of Agriculture documents and reports from the Lubbock Police Department, Red River Commodities, a company well-known to TDA as a user of highly toxic pesticides, improperly stored a highly toxic pesticide known as Phostoxin.

Phostoxin (the trade name for aluminum phosphide) is a toxic pesticide possessed by Red River Commodities in pellet form. The company was using Phostoxin for fumigation of grain warehouses, and storing the pesticide in a manner inconsistent with state law. By failing to secure and lock the cabinet holding the toxic pesticide, a Red River Commodities employee who wasn’t licensed by TDA to apply or use the pesticide acquired Phostoxin. The employee, in turn, sold the pesticide to a Lubbock family and applied it at their home to kill roaches. As a result of the misapplication of Phostoxin, five people in the home became sick from inhaling Phostoxin fumes and two-year-old Vantashia Samuels died of Phostoxin poisoning.

Staples’ Regulatory Failure and Light Penalty for Baby Samules’ Death is Par for Course

In spite of the fact that baby Samules died as a result of Red River Commodities’ failure to store the pesticide properly – as well as TDA’s failure to properly oversee companies and licensed applicators using these products – the Texas Department of Agriculture levied less than $2,000 in fines against Red River Commodities and less than $1,000 in fines against the licensed applicator on staff for Red River Commodities. The former Red River Commodities employee who illegally applied the Phostoxin was fined a total of $2,500, but, according to TDA records, was never located as part of the agency’s investigation.

Gilbert said Staples and TDA have an abysmal record when it comes to protecting Texans, and that the death of Vantashia Samuels is the result of an agency that has been used and abused by career politicians looking for a stepping-stone to higher office.

The fluctuation in the number of regulatory inspectors at the agency is a prime example of Staples’ ongoing negligence. Gilbert noted that, in each election year from 1991 to 2006, the number of regulatory inspectors employed by TDA significantly dropped from what it was the year prior.

In 2007 when this incident occurred, TDA had only 136 regulatory inspectors—up only two inspectors form the election-year low of 134 in 2006, which was down considerably from 143 inspectors in 2005 and 150 inspectors in 2004.

“One has to assume that this is the result of Governor Perry and Comptroller Combs wanting to look like fiscal conservatives so they can say they’ve slashed budgets as they climbed the ladder to higher office,” Gilbert said. “The number of TDA regulator inspectors has fluctuated like a yo-yo for most of the last decade, hitting rock-bottom in election years,” Gilbert said.

“Clearly, Todd Staples didn’t plan to do much better. He’d been on the job many months when this happened and still hadn’t appreciably increased the number of inspectors at TDA beyond the numbers that they were when Susan Combs was abandoning her office to run for Comptroller,” Gilbert said. “The only reason for an appreciable increase in the number of regulatory inspectors during Staples’ tenure is that the Structural Pest Control Board and its 13 inspectors merged with TDA,” he continued.

“It's not ‘doing more with less,’ it's taking an inexcusable risk with public safety by playing the game of a career politician,” he said.

“At the end of the day, Texans can look to Todd Staples and cast this death at his doorstep,” Gilbert said. “It is Todd Staples who oversaw an agency that failed to pay any attention whatsoever to a company that, according to TDA’s own reports, the agency knew was applying toxic pesticides like this,” Gilbert said. “Staples has abdicated his responsibility to protect Texans,” he continued.

A full set of TDA documents related to this case including the Lubbock Police Department report are available online at http://hankgilbert.com/phostoxin

FACT SHEET

Phostoxin is the trade name for aluminum phosphide manufactured by Degesch, the same company that manufactured Zyklon B—a similar fumigant—used to exterminate persons held in concentration camps during the Holocaust.

FACT: TDA was well aware that Phostoxin was in use by Red River Commodities and had been for years. [Pesticide Complaint 01-07-0074, Incident 00003035, Page 4]

FACT: Red River Commodities staff lied to TDA inspectors about how Phostoxin applications at the company. [Pesticide Complaint 01-07-0074, Incident 00003035, Page 6]

FACT: Although Red River was fined less than $2,000, TDA planned to send the mother of the deceased two-year-old a threatening letter essentially blaming her for her own child’s death. [PERC documents, page 2]

FACT: TDA admitted that Red River Commodities failed to properly secure the Phostoxin by failing to keep it under lock and key. [PERC documents, page 4]

FACT: In 2007, TDA had only 136 regulatory inspectors on staff according to data from the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. This was an increase of only two inspectors from the 2006 low of 134 (an election year low) coming after an all-time pre 2008 high of 150 inspectors.

FACT: Although TDA says they couldn’t locate Anthony Fred Evans—and presumably has not yet served Evans with his notice of violation given the fact that the agency recently told the Texas Attorney General’s Office this case was still pending—Lubbock County records indicate that Evans served a 55-day jail sentence for Driving While Intoxicated in 2009; TDA had ample time to serve Evans and prosecute him through the Administrative Hearings process in 2009.

Page 2 of 2Pol. Adv. paid for by Hank Gilbert for Agriculture Commissioner