Her chest felt tight, and she had a hard time breathing. It was water from a Sunnyside Valley Irrigation canal lined with a highly toxic chemical that last week gave Runkle and a half-dozen neighbors on Richards and Ward Gap roads temporary breathing problems and eye irritations. The water also killed lawns and night crawlers, wilted plants and ate at vegetable gardens in this neighborhood on the south side of Prosser. The source was a concentrated dose of acrolein, a chemical used frequently to kill aquatic weeds in irrigation canals and as base for laundry and dish washing detergent. Jim Trull, manager for the irrigation district, said they've been using the chemical for the past 20 years with no problem.
Crews use a drip tube to deliver the herbicide into canals to kill the weeds growing on the bottom.
I don't know why. It was the right chemical for the right application. The vapor is highly toxic and flammable. It is a real irritating material. But, it's not the kind of thing that stays in the body.