CHERRYFIELD – Cherryfield Foods, the state’s largest grower of wild blueberries, has told four environmental groups that threatened to sue the company that it will abandon its practice of aerial spraying of pesticides.

The announcement came in a letter dated Sept. 30 to the National Environmental Law Center from Ragnar Kamp, general manager for Cherryfield Foods Inc.

Environmentalists call the decision a victory, while the company states that it had long planned to shift to ground-based boom sprayers to apply pesticides to its fields.

“Cherryfield [Foods] has no plans to conduct any aerial pesticide spraying in the future, either on fields owned by Cherryfield, or those not owned but managed by Cherryfield,” Kamp wrote.

The letter was received on the 58th of the 60 days that the environmental groups had given the company to change its policy. The groups told Cherryfield Foods that they would file a lawsuit for the company’s alleged violations of the federal Clean Water Act after the 60-day period.

Under the Clean Water Act, the groups were required to give 60 days’ notice before filing the lawsuit. They had intended to file it in the U.S. District Court in Bangor.

“Down East, many people think that it is a good idea to chat some before filing a lawsuit,” Kamp wrote to the law center’s attorney. “That being said, in this instance we trust that the concerns prompting your letter are allayed by this response.”

Representatives of Toxics Action Center, Environment Maine, Beyond Pesticides and the Sierra Club had charged in a press conference Aug. 3 in Bangor that during the last five years, Cherryfield Foods illegally sprayed aerial pesticides on blueberry fields that the Down East company owns and operates.

“According to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cherryfield does not have a discharge permit under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System,” the group’s spokesman said in August.

Since receiving Cherryfield Foods’ response, the groups indicated they will delay any filing of a lawsuit until they talk further with Cherryfield Foods. They welcomed the company’s new position.

“Cherryfield Foods’ ending of aerial pesticide spraying will be an immediate benefit for the environment in Down East Maine,” said Vivian Newman of the Maine chapter of the Sierra Club.

The environmental groups allege that Cherryfield Foods’ spraying of fields in close proximity to bodies of water put the water at risk of contamination by pesticides if they drift in the wind during application.

Kamp outlined in his letter how Cherryfield Foods is switching over its pesticide-application procedures to ground spraying only. Two years ago, the company purchased a large boom sprayer and set in place a two-year plan to convert spraying operations to use ground equipment exclusively.

“We are confident that this program eliminates the possibility of any direct discharges into navigable waterways,” Kamp concluded.

Local residents had long complained that pesticides drifted from the blueberry barrens into their yards and in some cases onto organic crops. Earlier this summer, research conducted by the BPC indicated that both a fungicide and an insecticide sprayed on Cherryfield Food blueberries had likely drifted into the Pleasant River and its tributaries – just the smoking gun that environmentalists needed, said Will Everitt of the Toxins Action Center in Portland.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.