Pesticide Mishaps Point Up Perils, Benefits to Public

A one-two punch from tainted watermelons and pesticide warehouse fires has raised public fears about the safety of the chemicals that California farmers consider indispensable.

Regular reports of farm worker exposure and ground water contamination from pesticides also plague an industry that generated $903 million in sales statewide in 1983.

Pesticides used in California are subject to the stiffest chemical regulations in the world, state officials say. But those regulators face criticism that their enforcement is low on manpower and weak on routine crop monitoring, laboratory procedures and criminal sanctions.

Attention usually focuses on failures rather than successes.

Most Common Uses

The presence of the banned pesticide DBCP in 2,450 wells is well documented. But few people realize that chlorine added to drinking water and dumped into swimming pools and spas to kill bacteria is the state’s most common pesticide.

In fact, urban uses account for 75% of pesticide sales and a greater proportion of exposure cases than on farms, state figures show.

“What we try to do is to make sure the pesticides that are available for use in the state of California can be safely used,” said Bob Peterson of the state Department of Food and Agriculture, which has primary authority over 13,000 chemical products.

“Pesticides are really essential to agricultural production,” he said. “If we were to lose all our pesticides today, 30% of the people in this country would be in danger of starvation. That’s how important they are to us.

“That’s not to say injury is not possible or illness does not occur.”

The state records about 3,000 cases annually of pesticide exposure on farms and in manufacturing, said Dr. Keith Maddy, head of Food and Agriculture’s health and safety branch. Physicians report 15,000 cases a year in urban settings.

“The toxicity of the chemicals used by professional applicators is much higher than that which we allow in the home and garden products,” Maddy said.

Many urban exposure cases involving weaker substances are blamed on misuse: failure to follow label instructions on the strength or methods of applications and children eating rat, snail and insect bait.

Farmers face a maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine or six months in jail for violating pesticide regulations--rules that Food and Agriculture Director Clare Berryhill asked be toughened after investigators concluded that the mite killer Temik was applied illegally on watermelons, causing scattered illnesses and the destruction of tons of melons.

The department was criticized because its routine sampling of watermelons covered only 20 to 25 melons a year. Testing expanded to 20 melons per field after the contamination was discovered.

Concern Over Residues

The state also acknowledged that its routine testing detects only Temik itself and not its residual form, aldicarb sulfoxide, which was blamed for about 360 cases of food poisoning.

Uncertainty about how long Temik remains in treated soil also raised questions about the adequacy of industry studies that track the chemicals after application--a frequent target of criticism.

“All of this testing ought to be done before pesticides are put on the market,” said Ralph Lightstone, a California Rural Legal Assistance attorney. “The pesticide industry has not been responsible in the past in getting those products tested adequately and getting the bad ones off the market.”

United Farm Workers President Cesar Chavez called last month for a ban on five pesticides commonly used in vineyards: parathion, Captan, phosdrin, methyl bromide and Dinoseb.

But the list did not include the grape miticide propargite, which last year was responsible for the largest number of cases--64--involving workers exposed to residue.

Grapes are “the single most frequent crop associated with field worker illness,” stated the report, which was issued in April. “Vineyard workers are exposed to relatively harsh working conditions, including high temperatures, a very dusty micro-environment and nearly continuous full-body contact with foliage surfaces.”

In the field of public safety, the California State Firemen’s Assn. supports legislation that would establish mandatory reporting systems by businesses that store hazardous substances, including pesticides.

Peril Noted in Fires

Firefighters had no idea what kind of chemical concoction they were walking into when fires erupted four days apart at pesticide warehouses in Anaheim and Thermal in June. More than 7,500 people were evacuated around the Anaheim fire for four days, and 2,000 residents of Thermal fled as flames ignited tons of chemicals.

“There was no knowledge of what these people were facing,” said Harry Steimer, general manager of the firemen’s association.

He praised firefighters as “considerably more sophisticated” than they were 10 years ago in handling hazardous fires and spills. In addition, adequate protective clothing is available for most situations.

A reporting system that would list a building’s hazardous contents would provide firefighters with the ability to determine immediately emergency strategy and possibly avoid injury, Steimer said.

Perhaps the most subtle problem caused by pesticides is water contamination. The Assembly Office of Research found 57 pesticides in 3,000 wells statewide. Twenty-two pesticides were tied to farm uses, with others blamed on manufacturing plants and other sources.

Tests of Water Systems

For the first time, the state this spring finished testing California’s 900 largest water suppliers and removed about 30 wells from service, said Clifford Sharpe, a senior sanitary engineer with the state Health Services Department. The agency plans to follow with tests of smaller public water systems.

“The problem is really not that bad at all,” said Sharpe said. “It’s probably not going to change before we finish the program.”

But to focus attention on water contamination, Assemblyman Lloyd Connelly (D-Sacramento) introduced a bill requiring water solubility studies, increased well monitoring and suspension of sales of pesticides with the greatest potential for contamination.

The state started regulating farm chemicals in 1916 when only a few substances, such as arsenic and lead, were sold. Tests for pesticide residue began in 1927 to make California fruit marketable in Europe.

The pesticide industry flourished after DDT came into wide use during World War II. A flood of synthetic chemicals followed in the 1950s, leading to the creation of federal tolerance levels for residue.

A Pioneering Role

California agencies have become pioneers in the field of pesticides, and that role continues.

Following a manufacturer’s report that 2,000 household pesticides may pose a threat to children, the state started examining labels on room sprays, foggers and bug bombs.

Most labels recommend that people stay out of rooms two to four hours after applications. However, Maddy said diapered babies and young children should be protected from skin contact with sprayed furniture, carpets and floors for four to seven days.

“I don’t want it to come out these are so hazardous they shouldn’t be used,” he said. “It’s just that they should be used properly.”

The state also tested and banned cake mixes and other grain products tainted with the cancer-causing fumigant EDB before the Environmental Protection Agency banned most applications last year.

Dangers Are Exaggerated

“Probably the dangers from pesticides are blown out of proportion,” said William Spencer, a Riverside-based U.S. Agriculture Department researcher who is recognized as an authority on pesticide pollution.

He believes farmers and the chemical industry “get a bad rap from the public because the media tend to sensationalize the possible bad effects of pesticides rather than pointing out the benefits.

“Quite a few economic studies point out that pesticides contribute greatly to farm income as well as making food prices much cheaper in the marketplace for the general public,” he added. “We wouldn’t have any of the fruits and vegetables available to the consumer year-round without pesticides to prevent them from deteriorating in storage.”

Farmers “agree that things should be safe,” said Merlin Fagan, director of environmental affairs for the California Farm Bureau Federation. “Farmers believe that the judicious use of pesticides allows them to produce the quality and quantity of food needed for California, the rest of the United States and internationally.”

Anne Katten of the Davis-based California Agrarian Action Project agrees that most state pesticide regulations “are really quite good and cover a lot of ground to prevent poisoning and contamination. However, many of them are not enforced.”

An Enforcement Problem

She charged that weak enforcement provides no incentive to growers to guarantee safety. Some growers call critics such as Katten alarmists.

“We are alarmists in the sense of a fire alarm,” she says. “We like to warn people about things that are happening.”

Lightstone, whose agency defends poor clients in exposure cases, noted, “We have never taken the position that all pesticides should be banned. The low-income people we represent in California benefit when California agriculture is profitable and productive.

“Pesticides are necessary agricultural production tools,” he said. “The issue isn’t all pesticides or no pesticides. The issue is to make sure pesticides are properly screened at the regulatory level and that those that are used are used safely.”

Some farmers use integrated pest management, favoring control of pests at an acceptable level for marketing rather than outright eradication. Growers coordinate reduced pesticide applications with the use of beneficial insects that prey on detrimental bugs to produce crops more economically.

The long-term future of pesticides may depend on advances in experimental biogenetics aimed at altering a plant’s genes to attain the same sort of results now achieved with pesticides.

For example, Monsanto Co. soon will test bacteria to help tomato plants absorb more nitrogen and, consequently, reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizer, Peterson said.

“Probably by the year 2000, the type of chemical control that we know today will be greatly reduced,” he said. “I think the biogenetic engineering aspects are largely going to dominate.”