Monterey County Supervisors Ban Altered Bacterium

Monterey County supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to ban for 45 days the field-testing of a genetically altered frost-fighting bacterium, and state regulators promptly threatened to sue the county for overstepping its authority.

Approval of the interim county ordinance further delays the first known release into the atmosphere of a living organism produced through recombinant DNA technology. Field-testing of the organism, an altered form of the common Pseudomonas syringae bacteria, was approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency last November.

Advanced Genetic Sciences Inc. of Oakland was scheduled to start testing this month in one corner of a Monterey County strawberry patch, reportedly near the small farming town of Castroville, about seven miles northwest of here. During the enforced delay, county officials will draft a permanent ordinance expected to set stringent conditions on all future use of genetically altered materials.

Advanced Genetic Sciences spokesman Douglas Sarojak called the decision “a heckuva disappointment. . . . We’re convinced our science is safe. We’re convinced that the EPA review was fully adequate.”

By forbidding the application of such bacteria in their county, even for a brief period, and by proposing permanent county regulation, the Monterey County board has set the stage for a legal showdown over state and perhaps federal laws defining pesticides.

Under state law, counties are generally forbidden to regulate pesticides, in part because a hodgepodge of 58 separate sets of regulations would severely hamper the state’s important agriculture industry.

In addition, state and federal laws define bacteria and some other living organisms as pesticides if they are used with the intent of inhibiting or killing other organisms. Since Advanced Genetic’s product, which it calls Frostban, would fit this definition--it is meant to inhibit frost-forming natural bacteria by crowding them off the leaves and blossoms of cash crops--state officials have classified it as a pesticide.

(Frostban would not be unique in this respect. Several natural microbes, such as Bacillus thuringiensis, are already licensed by the state as pesticides. The state also recently approved the field testing of a Mycogen Corp. pesticide in which Bacillus thuringiensis toxins are cultured inside genetically altered Pseudomonas, although the Pseudomonas will be killed before it--and the toxin inside--are released on test plots in Orange and San Diego counties later this year.)

Classification Challenged

Monterey County officials challenged the classification of bacteria and other “animals” as pesticides. County Counsel Ralph R. Kuchler told the board that in his opinion the county has the authority under land-use laws to regulate such pesticides--essentially as animals..

“You do not allow farming in all areas of the county . . . (and) you do not allow animals in all areas of the county--and this is an animal,” he said.

“If you had a duck that ate snails, you could call that duck a pesticide if you like but it’s still a duck,” he said, drawing chuckles from board members and most of the 75 spectators jamming the supervisors’ chamber.

In a telephone interview later, Robert L. Peterson of the California Department of Food and Agriculture in Sacramento responded to Kuchler’s analogy in kind:

“Does that duck have a label and an EPA registration number? If it did, it would be a pesticide.”

Challenge Foreseen

Peterson said lawyers within the department will review the county’s temporary ban and may challenge it in court if it overreaches the county’s legal authority. In the past, the state has sued counties that tried to regulate chemical pesticides.

“If our attorneys make the determination that they (Monterey County supervisors) are regulating pesticides on a countywide basis,” he added “it would be reasonable to assume” that legal action would follow.

Field-testing of the bacteria has been challenged as unsafe by some local residents and a Washington-based environmental organization, Foundation on Economic Trends. They contend that state and federal regulators are ill-prepared to evaluate the safety of the new technology and that more tests are required on such matters as human-health effects and potential changes in weather patterns.

Pseudomonas bacteria normally secrete a protein that facilitates the formation of ice crystals; when they congregate on plants, as they normally do, the bacteria hasten the creation of crop-damaging frost.

Bacteria to be used in the test have had part of their genetic code--the part that directs the secretion of the ice-nucleating protein--deleted with enzymes. The process was developed at UC Berkeley and is produced under license by Advanced Genetic Sciences.

Mimic Natural Bacteria

The altered bacteria mimic the small fraction of naturally occurring Pseudomonas that have mutated into non-nucleating, or “ice minus” form.

Local opponents to the test were pleased with the board’s temporary ban, but one woman, Judy Pennycook, said local satisfaction will last only as long as the ban.

Moreover, Pennycook and others continued to argue against any testing. One man, Glenn Church, noted that the EPA concluded that the test site is in a remote area without first visiting the area. Actually, the targeted test plot is within half a mile of homes, county officials say.

“The EPA approved this with their eyes closed,” Church told the board.

Advance Genetic Sciences has never made public a precise date for the beginning of the test. At a public hearing Jan. 27, the company had volunteered to delay the test 30 days and move it to a new location within the county in response to local concerns.