UC Agrees to Delay Landmark Trial of Engineered Bacteria

Rather than “hash it out” in court with opponents, the University of California agreed Tuesday to postpone a landmark test of a genetically engineered bacterium while reconsidering its potential environmental impacts.

In exchange, the university hopes to clear away the final few challenges to its proposed open-air test of a genetically altered, frost-fighting strain of bacteria at its agricultural field station in Tulelake, near the Oregon border.

The agreement, which applies only to this test and does not set a binding precedent on other proposed genetic tests, was reached after a 12-hour meeting Monday of lawyers representing the university and residents of Tulelake, a tiny potato-farming town.

Details of the agreement were not made public until it was ratified by top university officials Tuesday, three days before a Superior Court hearing in Sacramento on the applicability of state environmental laws to open-air tests of genetically engineered organisms.

Superior Court Judge A. Richard Backus on Aug. 4 ordered a temporary halt to the Tulelake test and directed both sides to return to court Aug. 22 to argue whether the test, as proposed, conformed to the California Environmental Quality Act.

The agreement announced Tuesday requires university scientists to meet formally with Tulelake residents and other opponents of the test within 30 days and reach a consensus about the types of environmental questions to be reassessed by the university.

The university will then decide whether to prepare a complete environmental impact report. Until now, the university has relied both on its own assessment of risks posed by the experiment and on studies by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which had approved the test.

After the university announces its decision, opponents will have 30 days to challenge that decision in Sacramento Superior Court, which will maintain jurisdiction over the case.

University scientists have agreed not to proceed with their test until this new review process is complete.

Environmentalists claimed a major victory in the settlement, but university officials countered that the agreement should have no significant effect on their schedule for genetic tests.

Scott R. Keene, the Sacramento lawyer representing Tulelake residents opposed to the test, said the agreement is a major step toward forcing the university to meet state environmental standards, which he said are stricter than federal regulations.

‘Driver’s Seat’

“It really puts these local people in the driver’s seat as far as the environmental review is concerned,” Keene said.

“This is all we could have hoped for from the court” in a formal ruling, said Jeremy Rifkin, a leading Washington-based opponent of genetic engineering and a co-plaintiff in the court fight to block the tests.

University lawyer J. Gary Morrison said the temporary injunction has already forced a postponement of the test until a new growing cycle next spring, so this new review will not further delay the experiment.

“We had the time, so why not try to nail the door shut (against further legal challenges) as much as we possibly can?” he said.

“Rather than hash it out in Superior Court, the university is just going to . . . take another look at the very exhaustive review already done of this experiment,” said university spokesman Wallace Ravven.

Opponents said they will use the renewed assessment process to force the university to further study the “worst-case” scenarios that might spring from the test, in which a special bacterium will be applied to potato plants to protect them from frost.

The special bacterium would be a new strain of common Pseudomonas syringae that has been genetically altered to prevent it from promoting the formation of ice crystals from dew.

Test Plot

“Every environmental assessment done so far has concluded there is no need to look at the hard ‘what-ifs’--what if the thing escapes the test plot? What kind of risk would it present to people and to other plants?” Keene asked.

Keene said he is not certain that the review will ultimately result in a full, costly environmental impact report, but Rifkin was less circumspect.

“If they don’t do an EIR,” Rifkin said, “they will be back in court.”