CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS: THE AD CAMPAIGN

The initiative: Proposition 128, a November ballot measure sponsored by the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pesticide Watch, the National Toxics Campaign, Campaign California, Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, Assemblyman Lloyd Connelly (D-Sacramento) and Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica).

Whose ad? Yes on Prop. 128-Big Green, a committee composed of the above groups.

Elements of the ad, with an analysis by Times environmental writer Maura Dolan:

Ad: A clean California is within our reach but it’s gonna be a tough fight. Big business plans to spend $16 million opposing the Big Green initiative.

Analysis: The campaign to defeat the initiative refuses to discuss its budget or its fund-raising goal. Proponents say they have obtained an internal campaign document from the anti-Proposition 128 campaign with its budget figures. Proponents plan to raise $2 million for television time and a total of $3 million for the entire campaign.

Ad: This year, 20,000 Americans will develop cancer because of pesticide exposure. Another 3,000 will die.

Analysis: The estimate is based on mathematical modeling for pesticides that were approved for use before a 1940s law banned residues at levels known to cause cancer. The 20,000 people who will get cancer this year will be those who ate crops sprayed with the pesticides each day of their lives over 70 years. Of those, 3,000 will die. One in four people dies of cancer every year anyway.

Ad: Big Green will phase out Captan and eighteen other pesticides known to cause cancer and birth defects by 1996.

Analysis: The Department of Food and Agriculture now permits 2,300 different pesticide products to be used on food. The California legislative analyst believes the initiative’s stricter standards would result in the banning of at least 350 different pesticide products. Supporters of the initiative put the upper limit at 40 different pesticides, and they say many can be reformulated to reduce their toxicity.

The difference of opinion results from a provision in the measure that would regulate inert ingredients in pesticides. Inert ingredients carry the pesticide and make application easier.