Regular Use of Malathion Surprises Environmentalists : Agriculture: Groups in the county assail the spraying of farmland with the pesticide, which is used elsewhere to fight Medflies. Growers say the critics are overreacting.

After gearing up for a possible fight against aerial spraying of malathion if fertile Medflies are discovered in Ventura County, some environmentalists expressed surprise Thursday after learning that county fields have been doused with malathion for years.

Moorpark Councilwoman Eloise Brown raised the issue earlier this week in a public complaint that a helicopter pilot hired by Boskovich Farms had sprayed malathion on an 18-acre onion field near homes in Moorpark on Sunday to eradicate a bug called the thrip.

Although the pilot was not required to inform city officials beforehand, Brown demanded that the city be notified whenever aerial spraying occurs. The farmland is owned by the city and leased to Boskovich Farms.

Environmentalists elsewhere in the county said Thursday that they are disturbed that malathion is being sprayed on crops growing near homes, not only by Boskovich Farms, but also by other county growers.

“I’ve been waiting to know when Ventura County is going to spray malathion, and now I know it’s already going on,” said Paul Herzog, an environmentalist and member of the Conejo Valley Greens. “We’ve seen reports coming from L.A. County that people are getting sick from this kind of thing.”

Herzog, who also works with the Ventura County Food Safety Group, a coalition of growers, environmentalists and agriculture officials, said Boskovich Farms may not have broken any law, but the incident heightens the distrust homeowners have about pesticides.

“It’s a response to people feeling they’re being bombarded from the sky,” Herzog said.

Margaret Kirnig, a member of the Ventura County Environmental Coalition who lives in the Moorpark area, said she also was surprised that the Moorpark field was sprayed with malathion, a practice that could kill off beneficial insects.

“I don’t think people knew,” Kirnig said.

In eradication programs to wipe out the Mediterranean fruit fly in Los Angeles County neighborhoods, the effects of malathion spraying have raised a storm of protest. The Medfly is not yet a problem in Ventura County, but agricultural officials are worried that it will become one and have vowed to spray if fertile flies are found.

In the Medfly program, the pesticide is mixed with a sticky bait intended to attract fertile insects and generally sprayed over wide areas that often include residential neighborhoods. As used in Ventura County against other pests, the water-based spray is more concentrated but is intended to be sprayed only on farmland.

Malathion is one of 183 chemical pesticides used in Ventura County to protect crops from pest damage, according to county agricultural reports on pesticide use.

About 1,558 pounds of the pesticide were sprayed in the county in 1988, a small percentage of the 2.8 million pounds of chemicals sprayed by local farmers that year, the most recent year for which figures are available. In 1988, malathion was used 76 times.

Malathion is among the safest chemical pesticides, Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Dave Buettner said.

Buettner said Ventura County growers have applied chemicals considered more toxic than malathion to their crops, including at least 18 other chemicals linked to birth defects or suspected of causing cancer. Those chemicals were listed in a Ventura County Grand Jury report on pesticides released earlier this month.

“I think, safety wise, they’re using a material that is as safe as they can use,” Buettner said, referring to malathion.

The relative safety of the chemical when contrasted with known carcinogenic chemicals, however, failed to appease malathion opponents.

Stan Greene, a member of the environmentalist group Citizens to Preserve the Ojai, said he had heard previous reports of malathion spraying in the rural Ojai Valley. Despite assurances about the pesticide’s safety, neighbors are concerned about exposure to malathion, he said.

“They ought to give the people who live there notice so that they can protect themselves,” Greene said. “If there are any residents near where this is going on, they’ve got a right to know about it.”

One farm industry representative portrayed the response from environmentalists as an overreaction, given the number of other chemicals used to eradicate insects.

“It’s probably one of the most innocuous, but unfortunately because of all the publicity that’s been received because of the Medfly infestations, malathion has received a bad rap,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau.

At least one other environmentalist agreed that malathion has generated more public opposition than it deserves.

The Environmental Protection Agency has studied 50 cancer-causing pesticides used on produce, said Frances Scharli, president and founder of Mothers and Others for Safe Food, a consumer group based in Ventura.

Scharli said she does not oppose aerial spraying of malathion. Homeowners who live near agricultural areas should view agricultural treatment of malathion differently than mass spraying of suburban neighborhoods, she said.

“I’m not endorsing malathion. But if we’re going to start targeting something, we need to start targeting known carcinogens,” she said.