Woman Sues San Diego County Over Pesticide

Marjorie Grisak wonders if a job she took to help the environment was slowly poisoning her.

She sold gopher and squirrel poison for the county and thinks that over a year, she sniffed so much of the stuff she became ill.

She had excruciating headaches. She was nauseated. She had trouble staying awake at her desk.

Grisak contends that while working as a secretary for the Ramona-Julian Resource Conservation District she was exposed to poisonous phosphine gas emitted by the pesticide she was selling on behalf of the county Department of Agriculture. At least three doctors agree.

And at least two other people working in the adjoining county Department of Social Services office in Ramona complained that they too were made ill by exposure to phosphine gas.

Grisak filed a personal injury lawsuit against the county and filed for disability payments with the state Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board.

County officials publicly insist there is no basis for Grisak’s complaint and are fighting her in court. Her former employer, the conservation district, opposes her disability request.

But county memorandums and other internal reports obtained by The Times show some county officials harshly criticized the Department of Agriculture for storing the pesticide improperly and for failing to show Grisak how to handle it.

County employees who bag the poison wear protective clothing, according to county officials. But Grisak, who sometimes handled the spilled substance directly, was given no protective clothing, no training and, she said, no warnings.

The conservation district is a small state-funded agency whose main purpose is to offer advice on plantings and soil for farmers and homeowners. Because the district used space in the county branch office, it agreed to have its secretary sell the Department of Agriculture’s bait.

The pesticide--packaged, distributed and sold by the county--is grain bait tainted with zinc phosphide. When triggered by moisture--typically after it is ingested by rodents--the bait emits enough phosphine gas to kill small animals. Grisak sold the pesticide over the counter in five-pound bags.

While proximity to packaged, dry zinc phosphide is not necessarily dangerous, inhalation of the dust or of the phosphine gas after the poison is touched with water can lead to headaches, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, coughing, diarrhea and shortness of breath, according to authorities and technical papers. Too much exposure can be fatal.

The Social Services Department complained in a written report as part of its investigation into its own employees becoming sick that “the Department of Agriculture improperly stored, for several months, a toxic pesticide. The matter was stored in an unvented closet with cement flooring. The secretary (Grisak) was not trained or authorized in the handling of this material. The cement floor, when even moderately moist, will cause the pesticide to exude toxic fumes.”

Where the form asks what contributed to the problem, the report says: “The apparent or alleged disregard of Department of Agriculture personnel in seeing to it that this pesticide was more appropriately stored with properly trained personnel.

“Our employees were not aware of this potentially dangerous situation until so informed by (Grisak),” the report continued.

Another Department of Social Services memo noted that Grisak “was observed to occasionally be drooling and suffering from headaches.”

At least two employees in the Social Services Department got time off for their illnesses. One of them, Naomi Dummitt--who no longer works for the county--was diagnosed by her doctor with “exposure to phosphine.”

But Grisak’s case appears to be the worst. Three doctors examined her and agreed that she showed signs of exposure to zinc phosphide, including “severe, incapacitating headaches,” lethargy, fatigue, nausea and depression, according to files on record at the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board.

Grisak, 39, believes she is on the mend--but worries about chromosomal damage, which is addressed in technical literature as a possible result of exposure to phosphine. She and her husband, Mike, had been thinking about having children, but now those plans are in doubt, she said.

She wants disability income from the job she quit 17 months ago, and she wants the county to own up to what she said it did to her.

Grisak was hired as the sole staff person for the conservation district in February, 1988.

According to office records, Grisak handled more than 400 pounds of the poison, which often was delivered in 50-pound bags holding individual five-pound bags. She put the poison on the cement floor and inside a small closet just 10 feet from her desk.

Grisak said she would sometimes use her hands to pick up fallen bait, pour it back into a broken bag and tape it shut. Nobody had warned her not to, she said.

The county stopped distributing the poison through its branch offices about a year ago, said Bill Snodgrass, assistant county agricultural commissioner--not because of the Grisak incident, but because requests for it were dwindling and the poison is available “through private vendors.”

In its formal response to Grisak’s lawsuit, the county counsel’s office said any risk she might have faced was “insignificant.” The county’s defense added that Grisak “acted unreasonably, carelessly and negligently (because she) did not exercise ordinary care, caution or prudence for her own safety or protection.”

Still, various county workers, in their reports to supervisors, acknowledged the problem.

Neil Connelly, a pesticide enforcement officer for the county, wrote that the county’s “General Services (Department) had some concern about materials on floor (due to leaky nature of the building) and hazards resulting from the smell of zinc phosphide.”

And a supervisor in the Department of Social Services’ child protective services office wrote in a memo clarifying the request by her two employees for workers’ compensation:

“At this time I verified that both workers had indeed been exposed to phosphine gas. The gas was a byproduct of inappropriate handling/storage by the county Department of Agriculture,” wrote Betsy Terrazas, the supervisor whose two employees work in the same office as Grisak.