EPA Accord Could Ban Up to 85 Pesticides : Agriculture: Affected industries will urge a federal judge to reject the proposed agreement. Substances on the list cause cancer in laboratory animals.

Ending a five-year legal dispute with California environmentalists and farm workers, the Clinton Administration signed an agreement Wednesday that could ban up to 85 popular pesticides because of their potential to cause cancer.

The proposed settlement--if approved by a U.S. District Court in Sacramento--means the federal Environmental Protection Agency must make long-awaited decisions on what pesticides can be used in raw and processed foods.

In 1989, the state of California, environmentalists and the AFL-CIO sued the EPA to uphold a controversial food-safety provision called the Delaney clause, which prohibits any trace of cancer-causing additives in processed foods, such as juices and canned vegetables and fruits.

For years, the EPA allowed what it calls “negligible risk” from small amounts of pesticides, but under the proposed settlement, the agency now agrees to enforce the “zero risk” in the Delaney clause. That essentially means the federal agency would prohibit use of 36 popular insecticides, herbicides and fungicides on most crops within two years and review an additional 49 within five years.

“I’ve been doing pesticide litigation since 1969, and this is the most important pesticide case that has ever been brought, simply because it involves such a large number of chemicals. It addresses all these pesticides in one fell swoop,” said Ralph Abascal, general counsel for California Rural Legal Assistance, one of the five parties that sued the EPA. “This is the first time such a comprehensive, cross-cutting policy has been challenged and resolved.”

Pesticide industry and food processing representatives said Wednesday they will try to persuade the federal judge to reject the proposed settlement, which will be submitted to the court Dec. 2. They also vowed to beef up efforts to persuade Congress to revoke the law, contending that it is unreasonable and unrealistic to enforce zero tolerance of pesticide residue in food.

“There is no need to panic right now with regard to agriculture producers and the availability of these tools. This isn’t going to happen tomorrow,” said John McCarthy, a vice president of the American Crop Protection Assn., which represents pesticide manufacturers. “This settlement hasn’t been accepted by the court, and chances are we will get a new law that will fix this before the sky falls.”

However, Abascal said “it is a very steep hill” for the pesticide industry to persuade the judge to throw out a settlement reached among so many parties.

Jennifer Curtis of the Natural Resources Defense Council, another of the plaintiffs, called the proposed settlement “great news for consumers, farmers and the environment.”

The 85 pesticides, many of them widely dispersed, cause cancer in laboratory animals--although in some cases only after they are fed large volumes. Biologists also believe some of the pesticides mimic or block hormones and can trigger reproductive defects such as low fertility in wildlife and perhaps humans.

EPA Administrator Carol Browner said the agreement “assures that America will continue to enjoy the cheapest, most abundant and safest food supply in the world.”

Browner added, however, that the settlement “addresses only one complex part of the nation’s system for safe pesticide management. The Administration believes the entire food safety program requires overhaul.”

EPA officials say the agreement, if approved, is likely to lead to bans on many uses of the pesticides, including alachlor, one of the nation’s most widely used herbicides; dicofol, an insecticide spread on citrus, grapes, apples and other fruits; atrazine, an herbicide used on sugar cane and corn, and lindane, used on tomatoes.

In California, many of the chemicals are used by growers to kill pests and weeds. Under the proposed settlement, however, they would have time to search for new biological controls or chemical replacements.

“Because there are so many ‘ifs’ involved, it is hard to know what the impact will be on growers,” said Dave Kranz, a California Farm Bureau spokesman. “Even if the settlement is accepted, the chemicals would be removed from the market during a period that could last as long as two years, and that would give growers some time to adjust or find alternatives.”

The first 36 pesticides will probably be phased out because the EPA already has determined that they cause cancer in animals and that they concentrate in processed foods. The 49 others have been linked to cancer but the agency must conduct further research to determine if they leave residue in foods.

The Delaney food-safety clause, enacted in 1958, is one of the strictest environmental laws on the books, and Congress for years has debated its future.

“Because of its impact and its scope, this settlement could be the catalyst that breaks the logjam in Congress,” Abascal said, “and forces us and the industry and the government into a major change for the future.”

Industry officials and many toxicologists contend that the small amounts of pesticides most people consume are not hazardous, so the chemicals should not be banned. But environmentalists argue that scientists do not understand the cumulative effects, or what amounts might trigger cancer.

“The only thing certain about all of this is that something needs to be done with the Delaney clause,” Kranz said. “With our ability to detect pesticides down to parts per trillion, a zero standard becomes almost impossible to enforce.”