Regulators OK Use of 2 Banned Pesticides

In rare reversals, government regulators have decided to allow use of two pesticides that were banned as too hazardous for application on crops, prompting an outcry from environmentalists and farm worker groups.

In one case, federal officials quietly negotiated a deal last week to permit spraying for another growing season of the powerful insecticide and nerve poison Phosdrin. All use of the pesticide was to be discontinued nationwide Feb. 28 because of serious health risks to farm workers.

In a separate action, state regulators will allow resumed use of the worm-killing chemical Telone II, which was barred in California in 1990 after monitors found high levels of the cancer-causing chemical in the air at Central Valley schools and public buildings.

It is highly unusual for government agencies to ban an agricultural chemical--and rarer still for use to be resumed once a pesticide has been prohibited.

Of 10,000 pesticides and disinfectants approved for use in California, fewer than 50 have been banned over the past 25 years, according to lists provided by the state Department of Pesticide Regulation. Only one of those earlier suspensions has been reversed.

Proposals to ban pesticides--or resume their use--often become struggles between those who want to shield farm workers and the public from potentially harmful chemicals and those who argue that pesticides are essential to the health of one of California’s largest industries.

The cases of Telone and Phosdrin, which is the U.S. trade name for the chemical called mevinphos, illustrate the contentiousness of the debate--but with a difference. For a variety of reasons, the state and federal actions permitting use of the chemicals were carried out in relative secrecy, without advance notice or opportunities for public discussion.

Yet each of the two chemicals has had notoriety. Phosdrin was one of five chemicals that United Farm Workers founder Cesar Chavez wanted banned from the fields when he staged a hunger strike in 1988.

Last summer, after a series of serious illnesses among farm workers and under pressure from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, Los Angeles-based Amvac Chemical Corp. voluntarily agreed to stop selling the product Jan. 1, with all use to end by March.

When the federal settlement was announced, California’s pesticide department slapped on new restrictions to help protect workers for what was expected to be the last months of Phosdrin use.

Late Friday, federal regulators agreed to allow use of the chemical for one more growing season to exhaust the existing domestic supply of more than 200,000 pounds of the material. Most of it is likely to be applied in California.

EPA officials said they reluctantly agreed to the extension in exchange for a recall of all unused product at the end of the growing season in November. By requiring the company to retrieve opened as well as unopened containers, the recall will be more complete than the one promised last summer, according to Dan Barolo, director of the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs.

“It will leave less hazardous material in the hands of users,” he said.

Amvac officials said an immediate national recall was not really an option because there is so much unused Phosdrin in its distribution network, especially in California, where 60% of the chemical is sold.

“The (original) recall program is not feasible,” Amvac’s chief executive officer, Eric Wintemute, said in a written statement.

Telone, produced by manufacturing giant DowElanco, was banned by California in 1990 after the state Air Resources Board found alarmingly high levels of the chemical in the air at several sites in Merced County, including two schools. Now, almost five years later, the state pesticide department has announced that it will allow the chemical to be used again with a number of restrictions.

The manufacturers and farmers say that with proper safeguards the risks of both chemicals can be minimized and the chemicals can help protect the harvest.

“The public is more at risk if they drive down the freeway of something bad happening than they are for whatever pesticides are found in food or for worker exposure,” contends Merlin Fagan, director of environmental affairs for the California Farm Bureau Federation.

Environmentalists are furious that chemicals banished from the market after long histories of problems will continue to be used in the state, and they question the scientific basis of the decisions.

“It’s totally outrageous and it’s irrational,” said Ralph Lightstone, a lobbyist for the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation. “We clearly ought to be moving away from the use of highly toxic and cancer-causing pesticides that poison not only farm workers but the air that people living in cities are going to be breathing.”

Each of the chemicals provides a revealing look into the dangers and economics of pesticide use in a state where agriculture is one of the largest industries.

Phosdrin is a so-called “quick knock down” pesticide, a potent bug-killer that has been used for almost four decades on a variety of crops, including lettuce, celery, peas and parsley.

Growers like the pesticide because it can be used close to harvest while leaving little residue on crops as they come to market.

Phosdrin is difficult to handle, a chemical cousin to substances developed for possible use as chemical warfare agents in Hitler’s Germany. Less than a spoonful of the pesticide spilled on the skin could be deadly, says the EPA.

Even though California had long imposed restrictions on its use--requiring applicators to have permits and demonstrate knowledge of safety procedures--more than 600 possible cases of Phosdrin-related illness were reported in less than a decade, according to state figures.

Despite the pleas of Chavez and others, federal and state regulators did not move to ban Phosdrin from the marketplace until after 26 farm workers mixing and spraying the pesticide in Washington state apple orchards in 1993 were rushed to hospitals after exposure.

Washington state regulators banned the chemical from use in orchards.

In April, 1994, the Farmworker Justice Fund and the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund asked the EPA to cancel Phosdrin use throughout the United States. Two months later, when it became clear that regulators in California and federal regulators intended to institute a ban, the sole U.S. manufacturer, Amvac Chemical, voluntarily agreed to stop distributing the product in the United States.

Environmentalists were jubilant until they learned of Friday’s decision by the federal government.

The state is considering Amvac’s request to ease some of the restrictions for use of Phosdrin instituted last summer when the company’s voluntary withdrawal plan was announced. State pesticide department Director James W. Wells agrees with Amvac that the California restrictions were “probably too broad brush.”

Although not as intensely toxic as Phosdrin, the pesticide Telone II also has a history of controversy.

It is one of a dwindling number of chemicals used to kill microscopic worms called nematodes in the soil before planting, particularly of root crops such as carrots, sugar beets and potatoes.

In 1977, state scientists first uncovered studies suggesting that the main ingredient (1,3 dichloropropene) might cause cancer.

Based on animal studies, the federal EPA now lists the chemical as “a probable human carcinogen.”

A series of spills in the 1970s raised questions about the safety of handling the material. A pesticide department risk assessment of Telone II points out that two of nine firefighters involved in one cleanup developed lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph system, several years after exposure.

Nevertheless, the pesticide remained in use until April, 1990, when air samples gathered by the state Air Resources Board showed heavy concentrations of Telone at five sampling sites in Merced County, including schools--levels that over a lifetime of exposure could significantly increase the risk of cancer.

Now, after extensive testing by manufacturer DowElanco, the state pesticide department has approved resumption of use but with several restrictions. In a calendar year, only 21,250 acres could be treated, divided among 13 counties--including Kern, Riverside, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. That’s one-eighth of the acreage treated before the ban.

Applicators will be required to use smaller amounts and inject them deeper into the soil than in the past.

DowElanco, the world’s fifth-largest producer of agricultural chemicals, insists that these and other restrictions will greatly reduce any health risks to farm workers and the general public when sales resume later this winter.

“We’ve invested $5 million as well as a lot of time and manpower in doing additional research,” said Steve Gehrls, a spokesman for the company. “We feel we are ensuring maximum protection of both the public and the users of Telone II.”

State pesticide chief Wells said the new conditions would keep Telone at safe levels. “Everything has some risk. We mitigate to allow acceptable use,” he said.

The pesticide department’s assessment of the health risks of Telone, even with the new restrictions, shows that the permissible levels of the pesticide would require health warnings up to a third of a mile from a treated field.

After reviewing the official assessment for The Times, William Pease, a research toxicologist at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, said, “It’s a mystery to me why they are allowing its use.”

Unlike most decisions to permit and withdraw a pesticide, the decision to allow resumption of Telone was made with no formal public notifications of the proposal or public discussions.

Officials with the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment refused to release to The Times their detailed reviews of the DowElanco proposal.

A two-page summary by the office’s interim director, Dr. James W. Stratton, praises DowElanco’s efforts to predict human exposure to Telone and minimizes the risks to the public. Nonetheless, he concludes: “Longer term, we should continue the search for, and encouragement of, safer alternatives.”

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