Assembly OKs Continued Use of Pesticide

Despite warnings of a health hazard, Assembly Republicans and a handful of Democrats approved legislation on a 45-28 vote that would allow the continued use of the highly toxic pesticide methyl bromide by California farmers and home fumigators.

The measure moves to the state Senate, where it is expected to pass, and then be signed by Gov. Pete Wilson, allowing the widely applied agricultural pest killer to be used for at least two more years. Senate committee hearings on the bill begin next week.

Without legislation prolonging permission to use methyl bromide gas, its users are facing a March 30 deadline that could mean a cutoff of their supplies. To keep tons of the chemical flowing to millions of acres of farmland, legislators are intermittently taking time off from regular business and going into special session, ordered by the Republican governor, to act on the issue--and argue heatedly.

Assemblyman Anthonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) sought adoption Tuesday of an amendment to mandate greater distances between fields that are being treated and schools, homes and day-care centers “to protect the citizens of California, especially our children, from the life-threatening effects of this poisonous gas.” But he failed.

In a 1990 study, state health officials said overexposure to methyl bromide gas can cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, loss of muscle control and blurred vision. Exposure to liquid methyl bromide causes severe skin burns.

The state Department of Pesticide Regulation--while declaring the chemical safe if handled properly--lists 454 illnesses caused by exposure to the pesticide between 1982 and 1993.

Eighteen deaths have resulted from methyl bromide exposure, department officials report, but they say all were people who trespassed into tented homes that were being fumigated for termites.

Replying to Democratic charges of an unacceptable health hazard from the chemical, Assemblyman Jim Battin (R-Palm Desert) said it is “governed by very strict standards of use and . . . shame on you to frighten and raise the levels of hysteria on the people of California.”

Republican defenders of the chemical said the health risks were far outweighed by a $346-million economic disaster in crop losses that would befall California if it became the only state to ban methyl bromide.

The loss of about 9,800 jobs from withdrawal of the pesticide from the market “is a fact,” said Assemblyman Bernie Richter (R-Chico), just as it is a fact that, contrary to opponents’ charges, “there is no known, practical alternative” for farmers to fall back on.

Whatever the benefits to agriculture, said Democrat Tom Bates of Berkeley, methyl bromide represents a worldwide threat by its ability to damage the Earth’s protective ozone layer “in a manner that almost no other chemical does.”

It is a “deadly killer,” Bates said. “It kills farm workers, it kills children potentially nearby, and if it doesn’t do it there, folks, it’ll do it to the air.”

Bates noted that under federal EPA guidelines, methyl bromide is scheduled to be phased out nationwide by 2001 and by international agreements worldwide by 2005. The two extensions the chemical has received in California, he said, “are two too many.”

Villaraigosa’s amendment, and another that would have required more warning before a field is treated, were easily defeated before the final vote on the bill.

Needing 41 votes to pass, the measure by Republican Assemblymen Trice Harvey of Bakersfield and Peter Frusetta of Tres Pinos would have stalled or gone down without five votes delivered by Democrats, mainly those from rural districts or representing coastal port cities where methyl bromide is sprayed on produce for shipping.

The powerful but invisible and odorless gas is used mostly to sterilize soil for crops such as peaches, cherries, grapes and cotton. The highest concentrations are injected into the ground before planting every year to protect against worm infestation of the state’s $634-million strawberry crop.

Lesser amounts are used to fumigate homes against termites and on harvested crops before shipping and--although it is subject to debate--proponents of methyl bromide maintain that about $241 million worth of California farm exports would not be accepted by foreign buyers unless the chemical were applied.

Democratic Assemblywoman Debra Bowen of Marina del Rey noted that the Legislature has been considering controls and waiting for test results on methyl bromide since 1984. Once tests are completed, the pesticide control department is charged with evaluating them and declaring whether the substance should be banned.

Until that day comes, farmers and others are permitted to continue using methyl bromide.

The present legislation would grant the second extension of the testing period, taking the permitted usage period through 1997.

Officials of the pesticide department blame the delay on a mix-up of instructions from state and federal officials to the manufacturers who are conducting the tests.

It was not until two years ago that all parties agreed on how to conduct the last of 10 tests. The 10th, according to pesticide control officials, involves testing chronic effects on laboratory rats and will take two more years to complete--thus the December 1997 termination date of the legislation authorizing continued use of the chemical.