Health vs. Profits: A Showdown : State Senate is due to vote today on controversial farm pesticide

Californians should learn today just how their lawmakers balance known public health risks against agricultural profits. The full Senate is scheduled to vote on legislation to lift a ban on the use of the pesticide methyl bromide due to take effect at the end of March. The Assembly has already passed a similar bill.

Methyl bromide is a fumigant used to kill insects, weeds and diseases on more than 118 crops, including many staples of California agriculture. It is so toxic that overexposure when the gas is being applied can cause vomiting, loss of muscle control and other ailments, and exposure to the liquid form causes severe skin burns. Because methyl bromide also damages the Earth’s ozone layer, the federal government has banned its use nationally by the year 2001 and an international agreement limits its use worldwide by 2010.

California law originally banned the use of methyl bromide by 1991 unless pesticide makers could prove it was not dangerous to consumers who ate treated produce. At the request of growers, that ban was delayed until next month because the necessary tests were incomplete. They are still incomplete, and now growers, with the backing of Gov. Pete Wilson, want a two-year extension.

Growers argue that there are few substitutes for methyl bromide and that without it California agriculture would suffer enormous financial loss.

A compromise proposal to be placed before the Senate would address both the growers’ economic concerns and consumers’ health concerns. The compromise, in the form of amendments drafted by Sens. Nicholas Petris and Richard Polanco, would delay the ban. It would also allow localities to establish buffer zones and make other arrangements to protect nearby residents, schoolchildren and hospital patients from exposure when methyl bromide is applied to fields. It would fund new research into methyl bromide alternatives and require a gradual transition from use of the pesticide between now and 2001.

These are moderate steps; they permit the pesticide’s continued use but make its elimination, as required by state, federal and international law, feasible and more likely. Lawmakers who dismiss them lose all claim to represent the welfare of their constituents.