State Senate OKs Continued Use of Hazardous Pesticide

Clearing the way for likely enactment into law, the state Senate on Thursday passed legislation prolonging the use of the toxic pesticide methyl bromide over millions of California farm acres.

A bill allowing continued application of the chemical at least until the end of 1997 was approved on a 22-11 vote and now heads for the Assembly, where proponents say passage as early as next week is all but assured. A similar measure passed in the Republican-dominated lower house last month.

Gov. Pete Wilson is expected to sign the Senate bill promptly once he receives it, culminating a campaign begun by Wilson when he called the Legislature into special session in December to beat a March 30 ban on further use of methyl bromide.

On Thursday, opponents of the bill by Sen. Henry J. Mello (D-Watsonville) waged an intense but losing floor fight trying to slap new controls on the chemical. They maintained the controls were needed to reduce methyl bromide’s health and environmental dangers.

But they were outvoted by 16 Republicans and six Democrats, who said California’s vast agricultural industry would suffer a loss of $350 million and 10,000 jobs if methyl bromide were outlawed.

Amendments calling for wider buffer zones between gassed farm fields and homes and schools, for notification of residents before the chemical’s injection into the soil and for phasing out use of the pesticide in coming years all failed.

The odorless, colorless gas is most heavily used to sterilize soil before planting. It is acknowledged as highly toxic to humans, attacking the central nervous and respiratory systems with consequences ranging from temporary sickness to death depending on the extent of exposure.

Additionally, methyl bromide has been identified as a powerful depleter of the protective ozone layer in the stratosphere. Because of that threat, a federal ban on the chemical is set for 2001--although environmentalists fear it will be delayed just as California is doing--and an international ban is in place for 2010.

But supporters said that for California to ban methyl bromide now would be placing the state at a competitive disadvantage.

Sen. Dick Montieth (R-Modesto) said countries with scant restraints on use of the chemical would capture California’s overseas markets for fruits and vegetables. The state would suffer at the hands of “Third [World] nations . . . where perhaps life is not as valued,” he said.

To opponents’ charges that methyl bromide usage threatens health, Mello said that banning the chemical, restricting use or enacting new safeguards “are not needed.”

Mello said he has invited urban district lawmakers to his district in Monterey County to observe safety measures used in its application on strawberry fields, which receive 80% or more of the 7,000 tons of methyl bromide used every year in California.

Trained crews inject the chemical 18 inches into the soil, then spread a tarp over the fields, Mello said. Until the fumes dissipate, he said, “security guards patrol the perimeters” to keep people a safe distance away.