State Investigating Residents’ Complaints of Methyl Bromide Fumes

State pesticide regulators on Thursday began investigating claims by east Ventura residents, including the operator of a child day-care center, that they have been sickened by pesticide vapors drifting from a strawberry field behind their homes.

“This is something we’re really concerned about, and we’re working with the county to follow up on this,” said Paul Gosselin, assistant director of the state Department of Pesticide Regulation. “This is something that is rather unique. If [applicators] were complying with regulations, this shouldn’t have happened.”

County agricultural officials have said that the grower who last week spread powerful fumigant methyl bromide within 25 feet of the back fences of about a dozen Tamarin Avenue homes did nothing wrong.

And if that is true, Gosselin said, the headaches, stomachaches, raw throats and flu-like symptoms residents say they have experienced could prompt stricter guidelines statewide for the use of the highly toxic fumigant.

Methyl bromide is a highly volatile and widely used pesticide, most commonly sprayed in strawberry fields. It is injected about 18 inches into the soil; then the fumigated parcel is immediately covered by a plastic tarp to contain the chemical’s toxic fumes.

“If people are getting ill, that is going to reflect back on the conditions that we’ve placed on methyl bromide,” said Gosselin, who oversees pesticide enforcement and environmental monitoring for his department. “If we find there are problems with the safety conditions, we’ll need to address it by making further changes.”

One change might be to increase the minimum safety zone required between a fumigated field and nearby homes--30 feet in the east Ventura case.

But at least one change already recommended by the state apparently was not followed by the county Agricultural Department in the Tamarin Avenue case.

County Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail said Tuesday that his inquiry into residents’ complaints found that there were 50 feet between the fumigated strawberry field and nearby homes, about half of that distance in backyards.

That met the 30-foot buffer standard adopted to ensure that neighbors are safe from the potent chemical, he said. Backyards can be considered part of the buffer because exposure there is not for long periods of time.

Gosselin said Thursday, however, that an advisory his office sent to all county agricultural commissioners in April recommended that backyards not be included in the required safety zone. That zone should be established by measuring from the farmer’s fence line to the actual fumigation area, he said.

“The DPR recommends adopting the ‘fence line standard’ for all methyl bromide fumigations adjacent to sensitive areas such as residences, schools, hospitals, day cares, and recreational areas,” the April 10 advisory stated. That would “provide an extra measure of confidence in the way pesticides are handled and regulated.”

McPhail could not be reached at his office Thursday afternoon, and a secretary said he was the only official who could comment on the methyl bromide issue.

Raili West, who cares for 12 children at her Tamarin Avenue day care, said McPhail’s apparent failure to follow the state advisory indicates he was not being honest with her when he said the grower operating behind her home followed all regulations.

“He told me they were doing everything by the book, and if he was aware of this, he was lying,” she said. “I asked the ag commissioner how he felt about my children playing in the buffer zone, and he said, ‘Personally, I don’t like it.’ I said, ‘Personally, it’s intolerable.’ ”

West said she has identified seven close neighbors who all suffered similar symptoms in the days after the fumigation last week of a 10-acre field behind their homes.

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West said both she and her husband, Blake, were sickened, and have abandoned their home for the week, renting a camping space at a state park at night and caring for children at the beach, parks and other parents’ homes during the day.

A neighbor, Kim Burris, said Thursday that she has also lived away from her home since Monday, taking her twin 2-year-old daughters to live with their grandmother in Simi Valley after the mother experienced severe head- and stomachaches and diarrhea for days.

“What was so frustrating was that nobody knew what to do to help me,” Burris said. “I called my doctor, and he said he hadn’t had a case like this in 20 years. He recommended that I get in touch with Ventura County Public Health, and they gave me the number for Ventura County Environmental Health. And the guy there said what I should do was pretty much up to my doctor.”

West’s physician, Dr. Fran Larsen of Ventura, said he was not much more helpful and finally recommended that the woman move away from the fields.

“The reason is that if you’re feeling these symptoms and you can’t prove it one way or another, by the time anything happens [with government] it would be years,” Larsen said. “These things take a long time to evolve.”

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The state’s Gosselin said it actually might not take very long for him to respond to the Ventura case if the investigation confirms the illnesses and that they were not from operator error.

Gosselin said that if there were no operator errors, it would be the first time in his knowledge that residents near a California field have been sickened by methyl bromide without a mistake being made by a grower.

He said investigators will contact residents and their doctors.

State figures show that 282 people were injured or sickened by agricultural uses of methyl bromide from 1982 to 1993. Of those, 173 were exposures to farm workers and 109 to nonworkers.

Eighteen people have died from methyl bromide exposure since 1982, authorities said, but all the deaths have been from the fumigant’s use on houses to kill insects. None has been in agriculture.