Agency’s Regulation of Pesticide Criticized

The state agency responsible for protecting the public from potent pesticide methyl bromide has failed to do its job, routinely allowing residents in Ventura County and in farm areas throughout the state to be exposed to dangerous levels of the poisonous vapor, an environmental watchdog group reported Tuesday.

In its third study on the highly toxic cropland fumigant, the Environmental Working Group leveled new criticisms against Gov. Pete Wilson and the state Department of Pesticide Regulation for allegedly allowing California farmers to continue to use millions of pounds of the pesticide each year under safety standards that are far too lax.

“The evidence shows clearly that the state of California is not doing an adequate job of protecting its residents from exposure from this hazardous pesticide,” said Bill Walker, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based think tank that focuses primarily on pesticide issues.

In tests over the last year, the environmental group found methyl bromide vapors in 12 suburban neighborhoods in five counties, with by far the highest reading on a quiet east Ventura street next to a strawberry field and adjacent to a day care center.

There, the report said, methyl bromide levels averaged 294 parts per billion over 12 hours last August, compared to a state safety standard of 210 parts per billion over 24 hours.

State officials said there was no health hazard, but a spokesman for the environmental group said Tuesday that the state standard is too high and shows more concern for the health of agribusiness than for residents.

“I think the broadest conclusion to be drawn from the report,” Walker said, “is that Gov. Wilson and the DPR have repeatedly ignored evidence, departed from sound scientific practices and improperly intervened in the regulatory process to make sure that methyl bromide is not regulated in its agricultural applications as a cause of birth defects.”

Methyl bromide is a highly volatile and widely used pesticide, most commonly sprayed in strawberry fields but also used on vegetables, in plant nurseries and to fumigate crops for export.

In strawberry fields, it is injected about 18 inches into the soil, then covered with a plastic tarp for at least five days to contain the chemical’s toxic fumes. It was used on about 4,500 acres of strawberries in Ventura County in 1995, for example.

The chemical will be banned nationwide in 2001 because it depletes the Earth’s ozone layer. A California ban was sidestepped last March after Wilson, citing job and economic losses, asked the Legislature to extend the chemical’s use for two years even though mandatory health studies have not been completed.

State officials said the newest report criticizing the chemical, which will be formally released today, is apparently based on misinformation, faulty assumptions and bad science.

While the environmental group insisted that Wilson exempted methyl bromide in farming from the strict regulations of a 1986 statewide toxic substance control measure, an administration spokesman said Wilson was not involved in that 1994 decision.

“The governor never played a role,” said Dan Pellissier, spokesman for Cal/EPA. “A committee of seven scientists unanimously made that decision.”

And officials from the Department of Pesticide Regulation said they did not know what to make of the new report.

“All this goes back to the same problem we had with them last time,” said Paul Gosselin, a top state pesticide control official, referring to the group’s report on high pesticide vapor levels in Ventura last summer. “They’re either trying to purposely mislead, or they don’t take the time or don’t understand the science.”

California does more than any other jurisdiction to protect its citizens from methyl bromide, he insisted.

“To make the assertion that we have not [properly] regulated methyl bromide is ludicrous,” Gosselin said. “We have the strictest exposure standards anywhere in the world. . . . And I really want to know what data we’ve covered up.”

Meanwhile, Ventura County Supervisor Susan Lacey said she is still concerned about the heavy use of methyl bromide in local fields, and was herself disappointed recently when state officials refused her request to test extensively in east Ventura to assuage the residents, some of whom reported dizziness and nausea from the pesticide last summer.

“We had hoped that they would be more concerned about the requests from people who wanted to know precisely how this might imperil their families,” Lacey said. “Our request was to come down and relieve their concerns. That didn’t happen.”

Gosselin said state officials do plan to return to Ventura to test for methyl bromide this summer, but could not commit to extensive testing in the area.

The new Environmental Working Group study--its third in a year on methyl bromide hazards in California--was completed as a state Senate committee is set to investigate Monday allegations that researchers in the scientific arm of Cal/EPA were ordered last year to shred documents that contradicted the state’s official position on methyl bromide safety. The Department of Pesticide Regulation is part of Cal/EPA.

“Every time a study has pointed the way to imposing some kind of stricter health standard,” Walker maintained, “they either ignored the evidence, covered up the evidence or tampered with the methodology in order to conduct sham science to attempt to prove their contention that the stuff was safe for use.”

Specifically, the environmental group’s 31-page report maintains that the Department of Pesticide Regulation imposes a methyl bromide safety standard for agricultural uses that is four times weaker than recommended by federal public health officials--and that the agency has ignored recommendations from its own scientists to toughen standards to protect children.

But Gosselin said that the environmental group is mistaken because the lower standards were for exposure over one week, not over one day. “So what they’re doing is comparing apples and oranges,” he said.

In turn, environmental group analyst Kert Davies said Gosselin is just wrong. And he cited a February 1992 state memo to prove one point and a March 1996 federal memo to support the other.

“We stand by our report,” he said.

The report also says that the pesticide regulation agency’s formula for calculating the dangers of methyl bromide is faulty since it assumes that weather and soil conditions are the same throughout the state.

Gosselin said that typical weather and soil conditions were figured for the state model from which standards were developed, but that a wide variety of conditions were considered before settling on the formula.

“The bottom line for us is that we went back out to see if those modeling conditions were accurate, and on every one they were 25% more protective than what the field data showed,” the official said.

Another principal problem with the way the state regulates methyl bromide in agriculture, the study said, is that the method it uses to measure pesticide vapors fails to detect more than half of it.

But Gosselin said that his agency uses a testing method that detects 70% to 80% of the pesticide’s vapor. “And we have the data to back it up,” he said. “I’d love to see what their sources are, but they haven’t brought that up in all the discussions we’ve had with them about methodology.”