Grand Jury Probes Use of Methyl Bromide

The Ventura County Grand Jury is investigating whether continued use of the highly toxic pesticide methyl bromide exposes local residents to dangerous levels of the poisonous vapor as it drifts from strawberry fields to nearby homes.

A grand jury committee is set to meet next week with environmental attorneys, health experts and residents of an east Ventura neighborhood who say they were sickened last summer when high levels of the potent fumigant wafted from an adjacent field, officials at the Environmental Defense Center confirmed Thursday.

“The grand jury’s County Services Committee is doing an inquiry into the use of methyl bromide in Ventura County and its dangers to farm workers and residents who live near the fields,” said Lori Schiraga, spokeswoman at EDC’s Santa Barbara office.

The group, critical of methyl-bromide use near homes, has been invited to make presentations Thursday, Schiraga said. Witnesses will include a doctor who treated victims of methyl bromide in 1992 after a portion of south Oxnard was evacuated because residents living near strawberry fields became sick, she said.

A meteorologist will also describe how varying weather conditions--such as windless nights common in Ventura County during summer’s peak methyl-bromide application periods--can determine whether pesticide vapors linger or evaporate quickly.

And child-care center operator Ralli West, who temporarily moved her business last summer after suffering nausea and dizziness during methyl-bromide spraying, said she intends to turn over a list of at least 20 people in her neighborhood who say they were sickened when the potent fumigant blew over their homes in August.

West, whose backyard abuts a strawberry field, said she suffered headaches, stomachaches and raw throat, and was left with a dry metallic taste in her mouth for days. She saw a doctor twice, but was told that it is difficult to trace such common symptoms directly to methyl bromide.

At least two neighbor children also suffered severe diarrhea and vomiting during that period, she said.

“It’s my understanding from my doctor that it’s difficult to confine symptoms such as headache, dizziness, loss of appetite and fatigue to one thing because they are so common,” she said. “But I’m sure we were reacting to chloropicrin the first few hours and methyl bromide after that.”

Chloropicrin, a type of tear gas, is a so-called warning agent mixed with the odorless methyl bromide in agricultural use so that the fumigant can be detected and poisonous conditions avoided.

Dr. Gary Feldman, the county’s public health officer, reported last year that he had communicated with several physicians who treated people from West’s neighborhood and had been unable to confirm that methyl bromide caused their illnesses. In fact, three physicians told him that they did not think the illnesses could be attributed to the pesticide.

He said the state needs to do more studies to resolve whether methyl bromide is making people ill.

West and Schiraga also said they will tell grand jurors that county Agricultural Commissioner W. Earl McPhail’s investigation into residents’ complaints was insufficient.

“I think there is an issue that the ag commissioner did not do his job,” Schiraga said. “He didn’t thoroughly investigate the situation. He should have talked to the people who were exposed. And I have yet to talk to a person who got a phone call from him or his office.”

Grand jurors have already talked to McPhail, as well as several growers, about the safety of methyl bromide, Schiraga said a grand juror told her when inviting the environmental group to organize a presentation. McPhail could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The grand jury’s inquiry comes as part of its legal mandate to monitor local government and analyze important community issues. It is not a criminal investigation.

The agricultural commissioner’s office serves as the local watchdog over pesticide use, including the injection of methyl bromide on about 4,500 acres of strawberry fields.

Previously, McPhail has said his office investigated the August incident thoroughly and found no problems with the way that methyl bromide was applied in West’s Lemur Avenue neighborhood, and no provable health problems. The grower applied the chemical by the book, he said.

“Talking to medical professionals, as far as we’re concerned, there still hasn’t been any exposure to cause a health problem here. We really don’t feel there was a problem here,” he said last summer.

McPhail and state pesticide regulation officials maintain that methyl bromide is strongly regulated in California and poses no health threat to farm workers or residents if it is applied properly.

It is a highly volatile pesticide most commonly used in strawberry fields but also 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 vapors.

The chemical will be banned nationwide in 2001 because it depletes the Earth’s ozone layer. A California ban was sidestepped in March, 1996, after Gov. Pete Wilson, citing job and economic losses, asked the Legislature to extend the chemical’s use for two years even though mandatory health studies had not been completed.

A Washington-based environmental think tank reported last week that the state agency responsible for protecting the public from methyl bromide has failed to do its job--allowing application at unsafe levels and not properly monitoring fields to see if health risks exist.

The group said that in tests over the last year, it had found methyl-bromide vapors in 12 suburban neighborhoods in five California counties, with by far the highest reading on West’s quiet east Ventura street.

There, the report said, methyl-bromide levels averaged 294 parts per billion over 12 hours in August, compared to a state safety standard of 210 ppb over 24 hours. State officials blasted the study as sloppy and bad science.

State officials have said they do not know of a single case where residents near a California field have been sickened by agricultural uses of methyl bromide without a mistake being made by a grower.

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

Eighteen people have died from methyl-bromide exposure since 1982, authorities have said. But all the deaths have been from the fumigant’s use on houses to kill insects.