Use of Powerful Insecticide Fills Air With Controversy

Even before Sandra Mero of Toluca Lake fell into a coma after alleged exposure to the fumigant methyl bromide, the highly toxic chemical was the center of a storm of controversy involving environmentalists, scientists, politicians and the agriculture and pesticide industries.

The compound, used on farms to fumigate strawberry fields and in cities to kill termites, is scheduled to be banned worldwide in 2001 because it damages the protective ozone layer, but remains in use in California, where farm and chemical interests are lobbying hard to keep it legal.

Ironically, methyl bromide might not have been available for use March 8 when Mero was stricken had state lawmakers and Gov. Pete Wilson not intervened last year to prevent suspension of the chemical’s use.

Methyl bromide kills an average of one person per year in Los Angeles County, according to a top county pesticide regulator, most of them burglars or transients who enter houses that are being fumigated.

Over the years, hundreds of injuries have been attributed to its use on farms. Mero, 36, appears to have been poisoned in her own home, which was connected by several pipes to a nearby building that was being fumigated. She remained in critical condition Saturday night at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.

City Councilman John Ferraro has demanded an investigation into Mero’s case, and said Friday that he would ask the council to support better regulation of the chemical if it is proven to have caused Mero’s condition. County health officials are examining the case, as are state regulators.

“It’s tragic, but it often takes a person with a name and face and a connection to a community to bring home what the issues are,” said environmentalist Bill Walker, spokesman for the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that has sought to ban methyl bromide.

Mero’s case “underscores for people just how dangerous this pesticide is,” Walker said. “It’s very volatile and it’s very hard to control.”

Two bills regarding the regulation and possible ban of the compound are expected to come before the state Legislature this year, and a Ventura County Grand Jury is studying its impact on homes, schools and day-care centers that are near strawberry fields where the chemical is used.

Just last week, a key panel of scientists demanded that state regulators improve their methods for measuring methyl bromide in the air and consider restrictions on the chemical’s use.

Still, political views on methyl bromide are so deeply entrenched that Mero’s case has done little to change the views on either side: Environmentalists say tragedies like Mero’s are inevitable, and accuse the Wilson administration of doing an inadequate job of regulation; regulators and agricultural interests say her condition is a fluke, caused because exterminators did not know that her house was connected to a building that was being fumigated.

“Something went wrong,” said Jim Wells, director of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. “There are thousands of methyl bromide applications across the country, and people are not made ill.

“Methyl bromide is an acutely toxic pesticide. . . . That’s why it is a home fumigant and that’s why we’re so careful about how we control its use,” he said.

He compared Mero’s situation to the cases of people who are killed by carbon monoxide poisoning from kerosene heaters. “I don’t think you should use [Mero’s case] to ban methyl bromide just like you wouldn’t ban all use of kerosene heaters,” Wells said. “These things are all accidents.”

The pest control and agriculture industries have long argued for methyl bromide’s continued use, saying a ban would result in millions of dollars in increased costs for termite extermination and put crops at risk.

Bowing to those concerns in a special session called by the governor last year, the Legislature gave methyl bromide manufacturers a grace period to complete health studies mandated by state law. Without the extension, methyl bromide use would have been suspended for failure to complete the studies on time.

“We have very strict regulations in California on how and where methyl bromide can be used,” said Bob Krauter, spokesman for the California Farm Bureau, a business group. “We have very good safety records.”

The state requires a buffer zone of 30 feet between private homes and fields where methyl bromide is applied. In 1991, the state required that concentrations of the fumigant be lowered when it is used for termite control in buildings, and it now is used in only about 15% of structural fumigation.

But some lawmakers, environmentalists and a panel of the state’s top scientists have questioned whether the Department of Pesticide Regulation has done enough.

“I am concerned about the situation where methyl bromide fumigations occur very close to schools and homes,” said James Pitts, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California at Irvine who chairs the California Scientific Review Panel for Toxic Contaminants.

Last Wednesday, Pitts said, state regulators presented the group with a list of contaminants scheduled for review and possible elimination in California, and methyl bromide was very low on the list. The panel, which is set up to review the scientific grounds for conclusions made by regulators, asked that the fumigant be made a priority.

“I felt that methyl bromide should be very high on that list,” Pitts said.

Assemblyman Fred Keeley (D-Boulder Creek) has held up hearings on the pesticide regulation department’s budget in a key Assembly subcommittee that he chairs. “I’m holding up their budget until I become convinced they’re doing a better job,” Keeley said in a telephone interview.

“I’m concerned about their pesticide monitoring program” and compliance with Proposition 65, which requires warnings to the public about hazardous substances.

Keeley said he is opposed to a plan to phase out a tax on the chemical industry that supports pesticide regulation, arguing that the money could be used to seek alternatives to methyl bromide. He plans to introduce a bill to continue the tax, which is scheduled to be eliminated under a sunset provision later this year.

State Sen. Byron Sher (D-Stanford) recently held oversight hearings on the pesticide agency, and will soon introduce legislation to restrict use of methyl bromide, according to Kip Lipper, Sher’s chief of staff.

“There’s a big storm brewing,” Lipper said. “There’s a lot of concern specifically related to methyl bromide. You have a very clear conflict between the people who use this pesticide and those who feel state controls don’t adequately protect people.”