Residents Want Farm’s Pesticide Permit Revoked

In what is believed to be a first of its kind complaint, residents of an east Ventura neighborhood sickened by pesticide fumes last year are challenging a strawberry farmer’s permit to fumigate fields with methyl bromide.

Signed by 18 homeowners, the complaint, mailed to the Ventura County agricultural commissioner’s office Wednesday, comes as the county Planning Commission is set today to consider a new ordinance shielding farmers from residential nuisance complaints.

The complaint seeks to revoke Montalvo Ranch’s permit to fumigate an 86-acre strawberry field off Ramelli Avenue.

The move follows tests conducted last summer by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group that showed vapors from the commonly used but deadly farm fumigant wafted through an east Ventura street at levels exceeding state safety standards.

Some of the homes sit as close as 23 feet to the farm, and residents say fumigation last August caused headaches, stomach aches, sore throats, dizziness and vomiting, and left a dry, metallic taste in their mouths.

They contend that when county agriculture officials renewed the farming company’s annual methyl bromide permit in January, the ability of the pesticide vapors to drift into their neighborhood and cause illness was not properly considered.

“It’s too bad that residents have to take things like this into their own hands and that agencies that should be regulating pesticides are not,” said Lori Schiraga, program coordinator for the Environmental Defense Center, an environmental advocacy group with offices in Santa Barbara and Ventura.

“The permit issued this year is the exact permit issued last year. So there’s no reason to believe [the vapors] won’t happen again,” she said.

Although he has yet to see the eight-page complaint, county Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail said Wednesday that Montalvo Ranch has done nothing wrong, complying with the stiff permit restrictions intended to protect public health. Montalvo officials did not return phone calls Wednesday.

“Nothing’s been done wrong out there and there’s no proof to the otherwise from any source,” McPhail said.

McPhail said that to his knowledge, this is the first challenge to a methyl bromide permit in Ventura County.

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If the permit is not revoked, the residents say they at least want to be notified when the fumigant--widely used in Ventura County to sterilize strawberry fields--is being applied so they can leave their homes. Notifying residents that a field is to be injected with the highly toxic fumigant is not mandatory under state law.

Schiraga said some of the backyards along Ralston Street and Ramelli and Tamarin avenues have been used as buffer zones without the residents’ knowledge, even though the state Department of Pesticide Regulation has recommended against it. Under state law, there must be 30 feet of land between urban areas and fields where methyl bromide is applied.

“If they’re going to use private property as a buffer zone, tell the people so they keep their kids out of the backyard,” she said.

Marty Stanford, whose condominium at the corner of Ralston and Ramelli looks out over the farm, said that during the past two summers she became dizzy and lethargic following application of the fumigant. Last summer, her 8-month-old grandson suffered from vomiting and breathing problems, and medical tests later showed bromide in his bloodstream, she said.

“We don’t want to be exposed to methyl bromide again,” she said. “They [the agricultural commissioner’s office] will continue to take the stand that it doesn’t affect us, it doesn’t affect us, it doesn’t affect us. When it is affecting your own health, they can’t convince you that it isn’t.”

Schiraga said that under state food and agricultural codes, the agricultural commissioner can be asked to suspend, restrict or revoke a permit to use methyl bromide. The office has 10 days to respond, and if the petitioners are not satisfied with a response, they have the right to a hearing before the state Department of Pesticide Regulation.

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Meanwhile, county planning commissioners are scheduled to meet this morning to begin debate on a so-called right-to-farm ordinance.

Proposed by Ventura County Supervisor Judy Mikels last June, the measure is designed to help growers avoid most disputes with residential neighbors.

Specifically, the proposed ordinance would warn nearby residents that farming operations can stink, make noise, require the use of crop dusters, blow dust and involve potentially harmful pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

It would require home sellers to tell prospective buyers about farm nuisances and that such operations are protected against nuisance claims under state law and county zoning ordinances.