State OKs Use of Pesticide in Camarillo Field

Despite continued protests by nearby residents, state regulators ruled Thursday that a Camarillo strawberry farmer can inject the toxic pesticide methyl bromide into a field about two football fields away from a 400-resident mobile home park.

The state Department of Pesticide Regulation notified residents of the Lamplighter Mobile Home Park late Thursday that grower Charles Nakama can inject a 10-acre field with methyl bromide as soon as Wednesday.

But officials also said they will monitor the potency of pesticide vapors at 17 locations around the field to determine whether they pose a health risk to neighbors.

In the letter to homeowners, state officials noted that the 550-foot buffer zone between the field and mobile home park is 18 times greater than the 30-foot minimum required by state law.

Lamplighter park residents said they are not pleased with the decision, and their attorney said he might file a lawsuit to halt use of the potent fumigant in the Camarillo field.

“If they’re going to be testing to determine the levels of methyl bromide, they should do it in an unpopulated area,” said Marc Chytilo, supervising attorney at the Environmental Defense Center in Santa Barbara. “They shouldn’t do it in an area where you have as many sensitive people as we do here.”

The Lamplighter park has 93 residents who are senior citizens, 94 who have allergies, 56 preschool children, 54 people with respiratory ailments and four who are on oxygen machines, Chytilo said.

Issuance of a county permit to use methyl bromide may be appealed to the state. Both residents of the Lamplighter park and an east Ventura neighborhood have appealed permits granted to farmers who wanted to inject the fumigant this month.

On Thursday, Chytilo criticized the state for ruling on only the 10-acre parcel in the middle of a 90-acre property on which Nakama hopes to plant strawberries. That larger field abuts the mobile home park and, under state law, Nakama could use methyl bromide within 30 feet of the residential property once his pesticide permit is granted.

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By ruling on Nakama’s application piece by piece, Chytilo said, county Agricultural Commissioner W. Earl McPhail and the state are requiring residents to appeal time after time.

Jo Ann Van Reenan, spokeswoman for park residents, said she is suspicious of the state’s decision.

“It still doesn’t say how close they’re going to be to us eventually,” she said. “It sounds like an interim step to do what they want to do despite our concerns.”

No decision has been made on the use of methyl bromide on the rest of the Nakama field or the field in east Ventura, where residents complained last summer of being sickened when vapors spread into their homes.

Paul Gosselin, assistant director of the Department of Pesticide Regulation, said he does not know how soon the state will rule on homeowner protests against use of methyl bromide on the rest of the Nakama field. Since McPhail has not issued a permit there, the state has not decided the matter.

Nor could Gosselin say how quickly the state will rule on the appeal of homeowners who live near the Ventura strawberry field. Many of them complained of dizziness, vomiting and nausea after the 86-acre field was fumigated a year ago.

State officials held two hearings last week to listen to concerns by hundreds of residents who live near the fields in Ventura and Camarillo.

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Gosselin said the state’s authority on the issue is limited.

After the county agricultural commissioner approves a pesticide permit, Gosselin said, the state can review it only to determine three things: whether the permit follows state regulations, whether the commissioner considered local conditions when issuing the permit and whether the commissioner used appropriate discretion when granting the permit.

“We found that all of those things were considered with this permit,” Gosselin said. “The conditions [in the permit] even go beyond the conditions recommended in law.”

Methyl bromide is a highly volatile and widely used pesticide, most commonly applied in strawberry fields, where it is injected about 18 inches into the soil. It is then covered with a plastic tarp for at least five days to contain the toxic chemical fumes.

The pesticide is used on about 4,500 acres of strawberries in Ventura County.