Group Accuses State in Woman’s Poisoning Death

State officials knew that a pesticide used to fumigate homes could travel through pipes to neighboring buildings at least a year before a Toluca Lake woman was fatally poisoned in such an incident, a group that favors banning the pesticide said Tuesday.

A state report dated March 20, 1996, included the conclusion that a “fumigant may travel through the sewer system to neighboring houses” if the system is not filled with liquid, said Bill Walker, a representative for the Environmental Working Group, which opposes the use of methyl bromide.

“They did nothing with this information,” Walker said of state officials. “They failed to do their duties.”

But state officials said the finding in the report had nothing in common with the Toluca Lake case, which did not involve sewer pipes.

Also, officials said, the circumstances leading to the finding, which involved vacant homes at a closed military base in Sacramento, were so unusual that there was no cause for alarm. Residences that are occupied maintain water in the plumbing system and that serves as a barrier to fumes, officials said.

“That’s definitely an anomaly,” said John Donahue, a branch chief with the state Department of Pesticide Regulation. “That is not what you would find in a typical house.”

Still, the report and the March 25 death of Sandra Mero, an entertainment company employee, are again generating debate over methyl bromide, which will be outlawed by 2010 in the United States and other countries.

Citing the Mero case, the Los Angeles City Council last month asked the state to impose tougher inspection and notification procedures and help ensure that effective odor-warning agents are used with the pesticide.

Methyl bromide fumes attack the central nervous and respiratory systems and cause dizziness, vomiting and disorientation.

Mero, 36, died in a Burbank hospital two weeks after she fell into a coma following fumigation of a building next to her home. The cause of death was methyl bromide poisoning.

A lawsuit filed by Mero’s mother in April alleged that methyl bromide seeped into Mero’s home through pipes from an adjacent building. The pipes apparently had been used years earlier to carry electrical and speaker wires between two buildings. The defendants in the lawsuit include the firms that manufactured and applied the pesticide.

Larry Feldman, the lawyer representing Mero’s mother, Violet Cornwall, said Tuesday that the hazards of methyl bromide have been known for years. The state may be responsible for sharing its findings with the public, but those who use the chemical ultimately are to blame when something goes wrong, he said.

“I think everyone knew about the potential for the deadly gas to escape through crevices and open air and open pipes,” Feldman said. “Exterminators need to take precautions to make sure it doesn’t escape.”

Opponents of the pesticide say it damages the Earth’s ozone layer. Some also say the chemical is dangerous to farm laborers who work with it and harvest crops in fields where it has been injected into the soil.

But representatives of the pest control and agriculture industries maintain a ban would cause millions of dollars in increased costs for extermination and put crops at risk.

Meanwhile, the district attorney’s office declined to prosecute the pest control firm in the Mero case due to “inadequate showing of gross negligence.”

Donahue said Tuesday that stricter regulations remained under consideration.

Feldman said the ongoing debate has done little to soothe Mero’s mother.

“It’s very painful for the mother,” he said. “I don’t think you ever get over losing a child. It’s not supposed to be that way.”