Residents File Appeal to Halt Fumigation

Fighting the use of the pesticide methyl bromide on a neighboring 90-acre strawberry field, residents of the Lamplighter Mobile Home Estates filed an appeal to halt the fumigation, which is scheduled for Wednesday.

Earl McPhail, Ventura County’s agricultural commissioner, confirmed receiving the appeal Monday, but said he will not make a decision about Wednesday’s fumigation until later today.

The agricultural commission met with the state Department of Pesticide Regulation and county counsel Monday concerning the appeal, McPhail said.

Although the Environmental Protection Agency has already classified the fumigant as an acute toxin that will be banned by 2000, it is still injected into about 4,800 acres of soil each year in Ventura County.

A state Department of Pesticide Regulation study released last week indicated that regulations have been insufficient in some cases to protect people who live adjacent to areas where methyl bromide is used.

Last summer, residents adjacent to strawberry fields complained of burning eyes, nausea, headaches and extreme weakness after the area was fumigated.

The state’s pesticide regulators plan to launch a six-month monitoring program across the state beginning Wednesday. Their first stop was to be in Camarillo, where they agreed to monitor the air once the pesticide had been applied to the field adjacent to the mobile home park to determine whether it poses any health hazards.

McPhail denied a request earlier this month from 30 people living near Montalvo Ranch’s 76-acre farm to not fumigate the east Ventura strawberry field with methyl bromide.

But the Environmental Defense Center filed an appeal with the state’s pesticide regulators, who then imposed an indefinite stay last week on the fumigation plans.