County Urged to Boost Monitoring of Pesticide Laws

Anti-pesticide groups are urging Ventura County officials to step up enforcement of laws to protect farm workers, citing a new study that concludes local laborers have experienced a rash of pesticide poisonings in recent years.

As part of a series of press conferences staged throughout the state Wednesday, local farm-worker advocates and environmentalists gathered at a north Oxnard spinach field to unveil the 50-page report, “Fields of Poison: California Farmworkers and Pesticides.”

The report ranks Ventura County 11th of the state’s 58 counties in number of agriculture-related pesticide poisonings.

Ventura County reported 119 cases between 1991 and 1996. Neighboring Kern County had the most in that period with 534.

The report also concludes that counties with the highest levels of pesticide use and the most reports of pesticide-related illnesses issue the fewest fines for safety violations.

And it singles out the controversy swirling in Ventura County, where Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail is under fire by critics who charge his department is not adequately enforcing pesticide regulations.

The report notes that the state Department of Pesticide Regulation has documented several instances in the past six years in which the county agency has failed to complete investigations in a timely manner and issue fines for serious or repeat violations.

“The Ventura County agricultural commissioner’s lack of enforcement of pesticide violations is like handing out ‘Please drive safely’ letters to reckless drivers,” said Lolita Echeverria, who coordinates the Central Coast Environmental Health Project for the Ventura office of the Environmental Defense Center.

“The agricultural commissioner needs to remember that agribusiness is not his sole constituent,” she said. “His constituents include farm workers and the community as a whole.”

Agricultural groups criticized the report, saying it fails to break new ground or give growers any credit for efforts to improve worker safety.

For his part, McPhail maintains that his office has done a good job regulating pesticides and responding to concerns despite being short-staffed. Four employees are dedicated exclusively to pesticide enforcement. And he has asked county supervisors for money to hire four additional inspectors in the next fiscal year.

“It’s the same old stuff they have said over and over again,” McPhail said of the report. “I don’t think there is anything in there that the agricultural industry doesn’t already know or doesn’t try to address on a daily basis.”

The report is the latest in a series of studies released by environmental groups in recent years documenting the heavy use of potentially dangerous pesticides in Ventura County fields, especially around Oxnard and El Rio.

A study released last year concluded that Ventura County residents risk more exposure to highly toxic airborne pesticides than those in all but two other California counties--suburban Orange and agricultural Fresno counties.

The study released Wednesday was compiled by a coalition of groups including the United Farm Workers union and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

Cesar Hernandez, who represents the legal assistance foundation, noted that Ventura County issued more than 7,200 pesticide use permits in a six-year period ending in 1996, but levied only 33 fines--totaling less than $10,500--for pesticide safety violations.

In fiscal year 1996-97, the latest year for which such information is available, four fines were levied for a total of $1,100.

Agricultural groups cite the low number of violations as evidence that the majority of growers are safely applying pesticides.

But Hernandez said he believes that there is something else at work.

“What it all boils down to is a blatant lack of enforcement,” he said. “And if growers know they can get away with these things, then there is no incentive to follow the law.”

* POISON REPORT: Study says farm workers are inadequately protected from pesticide poisonings. A3