Curbs Ordered on Methyl Bromide Use

Foes of methyl bromide won a key victory this week when a Superior Court judge ordered the state to adopt new regulations governing use of the highly toxic pest killer.

The ruling Thursday resolves a lawsuit brought by environmentalists who accused state officials of endangering public health by failing to sufficiently control methyl bromide use on farms.

It also adds momentum to a growing movement to ban the colorless gas used by growers to sterilize the soil before planting.

Industrialized nations have agreed by international treaty to outlaw use of the ozone-depleting chemical beginning in 2005, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered that a gradual phase-out begin next year.

In California, the nation’s leading user of methyl bromide, efforts to ban it have sputtered in the Legislature. But experts called this week’s court decision a significant blow to the chemical’s continued use.

“It signals the beginning of the end for methyl bromide,” said attorney Vic Sher, who represented the four environmental groups that filed the lawsuit. “The evidence is overwhelming that it’s time to give up methyl bromide and move on to alternatives.”

Methyl bromide is used to cleanse the soil of insects, mites, rodents and weeds before planting. It is most commonly applied to strawberry fields but is also used by growers of almonds, vegetables and grapes and to fumigate crops before export.

While highly effective against pests, it is extremely poisonous to humans. About 18 million pounds of methyl bromide were used by California farmers in 1995, the last year for which data are available.

The lawsuit accused the state Department of Pesticide Regulation of violating a 1989 law that required it to develop regulations for the chemical.

Instead, the department drafted more than 400 pages of “guidelines” enforced by county agricultural commissioners, who issue permits to growers who use the chemical.

Critics said the guidelines gave commissioners too much discretion and failed to keep the gas from drifting off fields. Lynda Uvari of Ventura said her family was poisoned by fumes from a strawberry crop that abutted her house in 1996. She said she complained to the local commissioner, who decided the protections were adequate.

Department officials had no comment on the court ruling Friday, but in the past they have defended their approach, saying the guidelines allow for more stringent control than a one-size-fits-all regulation would achieve.

And growers say California has tougher rules for methyl bromide than any other state.

“We have much stricter controls--we have buffer zones, we have very tough air monitoring requirements,” said Cindy Jewell, vice president of the California Strawberry Commission. “I haven’t seen any evidence that the department is allowing anything that’s unsafe.”

The brief order mandating regulations came from San Francisco Superior Court Judge David A. Garcia. Michael Axline, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said the department will be required to hold public hearings on the chemical while drafting the new rules.

Axline said environmentalists are pressing for a suspension of methyl bromide use until the regulations are complete, but Garcia made no ruling on that.

Since 1982, officials have linked nearly 500 poisonings to the pesticide, most involving farm workers. There were 19 deaths, all of them involving people who entered fumigated buildings.

In agriculture, methyl bromide is typically injected about one foot deep in the soil by crews who cover the field with tarps to keep the gas from escaping. Poisonings typically occur when the gas leaks out prematurely.

Last year, legislation by then-Assemblywoman Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont) to mandate 1,000-foot buffer zones around schools died in an Assembly committee. Now a state senator, Figueroa may revisit the issue this year.