Agricultural Commissioner

Re “Agriculture Chief Faces New Round of Criticism,” March 11.

Once again, in the face of valid concerns about the overuse of pesticides, members of the agricultural establishment respond with “California has the strictest pesticide regulations in the world.”

In other words, “Just trust us.”

Chemicals obey the laws of physics, not the laws of the state of California. And now we learn that those “strict regulations” are not even being enforced by the office of the Ventura County agricultural commissioner.

Apparently we can’t trust them.

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), which has oversight at the state level for herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and rodenticides, recently issued a letter of reprimand to our county ag commissioner after only eight years of growing concerns about the management of his office. Can we trust officials like that to be certain that no laws are broken, that public health is protected?

Because of lack of response to parents and teachers reporting incidents of suspected pesticide drift, members of Community and Children’s Advocates Against Pesticide Poisoning (CCAAPP) obtained pesticide use reports from the ag commissioner’s office for the fields around Rio Mesa High School (RMHS). The data collected came from the county’s own records and from the National Library of Medicine and show that chemicals known to cause cancer, neurological disorders and genetic damage are applied to the fields surrounding RMHS as often as two or three times each week between January and June.

Yet DPR has never tested the air around RMHS to ensure that pesticides do not drift from the fields, and the agricultural commissioner’s office and its supporters stand by the regulations.

So what are we to do?

My choice as a parent is to keep asking questions such as: “If all these chemicals are so safe, why did the death rate from asthma in children rise 78% between 1980 and 1993?” “Why are our sons 68% more likely to develop testicular cancer than were their counterparts 20 years ago?” “Why has the incidence of childhood cancer risen 25% since 1970?” (Sources: the National Centers for Disease Control and the National Cancer Institute.)

Ventura County needs an agricultural commissioner who is willing to hear our questions, give us credible answers and err on the side of safety.

Our county supervisors need to be certain the agricultural commissioner is accountable to them and to all of us--agricultural families and non-agricultural families alike. Our students’ health is too important to leave to wishful thinking.

ELISE WRIGHT, Camarillo