State Study on Pesticide Flawed, Experts Say

Citing a variety of failings, a panel of federal scientists Friday criticized a Davis administration plan aimed at protecting schoolchildren, farm workers and others who come in contact with the toxic pesticide methyl bromide.

In a bluntly worded report, experts of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the state’s own analysis was “lacking in several respects,” including examinations of situations that may expose children to the controversial chemical.

The assessment of the risk of exposure to the pesticide is a cornerstone of a proposed program by the state Department of Pesticide Regulation to more tightly control the application of methyl bromide, which is heavily used by California growers of strawberries, grapes and almonds.

For years, environmentalists and health officials have demanded that application of the pesticide get stricter regulation, especially in agricultural areas such as Ventura County where school children and farm workers can be easy victims.

Among other things, the Davis administration’s proposed regulations would create buffer zones of about 100 feet between fields treated with methyl bromide gas and residential areas and adoption of treatment schedules that would not conflict with school hours.

By law, the department’s assessment of what it believes would be adequate protection against inhalation of the gaseous chemical must be reviewed by an independent panel of scientific experts.

The panel of National Academy of Sciences experts was not empowered to block implementationf the state rules. But it did recommend that “gaps” in the scientific department’s data must be closed for the protection of the public.

These gaps “must be addressed to ensure that agricultural workers and residents living near areas where methyl bromide is used are protected against the short-term and long-term health effects of this pesticide,” the panel said.

California is the nation’s leading consumer of methyl bromide, soaking up about 17 million pounds a year. It is injected as a gas to purge farm soil of destructive pests.

It contributes to the destruction of the earth’s ozone layer and it is scheduled to be outlawed worldwide in 2005. But growers say no comparable substitute has been developed.

Since 1982, nearly 500 poisonings linked to methyl bromide have occurred in California, 19 of them fatal.

In several findings, the federal scientists indicated that parts of the California program to establish safe exposure levels would do the job, in some cases exceeding federal requirements. But it blistered what it called the department’s “failure to address several exposure scenarios.”

The panel said two scenarios that were not explored by the state included examination of the exposure of people living near fumigated fields and the issue of increased exposure of residents and farm workers to fields that had been treated “simultaneously consecutively.”

“Those are the two central issues in this whole dispute,” said Bill Walker, California director of the Environmental Working Group, which sued the department in order to force tougher restrictions.

“Those are the things that we have said all along that the Department of Pesticide Regulations is failing to do,” Walker said. “I think if they are going to be honest, they have to acknowledge that this National Academy of Sciences report casts serious doubt on whether or not their proposed regulations are adequate.”

But department Director Paul E. Helliker said findings of the federal review would have no impact on the department’s proposed regulations, expected to be formally adopted next month or in July. “We will go ahead with it,” he said.

Helliker insisted that despite the federal panel’s “pretty strongly worded” findings, the state plan was found to be “based on good science” and would be more than adequate to protect the health of Californians.

He said the department had alerted the federal scientists that a “number of exposure scenarios” were not covered in the state’s report. He said the federal group repeated these omissions.

“But what we have is enough data to have a representative sample. And, what we have is more than adequate,” Helliker said.

Environmentalist Walker said no decision had been made on what action his group would take next. But he added, “We’d rather see the delay of regulations than the enactment of inadequate regulations.”

A spokeswoman for the California Strawberry Commission, a marketing organization of strawberry growers, said agency officials had not seen the federal report and would not comment on any potential affect on the regulations.