Parents Call for Ban on Pesticide Use Near Schools

As state regulators try to determine whether a citrus grower allowed a pesticide cloud to drift over Mound Elementary School, parents, teachers and administrators Thursday called for tighter controls on such applications near local campuses.

Two children went home Wednesday and dozens of other students and teachers complained of dizziness, headaches and nausea following the early morning application of the insecticide Lorsban on a lemon orchard across the street.

Application of the chemical, which was banned for most household uses by the Environmental Protection Agency this year because of a long-term risk to children, was halted shortly before school started by county Agricultural Department inspectors.

But by then, parents and staff members said pesticide fumes had blown onto the east Ventura campus, fouling the air with a noxious and smelly mist.

“It just looked like a heavy fog drifting toward the school,” said crossing guard Emma L. Smith, who was the first to report the incident. “It was bad.”

State regulators are analyzing swabs taken at Mound Elementary School to confirm those accounts.

But citrus and avocado rancher Dan Campbell, who has been spraying the 200-acre grove for 25 years, said he does not believe any drift took place and, if it did, was purely accidental.

Nevertheless, Campbell informed the school he will no longer spray during school hours.

“I’m going to do it on Saturday or Sunday, or at midnight if I have to,” he said. “I don’t want to be a bad neighbor.”

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Campbell said he generally tries to spray before students arrive, and that an application is halted if the wind kicks up. But he noted that it is becoming increasingly hard to farm his land as complaints mount about everything from pesticide applications to the use of manure to fertilize his acreage.

“We do have to spray and we do have to fertilize, otherwise I might as well walk off and leave the land,” Campbell said.

Concerned parents handed out fliers and circulated a petition Thursday calling on the school board, City Council and the Board of Supervisors to outlaw the use of all pesticides within a 1.5-mile radius of schools.

A community meeting is scheduled for Monday at 5:30 p.m. at the school cafeteria.

“I don’t want growers to continue to use toxic chemicals around schools,” said Ventura attorney Mary Haffner, a mother of two Mound students and board member with Community & Children’s Advocates Against Pesticide Poisoning.

“I’m concerned about the health and safety of the children who go to school there, I’m concerned about teachers and school administrators,” she said. “They picked the wrong school to do this to.”

The controversy is the latest salvo in a longtime battle by anti-pesticide advocates to ban or reduce the use of pesticides near Ventura County schools.

Several studies released by environmental groups in recent years have documented the heavy use of potentially dangerous pesticides near local campuses, especially those around Oxnard and El Rio.

As part of that battle, several activists and area residents have accused the agricultural commissioner’s office of failing to adequately respond to the residents’ concerns and of downplaying pesticide-related health hazards.

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In this case, however, agricultural officials said they have done everything they can.

Susan Johnson, pesticide deputy for the agricultural commissioner, said inspectors responded immediately upon receiving complaints Wednesday, shut down the application and used cotton swabs to collect evidence of potential pesticide drift from cars, windows and foliage.

Those tests are being run at a state laboratory and results are expected in coming days. If evidence is found that the pesticide drifted onto the school or anywhere else it was not intended, the grower could be cited and fined up to $1,000, Johnson said.

Johnson said there is nothing her office could have done to prevent the spraying.

Because the grower was using a pesticide not classified as a restricted material--although banned for household uses, Lorsban can still be used in agriculture--he was not required to notify the commissioner’s office prior to the application.

Nevertheless, Johnson said she encourages growers to contact her office whenever they are spraying near sensitive areas such as schools so that inspectors can be on hand to monitor applications.

“The best possible scenario would be for that grower and the school to sit down and discuss what would be the best time to spray,” Johnson said. “We’re not talking about spraying every month. This is something that could be worked around.”

School district officials said Thursday they hope to meet with the grower in coming weeks and hammer out that kind of arrangement.

Mound parent Rob Roy, president of the Ventura County Agricultural Assn., said members of his group have been working in recent years on improving communication with their neighbors to prevent these problems from occurring.

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He said he hopes this incident does not set back those efforts, which he describes as vital in the face of increased urbanization and interaction between farmers and residents.

“We are going to continue to stress good, sound practices by our employees and make sure everyone is aware that they need to be sensitive to the people around us,” he said.

Despite assurances from local and state pesticide regulators that limited exposure to the insecticide poses little health risk, many Mound parents were still up in arms about the incident Thursday afternoon and ready to join Haffner’s campaign to ban pesticide use near schools.

“I want to know how many times this chemical has been sprayed during school hours in the six years my kid has been there,” said Marie Lakin, whose 10-year-old daughter, Amber, came home Wednesday complaining of a headache and nausea.

“These are little children,” she said. “I want to know whether they have gotten repeated exposure.”