News of Plan to Spray Crops Near School Upsets Parents

Some parents at Ventura’s Mound Elementary School are upset over a neighboring citrus grower’s announcement that he plans to use pesticides on his crops, about six months after he allegedly allowed a chemical cloud to drift over the campus.

Rancher Dan Campbell informed school officials that he would be using toxic chemicals on his orchard sometime in the coming month. The school, in turn, informed parents.

“Whenever you apply a pesticide there will be drift,” said Mary Haffner, a Mound parent and anti-pesticide activist. “The bottom line is that [the pesticide] Lorsban should not be used across the street.”

Ranchers are not required by law to make any notification if they are using nonrestricted poisons such as Lorsban, which allegedly drifted off Campbell’s field in November and caused dizziness, headaches and nausea in dozens of children. The district attorney’s office is still investigating the incident.

But Deputy Agricultural Commissioner David Buettner said Ventura County ranchers, in response to the Mound incident, are keeping schools informed of their activities.

“Everyone is a little more wary of what’s going on around schools, and the majority of them are doing an excellent job” of communicating, he said. “It has been common practice, and we’re seeing that it’s actually stepped up.”

He cited, for example, Rio del Valle Middle School in El Rio, where a rancher obtained a list of after-school activities and sports so that he could schedule pesticide use around them.

Schools Communicate With Nearby Ranchers

In the Oxnard Elementary School District, two schools built on or near farmland--Brekke Elementary and Frank Intermediate--are in regular contact with neighboring ranchers.

“We’ve not had a problem. We’ve had concerns as everybody does, but we’ve had a really good relationship,” Assistant Supt. Sandra Rosales said of her district, which is surrounded by agriculture. “It may be overreaction,” she said of some pesticide concerns.

Buettner said that if Campbell tells the agriculture office when he is spraying--which he is not required to do--the office will send an inspector.

“He’s under no obligation to notify us of application, but considering the circumstances, he probably will,” Buettner said.

In February, Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) introduced a bill that would expand the authority of agricultural commissioners across the state to regulate all pesticide use near facilities used by children, the elderly and the infirm. But no such measure has yet passed.

Campbell’s notification is a step forward but is not enough, say parents such as Haffner.

“I appreciate the fact that we’re receiving notification, but it’s deficient since we don’t even know what kind of chemical or what time of day or what kind of application method,” she said. “If we don’t have any particulars, we don’t really know anything.”

Activist Favors More Legal Limits

Haffner said she would like to see laws requiring specific notification, and even a ban on using toxic pesticides next to sensitive sites, such as schools.

Don Austin, an attorney for the Ventura Unified School District, said district officials asked Campbell to inform the school when he would be using pesticides. He said the district felt compelled to inform parents because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Campbell could not be reached. In a previous interview with The Times, however, he said he felt hemmed in by encroaching development, but that he would no longer spray during school hours.

His attorney, Archie Clarizio, said his client was trying to work with school officials by informing them of future spraying.

“We’re doing everything we can to cooperate with everyone involved,” he said. Campbell “has been a farmer there for 30 years. He is always concerned about the health of the public, especially children.”