Opponents of Pesticide Cite Risk to Schools

SACRAMENTO —  Just across the street from Ohlone School in Watsonville lies a strawberry field, lush with productive plants. Before planting each year, farmers sterilize the field’s soil with methyl bromide--a powerful pesticide that kills worms and diseases harmful to the berries’ fragile roots.

Teri Ketchie, who teaches at the elementary school, watches the pesticide applications with alarm. She knows methyl bromide is a human poison and fears the health of her second graders may be at risk.

“One year, a whole batch of them called in sick with bronchitis and other respiratory problems right after the field was treated,” said Ketchie, whose classroom is downwind of the crop. “Was it a coincidence? I don’t think so. I think methyl bromide is to blame.”

Ketchie’s students are not the only California youngsters who learn and play near fields treated with the pesticide. A new study provided to The Times shows that 850 elementary schools and licensed day care centers around the state lie within roughly a mile of farms or greenhouses where substantial quantities of methyl bromide are used. San Diego and Orange counties had the most schools and centers in close proximity to crops treated with the chemical, while Ventura County came in sixth.

The study, prepared by an environmental research group in Washington, comes on the eve of Capitol hearings on whether to delay a ban on methyl bromide. Last month, Gov. Pete Wilson called a special session of the Legislature in hopes of averting a scheduled ban on sales of the pesticide in California.

Critics of methyl bromide say the new findings should persuade lawmakers that a ban is in order now.

“This new information proves that methyl bromide doesn’t just deplete the ozone layer and doesn’t just harm farm workers,” said Anne Schonfield of the San Francisco-based Pesticide Action Network. “Now we know it also presents a danger to our kids in school.”

Those pushing to delay the ban say there is no cause for worry. They insist that restrictions on the pesticide’s use--ranging from buffer zones to limits on the time and rate of application--protect children and others from harm.

“Unless there are proven ill effects, then the mere fact that a field is next door to a school is not a big problem,” said Assemblyman Peter Frusetta (R-Tres Pinos). Frusetta, whose district encompasses acres of nut, bean and strawberry crops in Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties, is carrying legislation to postpone the ban until the end of 1997.

Methyl bromide is a clear, odorless fumigant mostly used by farmers to sterilize soil before planting. Treasured by growers because of its sure-fire pest-killing power, it also is highly poisonous to humans. Even small doses can cause headaches, vomiting, dizziness and other ailments, and research has shown it to cause birth defects in rats and rabbits.

Since 1982, state authorities have linked hundreds of farm worker poisonings to the pesticide. It has also caused 15 deaths, all of them occurring when people entered fumigated buildings before the gas had dissipated. More recent research has documented methyl bromide as a destroyer of the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Some studies show it depletes ozone 40 times faster than better-known chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs.

In agriculture, methyl bromide is typically injected about one foot deep in the soil--usually in late summer--by specially outfitted fumigation crews. The field is then covered with plastic tarps for several days to keep the toxic gas from escaping. California ranks second only to Florida in methyl bromide use.

Poisonings typically occur when the pesticide leaks out prematurely, often due to rips in the tarps. In 1984, 35 people sought medical aid and 1,500 were evacuated after methyl bromide was improperly applied to a spice field in the San Joaquin County town of Ceres. Three years later, more than 1,200 people were forced to flee their homes after methyl bromide gas drifted off a gladiolus field in Fremont.

Such episodes have spurred a coalition of environmental, farm worker and public health advocates to push for a ban. Under the 1984 state Birth Defects Prevention Act, manufacturers of methyl bromide were to conduct health studies on their product or suspend sales in 1991. The Legislature granted an extension to March 30 of this year, but Gov. Wilson--in calling the special session--now says a second postponement is in order.

Declaring that there is no economically practical alternative to methyl bromide, Wilson said a ban would “devastate California’s agricultural industry and threaten thousands of California jobs.”

The new study is sure to add more fuel to the raging methyl bromide debate. It was conducted by the Environmental Working Group, a small think tank that focuses largely on pesticide issues.

The group’s analysis relies on figures for methyl bromide use supplied by the state Department of Pesticide Regulation for the year 1992. That was the most recent year for which data were available when the analysts began their work, said Richard Wiles, the organization’s vice president for research.

The study found that 850 elementary schools and day care centers lie within about a mile of fields or greenhouses where more than 1,000 pounds of methyl bromide--enough to fumigate several acres of strawberries--was used in 1992. Some, like Ohlone School, are directly across the street from treated crops.

Three schools in Oxnard--Rio Plaza, Rio del Valle and El Rio elementary schools--were singled out because they were near the largest volume of methyl bromide usage documented in the study. In Orange County, Frank Vessels Elementary in Cypress, Hansen Elementary in Anaheim and Cerritos Elementary, also in Anaheim, topped the list.

“I would hope that our study makes this issue more real for people,” said Wiles. “It proves that methyl bromide is not some abstract thing that only affects farm workers and the ozone layer. It’s used in our communities and near where our kids go to school.”

State regulators, however, said parents need not be concerned. Paul Gosselin, deputy director of the Department of Pesticide Regulation, said methyl bromide is subject to more restrictions than any other agricultural chemical--restrictions contained in a book two inches thick.

“It sounds like this report makes some broad assumptions about risk based simply on proximity to a field,” Gosselin said. “It doesn’t look at what limitations are placed on the use of methyl bromide in various locations.”

Gosselin said methyl bromide users must abide by strict permit conditions that limit the amount and times of chemical applications and require a buffer zone--ranging upward from 30 feet--between a field and an occupied structure. The conditions are set by county agricultural commissioners and vary regionally, he said.

For Karen Light, Gosselin’s assurances are small comfort. A resident of Castroville in Monterey County, her home abuts a strawberry field, and she says she has been poisoned twice by methyl bromide. Since then, she has founded Farm Without Harm, which works to protect residents from pesticide drift and pressures growers to reduce their dependence on chemicals.

“In 1993, 14 people on our street got sick--stuff like burning eyes, nausea, headaches, bloody noses, diarrhea,” said Light. “Just because they have all these restrictions doesn’t mean mistakes aren’t made.”