Methyl bromide, which is used at flower farms, plant nurseries and in wine grape fields on the Northcoast, was due to be banned in late March because its manufacturer has not yet finished research on laboratory animals required under the Birth Defects Prevention Act. First passed in 1984, the Act required studies of the birth defect effects on laboratory animals of 200 pesticides. The deadline for information on several chemicals was extended in 1991 to March 1996, and manufacturers of methyl bromide needed yet another extension to finish studies by the end of 1997.
Senator Diane Watson, chair of the Senate Health Committee where the bill's fate depended on Thompson's swing vote, revealed that her sources had found at least one study already submitted to the Department of Pesticide Regulation had shown methyl bromide to be a significant birth defect agent. Unconfirmed rumors abounded that the chemical was difficult to study because animals would die from its effects before results were in on whether the chemical could harm developing fetuses.
Research completed in Great Britain three years ago indicated structural deformities of rabbit fetuses caused by maternal exposure to methyl bromide. Based on this study, the U.S. EPA began requiring labels for methyl bromide fumigations of structures to indicate the possibility of birth defects. California regulators decided to require that people remain out of buildings for longer periods of time after methyl bromide fumigations shortly after a California man died when he re-entered his home following a legal fumigation, although the state based its decision not on the death but on studies that indicated that the chemical outgases from structural materials and furnishings much more slowly than previously understood.
The state also studied field fumigations with methyl bromide and learned it can drift several miles offsite during inversions and other weather conditions frequently experienced on the coast. Most of the nineteen million pounds of methyl bromide used in California each year are used in coastal counties such as Orange, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Monterey, Salinas, Santa Cruz and Sonoma.
Methyl bromide is categorized as an extremely acute toxic by the U.S. EPA because it will kill anyone unfortunate enough to breathe it at high quantities. Methyl bromide killed fifteen people who illegally entered houses during tenting and fumigations between 1980 and 1992. It also injures, sometimes permanently, especially farm workers. Methyl bromide primarily attacks the central nervous system, causing dizziness, trembling, respiratory difficulties, intoxication-like symptoms and permanent loss of sensation and motor skills.
Methyl bromide is also a significant destroyer of the earth's protective ozone layer, causing at least 10 to 15 % of current ozone depletion. The 149 nations that have signed the treaty to halt production of ozone-depleting chemicals met in Vienna this December and agreed to ban methyl bromide by 2010 in industrialized nations and to freeze its use in developing nations by 2002. Tighter restrictions are expected as more information on alternatives to methyl bromide are developed and science on its ozone depleting qualities is better understood.
California is one of four regions which consume the majority of methyl bromide used globally. The three other regions are Florida, Italy and Japan. Its use is rising in Third World countries where the methyl bromide industry is busily developing markets because its use will be regulated later in non-industrialized or developing nations under the ozone depletion treaty.
The main use of methyl bromide is to kill soil pests prior to planting crops. More than 14 million pounds of it were pumped into California soil in 1995. Almost 4.5 million pounds of this was used for just one crop, strawberries grown on California's central coast, where strawberries net average per acre profits of $27,000 per year, making it one of the most profitable crops in the U.S. Over 3 million pounds were used in California to fumigate crops post harvest for storage or export. Less than a million pounds was used to fumigate buildings for wood eating insects, down from over 5 million pounds in 1991, just before restrictions for its use in buildings were added in the state.
In the regulation of methyl bromide, farmers have repeatedly been given special treatment. The chemical is listed as a reproductive toxin when used against termites in buildings but not when used in agriculture. A loophole was opened in Proposition 65, the state's toxic exposure warning law, when farmers were not required to warn surrounding communities in advance of field fumigations, in spite of studies showing its ability to cause birth defects and research showing it can drift up to several miles at "excessive rates."
School teachers, farm laborers, environmentalists and health care providers from around the state called for the end of the use of methyl bromide during two months of fierce debate leading up to the Senate vote. Intense media coverage and numerous editorials, letters and phone calls put more of a spotlight on legislators who supported the bill than any had anticipated. A letter to Democratic senators from the California Democrats' Environmental Caucus noted that the bill was a "sop for Republicans" which offered nothing to environmentalists and labor.
Environmentalists called on senators to at least pass amendments to provide buffer zones for schools, hospitals and playgrounds and give ample notification to people living, working, attending school or in the hospital near fumigations, but the senators were unwilling to provide even these minimal protections.
Meanwhile, in Washington DC the Clinton Administration began drafting legislation to change the Clean Air Act to allow continued production of methyl bromide past the federally mandated phaseout date in 2001. Mary Nichols, formerly of the Environmental Defense Fund, and David Doniger, former senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, now both with the U.S. EPA, were crafting legislation to weaken ozone depletion provisions of the clean air law. Nichols appeared before a Congressional sub-committee to recommend changing the Act, one of the most important environmental laws in the nation. Nichols and the White House were calling for legislation that would provide "critical use" exemptions to users of the chemical who claim suitable alternatives cannot be available by the phaseout deadline.
Environmentalists expressed dismay over the proposal, noting that any legislative action to change the Clean Air Act goes beyond merely preserving methyl bromide and opens the Act up to other changes that could further weaken it. They also charge that the move appears to be an election-year ploy since agriculture in key electoral states Florida and California accounts for most U.S. methyl bromide use. For more information about methyl bromide, contact Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, 860-1/2 11th St., Arcata, CA 95521, 707-822-8497, or by e-mail at cats@igc.apc.org.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1997
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