Growers await chemical decision
Jim Wasserman
Sacramento Bee
03/08/2010
In a fourth floor state office overlooking Sacramento City Hall, Mary-Ann Warmerdam must make a contentious choice about how farmers grow one of America's favorite foods – the strawberry.
In classic California fashion, her decision as head of the Department of Pesticide Regulation, or DPR, represents an environmental showdown being watched nationally, even globally.
Warmerdam, chief farm chemical regulator in a state that grows nearly 90 percent of U.S. strawberries, will decide in weeks whether growers can use a soil fumigant known as methyl iodide.
That's the controversial new substitute for methyl bromide, an effective but notorious soil sterilizer being phased out across the globe for depleting the ozone layer. Long employed by California strawberry growers to rid soil of insects and pests, the use of methyl bromide has dwindled to less than half the state's 37,000 strawberry acres, and none in the capital region, industry sources say.
But strawberry and nursery stock growers are hankering for a replacement, and what's being proposed – methyl iodide – may be just as bad or worse, environmentalists and some scientists now contend. They say methyl iodide will potentially contaminate groundwater even as it removes a threat to Earth's ozone layer.
A panel of eight scientists assigned to review DPR's evidence left no doubt about its consensus in a report last month: methyl iodide's environmental track record is too short to take chances. Farmworker advocates also express fears for those who will handle the fumigant, and for those who live nearby.
"This will be loaded into the groundwater amid a population that has no health insurance," said Martha Guzman, a lobbyist for California Rural Legal Assistance, at a recent state Senate hearing.
Methyl iodide is a colorless liquid that can be injected directly into dirt below the ground surface or absorbed into soil through drip irrigation.
The liquid kills weed seeds that compete with the crop and eliminates worm-like organisms called nematodes that attack roots and plants. It also eliminates soil pathogens that spread disease and rot in plants.
Tests have linked inhalation of the toxic liquid to fetal death in pregnant rabbits and degeneration of nasal tissue in rats. The U.S. EPA mandates respirators for workers who come into contact with it. But the DPR's scientific review panel fears that predictable human error will make the substance difficult to control and expose the public to risk.
Citing environmental studies, Arysta LifeScience Corp. says its product leaves no detectable residue in soil, doesn't impact groundwater quality when used properly and isn't transmitted to plants or food.
Despite the controversy over its potential use here, 47 other states (the other exceptions are Washington and New York) and the federal government have given a green light to methyl iodide.
The product is already in use on 15,500 acres in the United States, and has been approved by Japan. Its use is pending in New Zealand, Australia, Turkey, Morocco, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Chile and Argentina.
Backers of methyl iodide fear a rejection in California could prompt the Obama administration to review and cancel the EPA's 2007 Bush-era approval, and even suspend the chemical's use in states like Florida.
"We've been watching what's going on in California," said Dan Botts, a senior executive with the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association. "We do think it will impact our ability to use the product in the future down here."
Botts, like methyl iodide's manufacturer, Tokyo-based Arysta, contends the product has proved effective and safe when handled properly. Arysta's Mike Allen, global business development manager, said, "We are roughly in our second full year of fumigation and there have been no reported incidents or issues with the product in handling and safety."
But a wide range of environmental groups, such as the Pesticide Action Network, have condemned methyl iodide as a toxic newcomer and threatened lawsuits to block its use in California. State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, who chairs the Senate Food and Agriculture Committee, firmly opposes registering the new farm chemical.
"We go from methyl bromide to methyl iodide when we really should be talking about integrated pest management methods that aren't harmful to humans," the Kern County lawmaker said.
Florez has scheduled a March 16 hearing to hear more from scientists, Arysta and Warmerdam.
California's strawberry industry, which annually produces more than $1 billion worth of the juicy red fruit sold at roadside stands, grocery stores and farmers markets, hasn't taken a stand on methyl iodide. Most strawberry consumers remain unaware of the fierce background fight over their food favorite, often cited as a "superfood" loaded with vitamin C and antioxidants that help prevent chronic disease.
"We're just waiting for DPR to do the process. We don't even know if it will be registered," said Carolyn O'Donnell, spokeswoman for the California Strawberry Commission in Watsonville. Statewide, nearly 95 percent of strawberries are grown in Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.
O'Donnell said the commission budgeted $12 million in recent years to help research alternatives to methyl bromide. All show mixed results, farm groups say. The California Farm Bureau Federation said it favors a DPR decision to allow methyl iodide.
"We support any alternative that can be used safely as a replacement for methyl bromide," said Farm Bureau spokesman Dave Kranz.
"Only methyl bromide works, along with its drop-in substitute, methyl iodide," said Robert Dolezal, executive vice president of the California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers. Dolezal, testifying last month before Florez's committee, said it's the only way his $4 billion-a-year industry can meet California's "no-tolerance" pest requirements for nursery stock.
"Methyl iodide is the silver bullet," he said. "When used correctly it's safe to the public, farmers and nurseries."
Arysta, with its North American headquarters in North Carolina, has a 12-year history with methyl iodide. It licensed the product in 1998 from inventors at the University of California, Riverside, Allen said. It's been seeking DPR permission to sell it in California since 2002. Much of that time has been occupied by requests for more information and a formal, unprecedented "risk assessment" review backed by a secondary review of that assessment by a scientific panel.
