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US farmers use pesticide despite treaty
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-28 09:30 That is not what the treaty envisioned, said David Doniger, senior scientist
with the Natural Resources Defense Council. In the 1990s, he worked on the
protocol as head of ozone programs for the Environmental Protection Agency.
"Nobody expected you would use the exemptions to cancel the final step of the
phaseout or even go backward," Doniger said.
With methyl bromide probably sticking around for several years, the EPA is
re-examining its health and safety standards.
California, which grows more than 85 percent of the nation's strawberries and
other methyl bromide-dependent crops, launched regulations last year to improve
its strictest-in-the-nation protections for farmworkers and others.
The increased protections are not enough for Alderman, a teacher at Pajaro
Middle School in the California agricultural belt south of the Santa Cruz
beaches.
Kids chase balls across the grassy playing field. Opposite a chain link
fence, just beyond the range of an errant baseball, is a field where
strawberries grow.
When air monitoring detected elevated methyl bromide levels four years ago,
Alderman joined the outcry. County officials say they pressed the grower; this
fall he used a different chemical on the fields nearest the school.
Alderman, however, remains concerned because government scientists say methyl
bromide seeps into the air. "We have that nice ocean breeze that blows it all
this way," the teacher said.
Even California's required buffer zones and ban on applying methyl bromide
within 36 hours of school time is not enough, she said. The school draws
youngsters on weekends too, and families live nearby. "It's ridiculous to think
that as long as we don't do it on school days, then were OK," she said.
The American Association of Pesticide Control Centers logged 395 reports of
methyl bromide poisonings from 1999 to 2004. A national total remains elusive
because farmworkers often do not seek medical care.
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