Strawberry pesticide dispute has implications beyond California

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As the strawberry harvest reaches its peak in California, a bitter disagreement has erupted between the state Department of Pesticide Regulation and a scientific-review committee over the approval of a new chemical, the outcome of which could affect farmers across the country.

In a report and in public testimony before the state Senate Food and Agriculture Committee on Thursday, members of the review committee said the state's decision to approve the pesticide, methyl iodide, was made using inadequate, flawed and improperly conducted scientific research.

"I'm not in blanket opposition to the use of pesticides, but methyl iodide alarms me," said Theodore Slotkin, a professor at Duke University Medical Center and a member of the review committee.

"When we come across a compound that is known to be neurotoxic, as well as developmentally toxic and an endocrine disrupter, it would seem prudent to err on the side of caution, demanding that the appropriate scientific testing be done on animals instead of going ahead and putting it into use, in which case the test animals will be the children of the state of California."

But California farmers — who grow nearly 90 percent of the nation's strawberries, a $2 billion-a-year industry — say the state's proposed regulations would far exceed those set by the federal government for the chemical, which they argue would be deployed safely and only when needed.

For decades, farmers injected another chemical, methyl bromide, into the soil before planting strawberries. Then the Montreal Protocol international climate treaty banned methyl bromide, saying it had been found to deplete ozone. That sent regulators, farmers and the chemical industry scrambling for an alternative.

They found methyl iodide, a chemical less harmful to the ozone but with more potential hazards to human health.

In 2007 the chemical was approved by federal environmental regulators to the chagrin of many scientists.

More than 50 chemists and physicians, including members of the National Academy of Sciences and Nobel laureates, had asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to approve the chemical.

The EPA allowed the pesticide to be used on fields growing strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, turf, trees and vines, but banned its use within a quarter-mile of schools, day-care facilities, nursing homes, hospitals, prisons and playgrounds.

Despite the federal approval, California requires that new pesticides go through a second review, a process that federal regulators have said they are watching closely and that could lead to a re-evaluation by the Obama administration.

California has provisionally approved methyl iodide and will issue a decision after the public comment period ends June 29.

Material from The Seattle Times archive is included in this report.