Amazing how short-sighted we are in our rush to have plastic, taste-free fruit and pale, dry tomatoes all year round.
New pesticide holds other risks
LOS ANGELES -- Fourteen years ago, as chemicals gobbled up the earth's ozone layer, an international treaty ordered a phaseout of a pesticide for strawberries and other high-value crops. Now, US officials are planning to replace it with a new pesticide, one that is highly toxic and that has been declared a cancer-causing chemical by the state of California.The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to approve a new fumigant, methyl iodide, as it eliminates methyl bromide, which damages the ozone layer. The EPA is faced with a decision that could trade one toxic hazard for another.
California and Florida have the most at stake. California is the leading producer of strawberries, valued at more than $1 billion a year, and strawberry growers alone could use 3 million pounds of methyl iodide annually to replace methyl bromide.
Because methyl iodide is a gas, it can evaporate from soil and can drift into nearby areas. Last month, based on tests in California and Florida fields, EPA toxicologists concluded that farm workers could breathe harmful doses and that low concentrations could drift off fields.
''It doesn't matter what EPA says, it has to pass muster in California,“ said Glenn Brank, a spokesman for the state pesticide agency. ''The registration decision by US EPA will have no bearing on our process.” Methyl iodide ''is highly toxic,“ Brank said, and there are ''a number of areas of concern -- reproductive and developmental toxicity as well as carcinogenicity.” On the other hand, while ''fumigants clearly are problematic, they also are essential, given the lack of alternative soil treatments at present.“ For four years, the EPA has been considering a request from a pesticide company, Arysta LifeScience, to register methyl iodide, also known as iodomethane, as a soil fumigant under the commercial name Midas. If approved, it would be injected into the soil, mostly in strawberry fields, but also on fields for tomatoes, peppers, ornamentals, grapes, and several other crops, at a rate of 175 pounds per acre. Methyl bromide was the pesticide of choice for these crops until recently. In 1987, the United States and other developed nations signed the Montreal Protocol, which gradually banned a variety of chemicals that are reported to destroy the ozone layer that blocks the sun's harmful radiation. Methyl bromide was added to the pact in 1992.
Tags: environment, /EPA
