Crop Spraying Troubles Oxnard Teachers - May 4, 1998 Los Angeles Times

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Nearby Crop Spraying Troubles Oxnard Teachers

Environment: Some say complaints of health problems are ignored.

District contends adequate safeguards are in place.

By DARYL KELLEY, TIMES STAFF WRITER

Los Angeles Times Monday May 4, 1998

OXNARD--Teacher Cort has tended the same playing field at a local

junior high since Nixon was president.

Early on, he hardly noticed when pesticide crews sprayed lemon

orchards once or twice a year.

But now, with tractor rigs or crop-duster copters strafing nearby

strawberry fields every couple of weeks, Cort and his physical education

students sometimes flee indoors to escape the possible drift of noxious

fumigants, toxic fungicides and poisonous insecticides.

" They're supposed to check the wind before they spray, but they don't

always do it, " Cort said. " I've been told by my doctor that we're

basically a data group for the next generation to study. This is one of

those iceberg issues where someone five years from now will say, 'Wow,

what happened here?' "

After years of silence, teachers in the Rio School District are

publicly protesting what they see as pesticide poisoning because of

recent statements by their superintendent that heavy spraying near the

campus is not a health problem.

" It is a big safety problem, " said Barbetti, Cort's wife and

president of the Rio Teachers Assn. " But the district administration

refuses to recognize that it exists. "

Indeed, teachers in school districts ringing the rich farm plain that

separates Oxnard from Camarillo say that new studies showing heavy use of

pest-killers near schools only reinforce their concerns.

A month ago, Cort hustled his Rio Del Valle Junior High class inside

the cafeteria because a farmer sprayed too close to the school. " In the

last two years, we've had five or six times where we've had to evacuate

the whole playing field, " he said.

In January, a Rio Del Valle music teacher who blames her chronic

asthma on pesticides, said she battled pneumonia for two weeks after a

spraying incident--the third extended absence she blames on pesticides.

And in November, a teacher at nearby Rio Mesa High School said two

pesticide sprayings in three days nearly crippled her by causing a muscle

disorder.

" It felt like I had a blowtorch burning inside my chest, " said special

education teacher Janet Lapins. " We have lots of these problems. But

there's lots of denial. You have a tendency to say pesticides are OK,

that they won't hurt you, because that's what we're told. "

Rio School District officials say there is no cause for alarm because

safeguards such as bans on school-time spraying close to campuses usually

protect teachers and students. Only three incidents of suspected

school-time spraying have been reported in the last four years, they say.

What's more, they say they receive few teacher complaints.

" The health and safety of our teachers and students is foremost on our

minds, " said Assistant Rio Supt. Anne McCabe. " If I had a number of

incidents crossing my desk, I'd see a problem. But I'm not seeing it

now. "

Teachers say health problems often go unreported because nothing much

comes of complaints.

The two recent Rio Del Valle incidents were reported to the Rio School

District, but not to county officials charged with monitoring pesticide

use and reporting overexposure to state authorities.

Lapins' complaint in November is the only school-related incident on

file at the county agricultural commissioner's office for the last 18

months.

In 1996, about three dozen teachers at the California Youth

Authority's Ventura School did file complaints about two incidents.

Tests confirmed significant pesticide drift onto the campus in one

early-morning spraying, where six teachers went home ill and a farmer was

cited for a safety violation.

In the second incident, 28 Ventura School teachers went home,

including 22 who sought medical attention and two who were briefly

hospitalized, according to reports filed with county officials. Evidence

of pesticide drift was inconclusive.

Operators of an east Ventura child-care center also evacuated a dozen

youngsters in 1996 after residents complained of flu-like symptoms after

application of the powerful fumigant methyl bromide to a strawberry

field.

Community Interests Are at Loggerheads

Such conflicts mirror the push and pull between farm interests and

urban development, and are part of an intense ongoing debate about how

Ventura County can save its vibrant farm industry while protecting its

residents.

Countywide, pesticide use on crops has risen about 13% in recent years

despite the annual loss of hundreds of acres of farmland to development.

" There have been some problems, " said Buettner, the county's

chief deputy agricultural commissioner. " It's not just for the school

districts. We tend to have complaints from new residential areas where

people move in who have not had experience with agriculture. They

complain of pesticides, dirt, dust, noises and odors. "

Buettner and school administrators generally agree that farmers are

careful about when and how they coax bountiful harvests from the fertile

Oxnard Plain--a hothouse for crops that absorb large doses of pesticides

but also pump $1.2 billion a year into the local economy.

Despite assurances that pesticide spraying is safe, teachers say they

sometimes suffer headaches, nausea, dizziness, skin rashes, watery eyes,

runny noses and breathing problems--even tremors to hands and legs--that

they think were related to pesticide sprays.

Flu-like symptoms are a classic sign of pesticide poisoning, experts

say.

But no one can say for sure how much of a risk pesticides pose to

schools, because definitive studies do not exist on links between

agricultural spraying and illness on campus, doctors, academics and

activists said.

Studies in other states have shown that people who live in areas where

pesticides are used heavily have elevated rates of cancer and birth

defects. But no California study has established such a connection

despite lengthy investigations into cancer clusters in two San Joaquin

Valley towns.

Rio district officials say problems of the past led to today's

safeguards.

After a spraying incident at Rio del Valle six years ago, Rio

administrators forged agreements with farmers, who vowed to warn before

spraying near the junior high, to spray only when students are not

present, and to check wind direction before spraying.

" I don't think there's a problem, " Supt. Yolanda Benitez said last

month, after a study by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group,

an environmental watchdog organization, found that four Rio schools were

among the closest in the state to heavy use of the nerve gas methyl

bromide and the tear gas chloropicrin.

Doug Wagner, who farms 100 acres of strawberries near Rio Mesa High,

said he has never received a complaint.

" I don't understand what the concerns are, " he said. " I do my spraying

at night, usually, and then if there is any prevailing wind toward the

school, we don't do any application until the weather conditions are

right. "

Assistant Rio Supt. McCabe said the district has received only three

teacher complaints in four years about pesticide-related illness.

Perhaps teachers need to be reminded to formally respond when they

become ill, she said.

Cloud of Suspicion Remains for Many

Leaders of the Rio district's 132-teacher union acknowledge that there

are fewer pesticide problems than a few years ago, but say school-time

spraying still happens sometimes.

Cort said he can't prove it, but believes he needed eight throat

operations not only because he strains his voice as a coach, but because

of persistent pesticide irritation.

Although most Rio Del Valle teachers never complain to superiors about

pesticides, several said in interviews that they are sensitive to the

chemicals.

Railey, 52, a physical education teacher, said her allergies

regularly flare up after spraying.

nna Padilla, 29, said she has had several bouts of pesticide

illness.

Three Rio Del Valle teachers have developed asthma since arriving

there, said music instructor Jarrell Fuller, 50.

" I always end up with severe asthma whenever they spray, " said Fuller,

in her ninth year at Rio Del Valle. " Three different times I've ended up

with pneumonia within two days. "

Former Rio Del Valle teacher Medina said she too suffered from

persistent headaches, sore throat and painful sinuses during her three

years at the junior high.

" Since I left I haven't had those problems at all, " said Medina, now

principal at Piru Elementary, about 30 miles away.

Evidence Lacking Among Students

Cort, Fuller and others said they believe that students at Rio Del

Valle also suffer from high levels of asthma. But McCabe said a study of

the district's five schools found about 5% of students had histories of

asthma: The highest rates were 6% at Rio Del Valle and 8% at Rio Lindo

Elementary.

Such rates are not high compared to the population overall, doctors

said.

Aline, the Oxnard physician Fuller sees, said he probably has 40

other patients who also believe their asthma is caused by pesticides--but

that is not necessarily so.

" These patients already have an underlying asthma, so what they're

talking about is a worsening of the symptoms, " he said. " And the question

is, 'Was it the spraying, or was it natural pollen or mold spores?' "

Even experts keenly alert to the perils of pesticides say the

chemicals have not been conclusively linked to asthma.

n Moses, a physician and activist with the nonprofit Pesticide

Education Center in San Francisco, said she saw such problems in children

of farm workers.

" Almost any pesticide can trigger it, " she said. " But here's the

thing--there's really not much in the literature about these problems.

" What people really need to understand, " she added, " is that they're

using a lot of very bad chemicals that pose a risk to children. And just

because these children do not end up in the emergency room doesn't mean

the exposure isn't occurring. "

Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times, 1998.