Pesticide buffers urged for children

Children in farming areas need mandatory buffer zones to protect them from airborne pesticides, according to environmental activists petitioning the federal government for stricter spraying rules.

But support for a federal law requiring no-spray areas appears lukewarm in the Mid-Valley. Growers and farm bureau leaders called the proposal, which the advocacy group Earthjustice filed Wednesday with the Environmental Protection Agency, a mere copy of California protections at best and a burden to farmers at worst.

The petition asks the EPA to mandate the pesticide-free margin around fields neighboring homes, schools, playgrounds and other gathering places for children. Earthjustice called for a 60-foot-wide buffer where crops are sprayed with insect- or weed-killing chemicals on the ground, and a 300-foot-wide cushion for fields sprayed by air.

During a conference call last week to promote the petition, its backers called it necessary to fill a gap in federal pesticide-use laws that took effect in 2006 to protect children from nerve and lung damage linked to the chemicals.

"The EPA has ignored the issue of (pesticide) drift around fields; they didn't have the same protections over rural areas," Earthjustice attorney Patti Goldman said Wednesday during a conference call from Washington, D.C. "The EPA is not meeting its legal obligations. ... These children deserve better from our government."

Current and former Central Valley farm laborers speaking at the conference described lung, skin and eye problems they blamed on errant insecticide spraying, calling such incidents a greater danger in their homes than in the fields.

"Where I live is not a real good place for a neighborhood to be, but this is where we live and we should be protecting our children and doing something about it," said Luis Medellin, a farmworker from Lindsay.

However, others countered that any such national law would make little practical difference in California because its state and county restrictions on pesticide use already are stricter than in other states — requiring advance notice to county agriculture commissioners and buffer zones that vary according to the chemical.

"I'm not saying we're perfect or there's no room for improvement," Cynthia Cory, environmental affairs director of the California Farm Bureau Federation, said Friday. "But we have enough safeguards in California that I'm not sure what effect this would have here."

"I wonder if this is really for all the other states with no (spraying) restrictions, so they at least will have a minimum standard," said Mark Quisenberry, the Sutter County agriculture commissioner. "Whatever the (EPA's) final decision, I believe California rules will be stronger than the national rules would be."

In the rice fields of south Sutter County, grower Brett Scheidel called his 1,400 acres unlikely to be affected by any new spraying curbs, but added other farmers might be less fortunate.

"The impact on me might be negligible but it's still scary," he said. "Folks who farm near Pleasant Grove School, for example, it definitely could affect them."