Pesticide reeked of ‘dirty socks'
(Following labeled directions on pesticides don't make them safe)Filed: 11/15/99
By STEVE E. SWENSON
and MARIA MACHUCA
Californian staff writers e-mail: sswenson@bakersfield.com
e-mail: mmachuca@bakersfield.comEARLIMART — James Dunham had been smelling a foul odor for two or three days, and his eyes had been watering since Saturday afternoon.
Dunham, 71, said he didn't think much about the smell or his burning eyes, writing off the smell as normal agricultural odors and his burning eyes to his ongoing illnesses.
But when Tulare County sheriff's deputies came to his Armstrong Avenue house Saturday evening and told him he needed to leave his home of 28 years, he really began to worry.
"I have asthma, emphysema and bronchitis," the longtime resident of this Tulare County farming community said. "When you got everything wrong with your lungs, you worry about it."
It smelled like "dirty socks and eggs" and caused him "to kind of choke down," said Dunham, 71. "Yes, I was scared. Anyone with my lung trouble would be scared."
Dunham took a trip to Delano Regional Medical Center, where 23 other people also went for treatment, and was out after about an hour or two of oxygen treatment.
All of those who went to the hospital were treated and released, a spokeswoman said Monday. They complained of nausea, vomiting, headaches, burning eyes and shortness of breath.
They were among 150 people who were evacuated from their neighborhood for about six hours Saturday beginning at about 5:30 p.m., officials said.
The problem appears to have been caused by a soil fumigant and weed killer applied to 160 acres of bare ground about a half-mile southeast of the neighborhood.
The product is known as Metam sodium, commonly known as sectagon 42, which for three days was sprayed and then covered with water to push it into the ground and activate the chemicals, officials said.
The highly regulated product, which is on a state list of potentially cancer-causing pesticides, appears to have been properly applied to the ground, owned by Vignolo Farms, according to Deputy Tulare County Agricultural Commissioner Gary Kunkel.
Licensing, notice and application requirements appear to have been followed, although the investigation is continuing, Kunkel said.
"The scary thing is the rules and regulations are supposed to prevent something like this," Kunkel said. "And it looks like they didn't."
Tom Slatterly, the Fresno-based manager of regulatory operations for Wilbur-Ellis Co., the national 3,000-plus employee firm hired to apply the product, said his company is cooperating with governmental agencies to find out what happened.
"We have to find out what happened before we change any regulations," he said.
Edelmira Alcazar, 51, and two children at her home were still feeling the symptoms of pesticide poisoning Monday afternoon. But she laughed as she remembered what happened Saturday.
She said she was cooking pork and chili in the front yard of her apartment for her family and some friends when they stared smelling something like "smashed garlic, or rotten eggs," she recalled.
She felt offended because her guests thought the odor was from her food, Alcazar said. It wasn't until the firefighters stopped by her apartment complex and told them they had to evacuate that she understood it wasn't her food at all.
Another neighbor, Marcos Carrillo Gonzalez, 34, said he was in his truck when his eyes started to burn and he felt dizzy. Firefighters asked him to go to the hospital, but he took his family instead to his sister's home in Delano.
Others, like Josefina Garcia, 20, and Alberto Arias, 21, didn't know what to do and decided to stay home.
"There was a really bad smell, my throat was hurting and I was feeling like vomiting. I went outside to check what was going on and I was told that there was a dangerous chemical in the air," Arias said.
Members of the United Farm Workers union on Monday were identifying people who were still suffering reactions from being exposed to the pesticides.
According to Lupe Martinez, UFW national vice president, the union is referring those exposed to medical help. The UFW will be keeping a complaint file for future health problems related to Saturday's incident.
"We were told that everything was done legal, but that doesn't take away the issue that there is a problem," Martinez said.
He said the UFW will be analyzing the issue to determine whether there should be greater scrutiny of toxic pesticides.
Slatterly, of Wilbur-Ellis, said the problem was a surprise because the product generally dissipates at the site of application. He said weather reports for that afternoon and evening indicated gentle breezes from the northwest, which that would carry any product away from town, not toward it.
Bobby Bonds, supervising inspector with the Tulare County Agricultural Commissioner's office, said he is investigating whether a low-to-the-ground air inversion layer contained the product in its gas state and allowed it to float toward the homes.
The product at the Earlimart site, where potatoes are planned to be planted, was mixed with water and sprayed onto the ground by a licensed applicator, Slatterly said. A water seal is then applied over the product, he said.
The water reacts with the product to push it into the ground, where a gas is formed that goes back up to kill nematodes, fungus and weed seeds, Slatterly said. The water also combats the rotten egg smell, he said.
Bonds said Saturday's incident was the first he's seen like that in his 25 years with the commissioner's office.
David Moore of the Kern County Agricultural Commissioner's office said he was aware of only minor problems with the product. One was near Rosedale about two years ago when some people experienced teary eyes, but that resulted from a different type of application, Moore said.
Moore said the only other problems with the product were some minor odor complaints.