If methyl iodide is approved, the decision will come with a long list of regulations, designed to protect workers, and people who live nearby from inhaling fumes from the chemical.

This story comes from California Watch.

The Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing scientific assessments of a controversial strawberry fumigant scheduled for use in California, as well as opening up a public comment period on the toxic pesticide, according to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and the environmental law group Earthjustice.

This could have implications in California, where the state's Department of Pesticide Regulation is expected to approve the fumigant, methyl iodide, later this year, amid concerns that it could be toxic to farmworkers and people who live near agricultural fields.

In an interview last week, Feinstein said she had asked the EPA to look into methyl iodide after learning about the 120-fold difference between exposure levels deemed safe by the DPR, and the levels deemed safe by the agency's own staff scientists, as well as by a panel of outside scientists commissioned by the state.

"My letter," said Feinstein, "was to say, 'EPA, can you take another look at this, in view of this other testimony? Because the scientific data here is so very different.'"

The EPA later told Feinstein it would open a review of California's differing scientific assessments of the fumigant.

Methyl iodide is considered critical to California's $2 billion strawberry industry. Currently growers use a fumigant called methyl bromide, which is being phased out under international treaty because it damages the ozone layer.

The EPA approved methyl iodide in 2007. Both Feinstein and Earthjustice have requested formal reconsideration of that approval. However, the EPA's announcement falls short of that. Earthjustice's Paul Towers says he hopes the public comment period is the first step toward reconsideration, "and that when the federal government reviews this, they'll come to the right decision."

EPA spokesman Dale Kemery declined to say whether reconsideration was on the table or not.

Lea Brooks, DPR spokeswoman, noted that the EPA's approved exposure levels are more than twice as high as what California is proposing. "California's proposed restrictions are much more health-protective than U.S. EPA's," she said in an e-mail.

If the EPA decides to limit the use of methyl iodide, California growers could be unaffected, since the state's restrictions are more stringent than the EPA's. However, if the agency ultimately decides to revoke its approval of the pesticide, California officials would have to follow suit.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Fresno, who held a hearing on methyl iodide in June, has introduced a provision into state budget negotiations that would postpone methyl iodide's registration by a year and require further review. The provision has met opposition from Republicans, and awaits approval by the Legislature.

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If methyl iodide is approved later this month, the decision will come with a long list of regulations, designed to protect workers, and people who live nearby from inhaling fumes from the chemical.

How much can we count on respirators, buffer zones and other tools to protect people from a toxic chemical? That's the focus of this week's QUEST radio story. If methyl iodide is approved later this month, the decision will come with a long list of regulations, designed to protect workers, and people who live nearby from inhaling fumes from the chemical, which can cause miscarriages, cancer and– while the science is less clear here — brain damage.

Last week we looked at how the decision over methyl iodide has caused a rift within the agency charged with making the decision. At the heart ofthis dispute is a disagreement between "risk assessors" and "risk managers," over what size dose of methyl iodide could be considered safe.

Strawberry growers say fumigants like mehtyl iodide are key to sustaining a $2 billion a year industry. UC Davis strawberry researcher Doug Shaw has done comparisons on beds grown with fumigants, including methyl iodide, and without. He says when comes to the utility of fumigants this comparison speaks volumes.

Listen to Strawberries and Worker Safety – Part Two radio story online.

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After millions of dollars of research, strawberry growers have come up with an alternative to methyl bromide, which damages the ozone layer: methyl iodide. Unfortunately, methyl iodide has its own set of problems.

California’s $2 billion strawberry industry relies to a large extent on a chemical called methyl bromide. It’s a fumigant that growers use to sterilize the soil, before the plants go in. But methyl bromide also damages the ozone layer, which is why it’s being phased out under international treaty.

This is old news to strawberry growers, who have spent a decade looking for a replacement (and successfully pleading for extensions on the phase-out). After millions of dollars of research, they've come up with an alternative: methyl iodide. Unfortunately, methyl iodide has its own set of problems. It can cause cancer, miscarriages and, many scientists believe, neurological damage, both to adults and children, and fetuses. The fear is that people who work in strawberry fields, or who live, work, and go to school nearby, could get sick. That’s the subject of this week’s radio story.

Though organic strawberry growers say that pests can be addressed without the use of fumigants, state ag officials say the industry needs methyl iodide. In a letter obtained by QUEST in a Public Records Act request, California Department of Food and Agriculture said that if methyl iodide is denied to growers, the industry will take a hit. They say it could cost the state as much as 50,000 jobs.

Listen to Strawberries and Worker Safety radio story online.

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Luis Medellin and Karl Tupper set up a drift catcher in Lindsay, CA.

My radio story on pesticide drift looks at how residents in the citrus town of Lindsay are monitoring pesticides in the air and in their bodies. They are using a device called a Drift Catcher, modeled after technology used by the California Air Resources Board and the Department of Pesticide Regulation.

The pesticide drift catcher has a vacuum pump that sucks air into a glass test tube, where pesticide residues are trapped in a resin. Community members change out the test tubes and send them to a lab, where scientists crack them open, extract the residues with an organic solvent, and then analyze those extracts through gas chromatography.

The Lindsay study measures Chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that can cause headaches, blurred vision, and muscle weakness when people breathe in the air from a recently-sprayed orchard or field. Studies also show prenatal exposure MAY have effects on children's cognitive and motor skills.

Environmental lawyers are using preliminary data from the Lindsay drift catchers in a petition asking the EPA to create pesticide buffer zones around schools, child care centers, and hospitals.

Listen to the Catching the Drift – Part Two radio report online.

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