Activists Target U.S. Crops Produced With Methyl Bromide

WASHINGTON, DC, November 24, 2004 (ENS) – The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) launched a campaign Tuesday to convince supermarkets in the United States to stop selling food, such as tomatoes, strawberries and nuts, grown or treated with the chemical methyl bromide.

Used as a pesticide and soil fumigant, methyl bromide is considered the most potent chemical still in widespread use that depletes the Earth's protective ozone layer.

Methyl bromide is a fumigant used to control insects, nematodes, weeds, and pathogens in more than 100 U.S. crops. (Photo by Peggy Grebs courtesy USDA)

"There are viable alternatives to the use of methyl bromide," said EIA President Allan Thornton. "Supermarket chains such as Safeway, Whole Foods, Albertson’s, Kroger and Wal-Mart need to ensure that their shelves are free of produce grown or treated with this deadly chemical. We will be writing to major supermarkets to ask them to stop supporting the continued use of methyl bromide."

The depleted ozone layer allows more cancer causing ultra-violet solar radiation to strike the Earth, increasing the incidence of skin cancer. And methyl bromide also should be shelved for its other harmful effects on public health, the EIA said.

Direct exposure can result in headaches, nausea, chest and abdominal pain, respiratory failure, and even death. Many strawberry and tomato fields treated with methyl bromide are located so near as to endanger homes, schools, and churches.

Strawberries planted in soil fumigated with methyl bromide at the University of Florida Gulf Coast Research and Education Center in Bradenton, Florida. (Photo by Jose Manual Lopez Aranda courtesy MBAO)

The EIA's action is timed to coincide with a meeting this week in Prague of Parties to the Montreal Protocol, the international accord that aims to phase out use of ozone depleting chemicals, including methyl bromide.

Methyl bromide production has already been cut by some 30 percent of peak 1991 levels under the Montreal treaty, which the United States ratified in 1988 during the administration of President Ronald Reagan.

The remaining 30 percent is to be phased out by January 1, 2005, except for uses that the treaty parties agree are "critical."

The Bush administration has drawn criticism from environmentalists for negotiating a change in the treaty that has slowed the pace of the U.S. methyl bromide phase out.

The phase out covers such uses as fumigation of soils and pest control on farms. But other pest-control purposes, involving exports of commodity crops, animal fodder, cut flowers, hides and consignments in wooden pallets, are exempted from the international phase out.

Pole tomatoes treated with chloropicrin as an alternative to methyl bromide (Photo courtesy MBAO)

On the agenda of this week’s intergovernmental meeting are requests by 16 developed countries, including the United States, for "critical use exemptions" for methyl bromide beyond the phase out date.

If agreed at the levels recommended by the Montreal Protocol’s expert panel, such exemptions would allow these countries to use 18,486 metric tons of this chemical in 2005 and about 12,000 tons in 2006.

Requests for methyl bromide exemptions in 2005 have surpassed actual consumption in 2004, and nominations for 2006 show no signs of decreasing, the EIA said Tuesday in a briefing in Prague.

"The continuation of high levels of production after scheduled phase-out comes at a time when signs of illicit stockpiling, oversupply, and dumping in developing countries, and unreported trade of methyl bromide are increasing and remain shockingly un-addressed," the EIA warned.

"Dramatic progress has been achieved over the past 15 years in eliminating CFCs and other ozone-destroying chemicals. But the task remains unfinished, as demonstrated by delays in phasing out methyl bromide more completely," said Executive Director Klaus Toepfer of the United Nations Environment Programme, which provides the Montreal Protocol’s secretariat.

At this week's meeting the Parties also will discuss the use of methyl bromide in quarantine and pre-shipment treatments aimed at preventing beetles and other pests from hitch-hiking rides with exported produce to other parts of the world. These treatments, which are not covered by the Protocol’s phase-out schedule, are thought to account for the consumption of approximately 29 per cent of all methyl bromide that could potentially be released into the atmosphere.

U.S. Customs officer inspects an incoming shipment for destructive Asian longhorn beetles. (Photo courtesy APHIS)

Alternatives to methyl bromide fumigation of wooden packing crates exist, the EIA says. Sulfuryl fluoride, ethylene oxide, phosphine, heat treatment, chemical preservation, permanent wood preservatives, and alternative packing materials such as plastic containers are in use worldwide.

"Drawing on the best available science and working together with creativity and goodwill, the world’s governments and industries need to speed up the development and spread of ozone-friendly replacements for this harmful pesticide. This would send a powerful signal to both producers and users that there is no future for methyl bromide," Toepfer said.

When the meeting considers the requests for critical use exemptions, governments will be keen to avoid a repetition of the deadlock that occurred at their regular annual meeting 12 months ago. This deadlock required the Parties to convene their first-ever extraordinary meeting last March in order to resolve the issue. At that meeting, the United States got the critical use exemption it requested.

"The quantities used on farms is very well understood and following an extraordinary meeting of the parties to Montreal Protocol in March this year, I hope we are now on a trajectory where its controlled uses are set to diminish. However the precise levels of methyl bromide being used for quarantine and pre-shipment purposes, where the chemical is used to kill insects like long horned and bark beetles, wood boring wasps, moths and other pests, remains uncertain," said Toepfer.

He urged countries to back a global survey, being carried out for UNEP's Ozone Secretariat, so that governments can be better informed on the precise quantities of the chemical being used globally.

The 16th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol is underway at the Hotel Hilton Prague. Ministers and other senior officials will attend the high level segment that caps the meeting, scheduled for Thursday and Friday.