For educational purposes only.
Los Angeles School District to Ban Pesticides
and Weedkillers
Health: Parents, activists
spur school officials
to approve less toxic
methods.
Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, March 24, 1999
By LOUIS SAHAGUN, Times Staff Writer
The Los Angeles Unified School District on Tuesday
adopted a
new pest control policy that will phase out the use of dangerous
pesticides and herbicides over the next three years.
The plan, described as one of the most stringent
in the nation, calls for patching cracked walls in kitchens and classrooms
and steam cleaning behind ovens and refrigerators where pests breed, banning
food in most areas, improving sanitation procedures and hiring more gardeners
to pull weeds rather than spray them.
The new policy sets Los Angeles apart from
most districts across the state that do not embrace so-called least toxic
management policies. A survey of 556 schools conducted in 1993 by the state
Department of Pesticide Regulation found that 62% had no such pest management
plan.
Until Tuesday, the 661-campus Los Angeles district
used nearly 60 pesticides, most of which are not available to the public.
"This is a big deal. Our policy will be a national
model for other jurisdictions," said Yi Hwa Kim, district deputy director
of environmental health and safety. "I'm not a physician.
But our goal is to eventually see a marked
improvement in student safety."
Julie Crum, district director of maintenance
and operations added, however, that in a district with 800 campuses and
administrative sites, "the biggest challenge will be just maintaining
cleanliness."
On hand to witness Tuesday's unanimous vote
by the Los Angeles Board of Education were dozens of parent activists and
physicians who over the past year had pressured the district to remove pesticides
from campuses. Many of them wore yellow
badges with the words "Schools
Are for Kids, Not Poisons."
"This is the most
stringent policy in the nation, and it turns on its head the
former practice of banning substances molecule by molecule," said Dr. Kirk
Murphy, a spokesman for Physicians for Social
Responsibility and one of those who helped draft the new
regulations. "The indoor use of pesticides could be eliminated within two
years, and the outdoor use of herbicides could end within three years.
"The biggest problem facing district officials
in agreeing to adopt the plan," he added, "was finding funds to pull weeds
instead of dousing them with Roundup."
Also in the audience was Robina Suwol, who
exactly one year ago watched her 6-year-old son walk through a toxic fog
at Sherman Oaks Elementary School. A few days later, the boy had trouble
breathing.
On that day, she said, "a new activist was
born."
"First, I made a covert call to district officials
and asked, 'I love the way that school yard looks. What are you spraying
with?' " recalled Suwol, an actress. "Then I jumped on the Internet and looked
up the chemical, Princep. Nasty stuff."
Also on the Internet, she learned the names
and telephone numbers of organizations dedicated to ridding schools of
carcinogenic compounds. Ever since, she has been a stalwart member of several
organizations whose members gathered Tuesday to savor victory.
For them, it culminated months of personal
time spent researching dozens of chemicals and their manufacturers, combing
through district records, appearing at endless meetings, and fighting what
initially seemed a massive, intransigent bureaucracy.
"We've been a little force to behold," Suwol
said. "They tried to wear us down. But we were politely persistent."
The new policy, which was modeled after a similar
one embraced by San Francisco two years ago, formally recognizes that
"no pesticide product is free from risk or threat
to human health," and places the burden
on chemical manufacturers to prove their products are safe rather than on
the public to prove there is harm.
It also calls for extensive staff training
and the creation of a Pest Management Team
that will include parents, teachers, community groups, health
professionals and district officials. Any product used by the district will
have to be approved by this team after a careful review of contents, precautions
and low-risk methods.
The total cost of the program will include
$2.5 million for first-year implementation and $1.3 million annually thereafter.
That includes funding to hire 15 gardeners and buy equipment for manual weeding.
The policy is likely to generate work "for
years to come," Crum said. "We used to deep clean kitchens at year-round
schools every other year. Now, we'll do all schools
twice a year."
Given that
least-toxic pest
programs have proved
less expensive
than traditional methods, the district
expects to save money by eliminating chemicals and power spraying equipment
and installing various barriers to prevent entry of ants, cockroaches and
termites.
Improved health among students might be harder
to gauge. But a recent report titled "Failing Health:
Pesticide Use in California Schools," pointed out that the
overall incidence of childhood cancer increased 10% between 1974 and 1991,
making cancer the leading cause of childhood death
from disease.
About 4.8 million children under the age of
18 have asthma, the most common chronic illness in children. Numerous scientific
studies have linked both
cancer and
asthma to pesticide
exposure.
Yet, "we turned up LAUSD records showing gross
misuse of application formulas for these chemicals," Suwol said. "Sometimes
they mixed batches three times stronger than they were supposed to."
Others who worked hard to have the district
scrap its pesticides included Christina Graves, an organizer with the nonprofit
group Pesticide Watch; James Barnard,
professor of physiological science and medicine at UCLA; resident Yvonne
Nelson, and bookkeeper Helen Fallon, a self-described "LAUSD termite eating
at the district's very foundations from within."
"The fervor that mothers such as Robina and
Helen brought to this issue sparked the whole process," Murphy said, "and
curbed the tendency of the district to avoid dealing with this issue."
Graves, a professional activist, agreed.
"Our next battle," Graves said, "is making
sure they implement the policy."
Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved