3 Growers Sued for Illegal Use of Aldicarb

The Monterey County district attorney’s office is suing three growers for allegedly treating hundreds of acres of broccoli and cauliflower with aldicarb, the controversial pesticide that caused California’s statewide watermelon recall in July.

The growers used aldicarb--which is not registered for their two crops and thus banned under the state food and agricultural code--because they believed that its toxicity would dissipate by harvest time, according to a deputy district attorney who filed the civil suit.

The suit seeks $75,000 worth of civil penalties from growers Mel Bassetti, Bill Whitney and Bob Whitney, who authorities claim intentionally applied the pesticide to 26 small fields covering about 850 acres near King City in the southern part of the county.

Aldicarb is the active ingredient in Temik, a popular Union Carbide Corp. pesticide that is used to kill worms and mites in numerous crops, including cotton and potatoes. However, aldicarb is not registered for use on broccoli, cauliflower or watermelons. A pesticide is registered for use on a crop only when it can be proven that the crop will not accumulate enough residue to make consumers sick.

The July discovery that aldicarb had been used on some watermelons in Kern County came only after several hundred people in western states were stricken after eating California melons.

Testing Process Set Up

State agricultural officials hurriedly banned the harvesting and sale of melons and then fashioned a testing process to sample and clear each of the state’s growers. Delays, which occurred near the peak of the harvesting season, cost growers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

State, federal and county agricultural officials are still conferring on whether to file criminal charges in the Kern County case. The targets of their investigation are believed to be two farmers whose melon fields have been quarantined.

In both the Kern and Monterey County cases, there have been indications that farmers were willing to apply the illegal pesticide because of aldicarb’s reputation as a superior killer of maggots and worms and because the growers believed that it would dissipate quickly enough to evade laboratory detection in mature crops.

In Monterey County, contamination was found only in fields that had not reached maturity, and testing of mature crops showed no residue.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Douglas Matheson said Monday that the farmers being sued “apparently did not intend to put on the market things that were unsafe. . . . They did their own calculations and applied aldicarb in amounts that they thought would come out at a zero factor” by harvest time.

Inquiry Before Harvesting

Unlike the Kern County case, in which agricultural officials were caught off guard, the Monterey County agricultural commissioner’s office acted quickly in response to rumors from other growers and was able to conduct an investigation before any harvesting was done, Matheson said.

Matheson said the staff of the county’s agricultural commissioner, Richard Nutter, “picked up the rumors, got samples, sent them up for testing, then came at us with results and even some statements from the growers that they admitted using” aldicarb.

Matheson said his office is almost positive that no aldicarb-contaminated broccoli or cauliflower has been harvested elsewhere in the county.

Because of cooperation by the growers, the district attorney’s office chose not to file criminal charges. Its civil suit asks for the suspected growers’ crops to be destroyed, a provision that Matheson said he believes the growers will fight, contending that the mature crops are safe.

George E. McInnis, a Salinas attorney who represents the three growers, was not available for comment.