Bus Drivers Say Roach Pesticide Triggered Illness

Several Orange County bus drivers--one of whom fainted after being relieved in the middle of a work shift--became ill in February after their buses were sprayed with a pesticide for cockroaches.

Orange County Transit District officials blamed a one-time mix-up involving a delivery of the wrong pesticide to the district. A smelly, oil-based version of a Johnson Wax product called Bolt was delivered to the district instead of the water-based version normally used to spray the buses.

Both products are similar to Raid, the household spray also manufactured by Johnson Wax.

Health officials said exposure to the insecticide, which damages insects’ nervous systems, causes temporary, flulike symptoms in people but no long-term effects.

Asked for Relief

Toni Thompson, a driver for 13 years, said she passed out Feb. 2 at the district’s Garden Grove bus yard after she asked to be relieved by another driver because she wasn’t feeling well.

“I noticed the odor, which was not unusual, as soon as I got on the bus that morning,” Thompson recalled Thursday. “But it was unusually heavy.”

She said she began feeling queasy and lightheaded during her two-hour run on the No. 57 bus line between Santa Ana and Laguna Hills. “By the time I got back into downtown Santa Ana,” Thompson said, “I felt real nauseous.”

After she fainted, Thompson said, paramedics transported her to Garden Grove Medical Center, where tests showed that “there was no permanent damage.”

Driver Randy Humber, also hospitalized from what doctors diagnosed as overexposure to the pesticide on March 30, disputed the district’s explanation of the problem.

Humber said district buses have “reeked” of pesticide before February and since, and that drivers have complained for years that both versions of the product have been sprayed into air-conditioning ducts on the buses in violation of Environmental Protection Agency rules.

“There are numerous complaints still, but most drivers feel like the company (OCTD) won’t do anything about it anyway, so they just suffer through it,” Humber said.

District spokeswoman Joanne Curran denied that anything is sprayed into bus air-conditioning ducts.

As for the routine spraying of the interiors of buses, Curran said: “It’s a procedure that has to be done. People sometimes leave food on there all day, or come aboard with backpacks, and that’s why we get cockroaches.”

Acknowledged Incident

An OCTD-prepared staff report on the pesticide issue, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, acknowledged the Thompson incident but theorized that “diesel fumes could have been responsible for the odor” that made her ill.

However, the report stated that an investigation revealed no leaks in the bus’s exhaust system.

Both Humber and Thompson returned to work within 24 hours of their hospitalization.

The OCTD staff report said there were 13 complaints about pesticide use from bus drivers in March alone. Curran said Thursday that a few driver complaints are still coming in.

Statistics for February and earlier months were not immediately available, she said, but such complaints “were almost unheard of” until the accidental product mix-up in February.

OCTD officials, questioned May 8 by EPA entomologist and chemist Dwight Welch after Humber complained to his agency, strongly denied that insecticides are sprayed into bus air-conditioning systems.

Based on such assurances, Welch said Thursday, he took no further action. “I maintained (to OCTD) that if they applied the pesticide in the manner they described to me, there is no problem,” Welch said, “but that if the air-conditioning ducts are being treated, that would be a violation. It does make people feel sick . . . but there are no long-term health effects.”

Air conditioning, he said, causes the insecticide to evaporate more quickly, which spreads the fumes.

Tells of Effects

Welch said persons overexposed to the insecticide used by the district may suffer short-lived headaches, queasy stomachs and runny noses.

At Humber’s request, the district has begun a pilot project to see if odorless boric acid, a white powder, can replace the pesticide used now. Welch said the powder has limited usefulness, however, because it gets blown around, clings to passengers’ shoes and is toxic to children and pets.

Boric acid has been recommended by the Berkeley-based Concerned Citizens for a Better Environment, a group to which Humber has complained.

Sam Singer, superintendent of maintenance for the Southern California Rapid Transit District in Los Angeles, said his workers use granulated boric acid instead of sprays to control cockroaches.

Occasionally, Singer said, foggers similar to those used to treat homes for flea infestations are put on a bus for two hours. No odor remains, he said, and there have been no complaints from drivers about pesticide fumes.

OCTD’s Curran said eight buses are sprayed at each of the district’s four bus yards on Friday nights and are aired out on Sundays before being placed back into service the following day. She said it takes about six weeks to spray the entire fleet.

Curran said the district’s safety coordinator inspected the spraying procedures Friday night and concluded that there was nothing wrong.

Thompson said Thursday she has not had pesticide-related health problems since she fainted Feb. 2.

Drivers see more cockroaches than passengers see, she said, because “we’re the first and last ones to see” the buses.

“I just mash them when they scamper across my dash,” Thompson said. “But they keep right on going.”