Beyond the Bug

THE ENVIRONMENT

Pesticides such as DDT, parathion, aldrin and dieldrin are both ally and enemy to man. The chemicals annihilate predators: the aphids that plague rose fanciers, disease-bearing mosquitoes, beetles that spread Dutch elm disease, in sects that devour crops. As a farmer's helper, pesticides increase crop yields, hence profits. But poison is blind. Loosed annually by the ton from planes, boats, trucks, tractors and handy spray cans, it cannot isolate its target. Since Rachel Carson exposed the pesticides' threat seven years ago, in Silent Spring, evidence of the chemicals' pernicious effects on birds, plants, fish, animals and occasionally man has continued to grow. Yet little in the way of effective control has been attempted-- until now.

Arizona has outlawed DDT for one year to determine just how harmful it is. Similar legislation is pending in Pennsylvania and Michigan, while the Illinois house of representatives has passed two pesticide-control bills without a single dissenting vote. The Wisconsin department of natural resources is in the midst of pesticide hearings. Among other things, DDT, with its long-lived potency, is blamed for causing birds to produce eggs with thin shells, thereby contributing to the disappearance of the bald eagle, osprey and peregrine falcon.

Poor Fish. In the U.S. Senate this week, Wisconsin Democrat Gaylord Nelson is commemorating the fifth anniversary of Rachel Carson's death by introducing a bill to create a national commission on pesticides. Although federal regulatory legislation governing labeling and registration is on the books, it has rarely been enforced. There has not been a criminal prosecution under this statute for 13 years. As a result, the chemical industry, which annually produces 1.05 billion pounds of pesticides (value: $787 million) continues to be secretive about registration data.

Reacting to the growing pressure for stricter enforcement, the Food and Drug Administration last month seized 28,150 pounds of Lake Michigan coho salmon infected by pesticide residue. But no one knows how much of the fish plucked from U.S. lakes daily by commercial and sport fishermen is contaminated. A classic example is Clear Lake, Calif., where DDT (at the minuscule proportion of two one-hundredths of a part per million parts of water) was used to kill off a troublesome, lake-hatching insect. As a result, plankton accumulated DDT residues at five parts per million; fatty tissue of fish feeding on lake-bottom life was found to contain several hundred to 2,000 parts of DDT per million; grebes and other diving birds died from eating the fish. The New York health department reports high concentrations of DDT in trout in the state's central and northern lakes. "What is happening in Lake Michigan is an indication of what to expect elsewhere," admits John Gottschalk, director of the bureau of sport fisheries and wildlife. "There will be a day, and it may not be until the year 2000, when we are the coho salmon."

Pesticide poisoning has become a new issue in the four-year California grape pickers strike. Face swollen and complaining of dizziness and shortness of breath, a woman told the general counsel of the United Farm Workers, Jerome Cohen, that she had been drenched by wind-blown pesticides while working in a field. Other pickers have reported becoming sick after exposure to parathion and DDT. Cohen asked the Kern County agricultural commissioner for permission to see permits for pesticide spraying, which are required by California law. But before he could look at the records, three spraying companies obtained a court order prohibiting scrutiny of the papers.

Sweden's Response. The Farm Workers may have lost one round in the case, but the hearings gave them ammunition for a larger suit to ban the use of DDT in California. The most damning charge came from Dr. Irma West of the state department of public health. She testified that in 1965, one California farm worker died of pesticide poisoning, and between 200 and 300 had been nonfatally poisoned. In addition, some 1,000 workers had experienced "dermatitis, chemical burns of the skin and eyes, and other miscellaneous conditions resulting from contact with pesticides."

The controversy could hardly have been predicted in 1939, when Swiss Chemist Paul Muller developed DDT or later, in 1948, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Sweden. Recently, Sweden became the first nation in the world to ban use of the chemical.

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