Target TCP Update Agendized for January 16 City-County Two-by-Two

Representatives from the City and the County will meet on January 16, to discuss among other issues, the issue of TCP that was found in test sites around the Target Superfund site. To date, the EPA has dismissed community based calls for further testing before construction begins at their site.

The City-County will have their 2-by-2 meeting on Friday January 16, 2009 at 9 AM in the conference room at the Davis County Office which is located a block from City Hall at 600 A Street. The item on Target and the issue of the TCP has been agendized for discussion. The 2-by-2 consists of two members from the Board of Supervisors and two members from the City Council. That will be the two Davis Supervisors, which means that this will be newly installed Supervisor Jim Provenza's first 2-by-2. Mayor Ruth Asmundson and Councilmember Don Saylor represent the city.

For some reason the agenda for these meetings is not readily available from the city. This is a public meeting and the public under the Brown Act ought to be informed about it. Thus there is no posted information on either the City's webpage or the County's webpage. It would be interesting to see where the meetings are posted and whether the city and county are in compliance with the Brown Act regarding posting and announcing such meetings. Regardless, even if this is within the letter of the law, it certainly seems to break the spirit of the law.

Here's a letter from Congressman Mike Thompson who seems unconcerned about the problem--further illustrating why it was a good thing that he was not selected as Secretary of the Interior.

Thank you for contacting me regarding elevated levels of trichloropropane (TCP) found at the 2nd Street construction site of the Target in Davis. I appreciate you sharing these concerns with me.

Rest assured that I am aware of the discovery of TCP at the construction site and agree that public safety - for residents, construction workers, future employees and shoppers - is of the utmost concern. I have been in contact with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the City of Davis about the concerns that have been expressed to me and I will continue to follow the issue. The EPA has explained that no contamination has been found at the building location and that the high concentrations of TCP are at the neighboring disposal basin and should be addressed soon as part of the final cleanup of the Superfund site.

Presently, remediation in the form of gravel/vapor barriers and air sampling is being conducted regardless of construction activity. Additionally, the EPA has an enforceable agreement with Target should more aggressive containment measures prove necessary. A strong EPA agreement with a responsible partner willing to conduct monitoring and remedial action as necessary is crucial to mitigate the risks from contaminants over the long term. For its part, the City of Davis has significant experience in managing matters of soil and groundwater contamination, most notably at the Fifth and G Streets site that now houses the US Department of Agriculture.

Again, thank you for your concern and vigilance on this issue. Please continue to contact me on all issues of importance to you and our district.

Sincerely,

MIKE THOMPSON
Member of Congress
http://www.mikethompson.house.gov

The problem that residents of Davis face at the moment is that the City Council has very limited jurisdiction over such matters. This goes back to the issue of Agraquest and possible health threats the community might face from environmental contamination at their Kennedy Place site. The city has limited ability to act on such things.

The county is far better situated on both issues to deal with it. However, the County Health Department summarily without investigation dismissed concerns about Agraquest, and now it appears they have done little with regards to the potential threat that residents adjacent to the Superfund site may face from exposure to TCP.

On Monday, the Sacramento Bee reported:

"The chemical has previously been found at the neighboring Frontier Fertilizer Superfund site along Second Street, near Interstate 80 and Mace Boulevard.

But nearby residents are now concerned it may be migrating northeast under the Target site, toward their homes."

Bonnie Arthur, the EPA Superfund project manager said the following:

"The chemical is known to cause cancer, she said. But she said it does not threaten the city's drinking water supply, which is drawn from deeper wells. "Nobody's drinking this water," she said."

However, members of the Frontier Fertilizer Superfund Oversight Group are not so sure that it is not a threat to drinking water if it continues to move and begins to leach into wells that lie at a deeper level.

The question is where is the county on all of this? They have a health department and they have the power to investigate these matters independent of the EPA. If this represents an actual health threat, it would seem that the county should step in.

But in both this and the Agraquest issue, the county has been silent.

It remains to be seen if a more aggressive Supervisor like Jim Provenza might be able to change some of this. January 16, 2009 will be a very important meeting on this matter, and residents concerned about this issue should try to attend, even though the meeting is happening during the work day when working people will have difficulty attending.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

California Aggie Covers Issue of Agraquest; Yolo County Health Discounts Health Concerns

This morning, there is an article in the California Aggie about Agraquest and former Employee Davis Bell.

Of particular interest is a response from Jeff Pinnow, supervising hazardous material specialist for Yolo County Environmental Health.

According to him, claims about the possibility of harmful microbes in local soil are unfounded.

"Jeff Pinnow, supervising hazardous materials specialist for Yolo County Environmental Health, said that the complaint did not come into Yolo County until 2007, even though Bell began experiencing symptoms a few months after he started at the company in 1998. Bell's mother, Sandi Trend, took it to the Yolo County District Attorney's Office and was mainly approaching it from the standpoint of worker's compensation issues, said Pinnow.

When Pinnow looked at the complaint he said that most of it dealt with worker's health and safety as well as soil importation into the country.

"If we thought it was a threat we would have initiated some type of investigation or we would have found some other agency to do it," Pinnow said. "[Any loose microbes] have been out getting rained on and open to elements for 10 years and I have one repeated case of illness. The likelihood of that being a public health threat - it doesn't even rise to that level."

Pinnow said that if the information had been reported in 1998 or 1999, there would have been more urgency."

There have been two concerns raised here. One is that materials were dumped onto the soil. A question that arises from that is whether people were exposed to this even ten years ago. As many who have followed the history of such problems are well aware of, symptoms tend to show up only years down the line.

The second issue that arises is the question of the building itself that used to house AgraQuest. The building owner suggests that the building has been refurbished at least three times since AgraQuest was there.

However, Doug Haney who has been researching molds, fungi, and microbes for over 20 years remains concerned that the building may not have been properly and thoroughly cleansed.

In an interview with the Vanguard last week, Mr. Haney suggested that without such specific procedures, the ventilation system in the building could still remain a threat.

It is interesting that Mr. Pinnow is willing to write off the threat without an sort of physical examination. And yet someone who has worked with molds and toxins for a number of years remains very concerned about the possibility of airborne exposure. The fact remains, no one really knows what was actually dumped on that spot.

Mr. Haney has worked in Sacramento on a number of health threats from sick building syndrome.

The Yolo County Health Department is clearly trying to calm any concerns here, but to date, no one has looked at that building or the area around it to see if it represents a health threat.

One final note, yesterday in one of the old articles, it was suggested that this has been a very one-sided story in the Vanguard. However, Pam Marrone did not return an email requesting an interview from the Vanguard and declined to comment on the News and Review story. Both Pam Marrone and AgraQuest are welcome to have full and equal time to tell their side of the story.

The Vanguard will continue to follow this issue as new developments come forth.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

The Vanguard's Article on AgraQuest Provokes Strong Response from Both County Health Director and Building Owner

Following Friday's article on AgraQuest and the former office on Kennedy Place, Yolo County Health Director Bette Hinton was notified of the problem. As we now know, she actually learned of this problem a year ago.

Ironically, yesterday it was announced that Dr. Hinton would retire at the end of the year.

"Yolo County Health Officer and Health Department Director, Dr. Bette G. Hinton, today announced her intention to retire at the end of this year. Dr. Hinton has served Yolo County in her current position for the past ten years."

However, right now we focus on her response to this complaint.

Here is her full response:

"Our department became aware of Mr Bell's complaints in October of 2007. After review of a lengthy complaint document, the hazardous materials staff agreed that the Health Department had neither the technical expertise nor the regulatory authority to investigate the allegations. They made this decision after reviewing the Agra-Quest Hazardous Materials Business Plan, consultation with staff at the County Agriculture Department, the US Department of Agriculture, the Ca Dept of Food and Agriculture , the California Dept of Industrial Relations (CalOSHA) and with the US EPA. This matter was basically a workers compensation issue and a complaint that Agra-Quest dumped biological organisms with which they were working, into the soil around their facility. Additionally, the complaints were about an issue from 1998-1999 and there had been no other associated illnesses. In order to provide due diligence, we referred the complaint to USDA (which controls soil importation), California EPA and the California Department of Pesticide regulation. None of these agencies replied to us, but they may have investigated further.

With regard to the complaint of dumping biological material at the Kennedy Place facility, it would be extremely difficult to verify that now as the soil has been exposed for 10 years to any organism that might be found in our environment and many of the organisms that were used in the facility can be found elsewhere in our soil. Additionally, any pesticides which may have been successfully would probably be legal now for use on crops, etc. that surround us in an agricultural community. Personal contact with the soil would be necessary for harm to occur. This is not a chemical complaint where one might be concerned about water contamination or fumes from the site.

In summary, our hazardous materials specialist's evaluation is that the health department has no regulatory authority in this case. It does not appear to be an "imminent threat to public health and safety", which in the absence of clear regulatory authority, would be the only reason we could react."

My basic concerns with this response are threefold.

I fully understand that the Yolo County Health Department has "neither the technical expertise nor the regulatory authority to investigate the allegations." However, I would like to think as Director of the Health Department in Yolo County her responsibility would extend past that, and toward actually finding out who would have regulatory authority. This is a problem I have had at every level in this process and before me the family and consultants to David Bell. No one has had regulatory authority but worse yet, no one in a position to help has taken the time to find out who does.

Second, out of "due diligence" they referred the complaint to USDA, Cal-EPA, and Department of Pesticides, however, while they never replied, she also never followed up with them. To me that indicates a lack of concern.

Finally in response to the "imminent threat to public health and safety" there is actually some evidence that at least 11 other workers have become sick from this lab.

As Doug Haney, an expert on molds, fungi, and microbes tells us:

"When investigating this matter I was informed that one witness has indicated that at the same time Mr. Bell became ill, eleven other employees became ill also and the laboratory was locked up and secured by the company Chief Executive Officer."

They might not have reported their illness to the health department, but it seems unlikely that the health department has checked into this much either. Moreover, as I am sure Dr. Hinton is well aware, there are times when such impacts happen 10 to 20 years down the line.

Mr. Haney also takes issue with the claim that a sample taken ten years after the fact would not prove useful.

"To the contrary, and with the amount of chemicals and microbes that allegedly were dumped into the soil adjacent to the external wall directly behind the internal laboratory area, deep soil sampling 10 years later might render some very intriguing and revealing facts, especially those relating to microbial genetic mutational theory."

The overall response here from Dr. Hinton is disappointing. That is coupled by the response from Ron Broward, who is the owner of the building on Kennedy Place. He called the Vanguard on Monday morning at 10:00 to ask me to retract the story.

At this point I asked him why, he said that the story was completely false. His chief complaint was the use of the photos taken at the site, particularly that of the water faucet, which he characterized as a leaky sprinkler head. He said he has regular maintenance on the grounds who deal with such things and they simply replaced the sprinkler. Given the amount of corrosion and chemical deposits on that "sprinkler" it appears it would have had to be leaky for a long period of time.

I asked Doug Haney, who viewed the "sprinkler" what he thought he had seen:

"I saw and the picture shows it as, that could only be transferred over a long period of time. That's not a few day type accumulation. My first impression of it was as a biointeractive health psychologist is that it's chemistry, a lot of chemistry, on the drain."

Mr. Broward also suggested that the crow was planted on the location. That did not seem to be a very logical deduction.

I asked Sandi Trend, the mother of David Bell about this accusation:

"Believe me, it wasn't planted. It was suggested afterwords, well why didn't you get it so it could be analyzed. My comment was, I'm not touching that thing."

Instead she discovered it by happenstance when she came to look at the drain where her son had told her that he had dumped chemical drums years before.

"I took a friend of mine down and I want to see this drain where David said he was instructed to dump liquid. I didn't even notice the crow, it was my friend. I am looking around the building for a drain and it was my friend who said oh my god, there's a dead bird here. And that's how I saw the dead bird."

Of particular concern and unanswered by Mr. Broward was the lack of decomposition of this bird.

Doug Haney:

"I saw the crow two weeks later and I saw the pictures long after I saw the crow. I do know that the pictures were taken two weeks before because Sandi had told me that she had taken pictures of this crow earlier because she was putting it into her forte for her son.

That is correct [there was no decay of the bird when he inspected it]. After two weeks I would have expected to see almost bones and a little bit of feather."

The Vanguard is trying to track down another witnessed who viewed both the crow and the sprinkler with Mr. Haney.

In the meantime, Ron Broward adamantly told the Vanguard he would not pay to examine either the interior or the exterior of the building to determine if there is a potential health risk. He argued that there is no evidence that there is. He suggested that if I wanted it examined, I could pay for it myself.

He pointed out that AgraQuest has not even been in the building for a number of years. I mentioned to him that these microorganisms can survive much longer than that period of time. He admitted he did not know anything about that.

In a follow up meeting, yesterday, on the location, Broward told myself and several others that they had done extensive remodels of the building.

However, as Doug Haney points out, unless they are specifically going in to remove microfungi agents, a routine remodel would probably not be sufficient.

Finally, Mr. Broward told me that this report had scared his tenants. I went door-to-door yesterday with a resident of the Davisille Apartments next to the business park and we probably spoke to 20 or 30 people. All of them were concerned, none of them could be characterized as frightened. People want to know if this represents a health problem, but no one is panicking about it.

This process is likely going to move on with or without the help of the authorities. It is a shame that Mr. Broward responded as he did, he could have put an end to the uncertainty very quickly.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Did Congressman Lungren Ignore Potential National Security Threat Posed by AgraQuest's Importation of Foreign Soils?

Listen to Vanguard Radio tonight from 6 to 7 on KDRT 95.7 FM for more on this topic. Our guests will include Sandi Trend, mother of David Bell and Doug Haney. David Bell is scheduled to call in from Texas at 6:30. You can listen live on the internet by clicking here. Callers are encouraged to ask questions: 530.792.1648.

Last week, the Sacramento News and Review reported that an AgraQuest worker David Bell contracted a series of respiratory infections during his time working for the company in 1999. Now nearly nine years later, he continues to suffer from the debilitating illness.

The Vanguard raised questions about the environmental impact at the Kennedy Place location for AgraQuest. Questions were most specifically brought forth from Mr. Bell himself who informed the Vanguard that as an employee of AgraQuest he was told to dispose of waste material on a concrete culvert. The Vanguard also showed photographic evidence taken from several years later that suggests the possibility of contamination of the outside worksite.

In a follow up interview with David Bell, he warned us that the ventilation system at the 1105 Kennedy Place office building needs to be fully investigated as well due to the activities that took place in the building and the possibility that microbes ended up in the ventilation system.

During the course of the investigation into both Mr. Bell's health and the workplace conditions, the Vanguard has learned that AgraQuest may have been shipping soil and other biological samples into the United States on commercial flights without proper licenses. Moreover, David Bell reports that employees at AgraQuest at the time of his employment bragged about sneaking a green suitcase full of dirt past U.S. customs on a flight from Chile.

Doug Haney, an advocate for human and patients’ rights, who specializes in mold and microbe exposure, reported this to Congressman Dan Lungren in November of 2007 during a meeting with Gold River Field Office Staffers Alexandria Snyder and Michelle Panos. Congressman Lungren (R-CA) is the ranking Republican member on the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. Interestingly enough, in 2006 he co-authored the SAFE Act (Security and Freedom Enhancement Act) with Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA), a bill that was designed to improve security at U.S. ports.

Despite warnings about the possible implications from such lax customs handling in our war on terrorism, it appears at least from Mr. Haney's viewpoint that neither Congressman Lungren nor his staff followed through on these warnings.

AGRAQUEST BUSINESS POLICIES

There is a lengthy public record on AgraQuest's practice of importing soils and other biological agents into the United States from across the globe. In fact it is noted as a point of pride in the articles written about AgraQuest over the course of the past ten years.

As early as 1997, a Sacramento Bee article entitled, "AgraQuest Growing Its Own Success," reports that:

"They'll check out new samples of soils or plant roots or lichen arriving from across the globe."

In 2002, on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, the announcer reported that AgraQuest had gathered up to 20,000 samples of various soils and other biological samples.

"What they're looking for are microorganisms that secrete naturally occurring pesticides. To find them, over the past seven years they have gathered some 20,000 samples, like this dirt and some bits of leaves Marrone finds in an old stump here. Each sample usually contains many different types of microbes, which are grown up in the lab and tested."

The Wall Street Journal in 2005 reported:

"While many biopesticide makers tinker with microbes discovered on university campuses, AgraQuest is unusual because it searches fields and jungles for new compounds, often finding them in dead bugs. It's painstaking work... Over the past decade, Dr. Marrone estimates she's screened some 23,000 suspects. Tanks and storage boxes filled with rotting vermin line the hallways at AgraQuest's headquarters."

This particular article describes trips that AgraQuest's researchers take from around the world noting Honduras, Mexico, and other exotic locations.

What these articles do not discuss of course is how they got these samples into the country in those early days and whether or not they did so legally.

David Bell, who is now suffering from a string of respiratory illnesses that he believes stem from his work at AgraQuest became curious around 2004 or 2005 when he heard a story about a man arrested by agents at APHIS for illegally smuggling soil into the country.

APHIS is the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Their primary work is to defend America's animal and plant resources from agricultural pests and diseases. However, they also serve as a sort of regulatory agency which controls the animal, plant, disease, and soil specimens that come into the United States.

In order for companies to import such things as soil, pathogens, and microbes, they must be licensed by APHIS.

But according to David Bell, AgraQuest was not licensed in 1999 when he worked there.

"I called them [APHIS] up and asked them."

He continues:

"They told me they had no permit on file, that they would be contacting that company."

In fact, according to Mr. Bell, no APHIS permit shows up at AgraQuest until 2003 or 2004--a full six or seven years after they were reporting to have received soils from around the world in the Sacramento Bee article.

"Somewhere around there then a valid permit finally shows up in the record."

And yet Mr. Bell became aware in 1999 - at least four years before APHIS claims that AgraQuest had a valid license - that workers claimed they had smuggled soil into the country. In fact, the workers bragged about it.

How did David Bell find out?

"I asked them what the hell the green suitcase was for when they were unpacking the dirt out of it and that's when they were laughing about how they got it into the country."

So they told him.

"Usually they would take off on a company business trip and come back with it [soil] in a suitcase. They would check luggage full of dirt, soil."

Again, at this time, AgraQuest apparently did not have a license to do this according to APHIS. Moreover, they were able to basically sneak it past customs agents, at least according to what David Bell's co-worker Stephen Flannigan told him in 1999.

Doug Haney:

"While [David] was [at Agraquest], a Stephen Flannigan had brought in a suitcase of soils that he had obtained in a foreign country. At that time, I did not know what the countries were, nor did I know what the soils were, nor did I know what the microbes were, nor did anyone else know what the microbes were that were in the soils, because David indicated that Mr. Flannigan had told everyone, and was bragging to everyone, that he had taken those soils, on a commercial airplane, into the United States, over the border, and bypassed the inspectors. This is a clear violation of licensure - if there is no licensure - and laws pertaining to insects, plant life, and microbes."

Mr. Bell also described the contents of the soils based on his knowledge of the soils that he had examined:

"It could clearly have any kind of pathogens. Dirt and soil is a very dirty thing, especially when you are purposefully taking dirt with animal feces on purpose. Yeah, God knows what could have been in it, to be honest. Only AgraQuest knows that answer."

Where did the shipment come from?

"That particular time I believe it was coming from Chile."

There was another time apparently when their trip did not work out quite as well.

"I remember when they (co-workers at AgraQuest) went over to England, they were extremely pissed off due to heightened security having to take their shoes off, they couldn't smuggle any dirt on that trip. They were very disappointed about that, that was right about when that hoof and mouth disease was going on and they were making people disinfect their shoes. They were really disappointed that they couldn't bring the usual suitcase full of garbage back."

TERRORISM CONCERNS ARISE

The idea that a company such as AgraQuest could simply slip soil and other potential biological agents containing microbes from around the world is alarming for those who might fear the United States' susceptibility to a biological attack.

This apparently is not a situation that simply ended with 9/11 and its tighter security measures.

"There was a gentleman coming in from Texas, who was detained at the airport for smuggling soils across federal lines."

Mr. Haney continued:

"That person was arrested, charged, and now [has] legal ramifications from that aspect."

But as Mr. Haney pointed out later in our interview, if that individual was caught smuggling at that time, you know that it probably was not the first time he tried to do so and you also know that others can do so or have tried as well. The difficulty in preventing the smuggling of a small bag of soil into this country - not to mention many other substances - that have the potential to be health threats is quite high.

Mr. Haney was alarmed.

"I felt with 21 years-plus of molecular sciences, there was a real gap of transfer of microbes into the United States, into laboratories and genetically modifying them, that there is a real possibility with terrorists taking those microbes, genetically linking those microbes, and creating a hybrid that could destroy a city very easily through disease..."

CONGRESSMAN DAN LUNGREN

As the result of these concerns, Mr. Haney contacted Congressman Dan Lungren. Congressman Dan Lungren is the ranking member on the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. In 2006 he co-authored the SAFE Act with Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA), a bill that was designed to improve security at U.S. ports. Clearly this should have been an issue of interest to Congressman Lungren.

In November of 2007, Doug Haney, Sandi Trend, and several of their associates attended Dan Lungren's townhall meeting in Folsom, California. Several of them raised the AgraQuest issue during the course of the townhall meeting.

A few weeks prior to the townhall meeting Mr. Haney went about trying to set up a meeting with Congressman Lungren.

"I had called a couple of times to [Dan Lungren's] staff asking if we could have a meeting with him away from the presentation to inform him of what was going on at AgraQuest--the actual bringing in illegally, of the microbes, into the United States..."

Mr. Haney then met with Alexandra Snyder and Michelle Panos in Congressman Lungren's field office.

"I agreed to meet with Dan's [Lungren] staffer, Alexandra, the head of his staff in [Lungren’s field office]."

What did he talk to them about?

"I brought papers in and I discussed it at length with her, knowing at that point that Congressman Lungren was the [ranking member] of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security. I talked to her as to how someone could come across the borders, illegally bring in soils on commercial planes, and if they know anything about genetics... they could actually cause a hybrid that could cause major damage, illness, and death..."

He continued:

"We gave them documentation because we wanted to keep this low key as to not really put a scare into the community to get something done about it without tipping off foreign countries as to how dangerous this really could be."

At that time they promised to look into the situation, but according to Mr. Haney, "nothing" came of this meeting.

"I tried to contact Alexandra Snyder - a couple of times- months later. The instructions coming out of the meeting were that I would be contacted if my assistance was needed or just to find out more information."

But he heard nothing again.

"I tried to call about three or four months later because I had not heard anything from them, to check up and do another review of it. From that point on there was no contact whatsoever with Dan Lungren. So as far as health and safety, as far as national security involvement, I have heard absolutely nothing."

Moreover:

"Bottom line is because nothing is happening. A logical thing is that if you have a real loophole in something as vital to America as homeland security and you see that it has immediate ramifications you first would investigate it to find out how true it is..."

But again, nothing came of this meeting and Ms. Snyder never returned Mr. Haney's calls.

The Vanguard made several attempts to speak with Alexandra Snyder before talking to the media spokesperson in Dan Lungren's Congressional office. Unfortunately, we have not heard back from them at the time of press, however, we will add their response if and when we receive it.

SUMMARY COMMENTS

It is worth noting that on Congressman Lungren’s campaign website they talk about his record on issues of terrorism and national security:

“Two years ago, Congressman Lungren authored the Safe Port Act of 2006, which received widespread bi-partisan support and was ultimately signed into law. This law represented a significant step forward in strengthening our national security from terrorists, but it was just a start. As a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Congressman Lungren has continued working with both Democrats and Republicans to strengthen our borders and pursue terrorists wherever they hide.”

It is unfortunate that the Congressman did not take a more proactive stance on what could really represent a serious threat to national security. When the terrorists of 9/11 attacked the United States they did not use conventional weaponry. Instead they were able to turn commercial aircraft into bombs.

What AgraQuest was allegedly doing was importing microbes into the United States through soil. That represents a potential threat on a number of levels. First, if they can slip soil into our country, others can do it. Second, if they can slip soil into our country, others can likely slip other things into our country. Are we really prepared for the level of ingenuity the next terrorist attack may take the form of? We were not prepared despite intelligence reports for 9/11. We worry about all sorts of things to do with national security and yet, when we see a glaring hole in our customs system, the first line of defense against a potential biological attack, it appears that our elected officials have done very little.

The Congressman can brag all he wants about working across party lines on strengthening our borders, but it appears he let a big potential issue slip right past him without adequate inquiry. That is a concern.

From the standpoint of Davis it is also a concern that AgraQuest, who apparently (stress on apparently) had no license during their early years was slipping foreign species of microbes into our community and then doing a number of genetic engineering and other manipulations on these microbes. All of this in the name of creating so called organic pesticides. Perhaps we ought to re-think what we call organic.

In the meantime, we remain concerned not only about the health of David Bell but the safety for our community and apparently for our nation. It is our hope that responsible leaders will look at this situation anew and plug whatever holes they need to in order to insure better security.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Did Davis Biotech Firm Expose Davis to Potentially Dangerous Pathogens?

Sandi Trend will be speaking about her son’s case at a screening of The World According to Monsanto, Saturday, October 18, 2 p.m., UC Davis, Chemistry Room 194.

This week's Sacramento News and Review featured a story by Seth Sandronsky which outlined the plight of former Sacramento resident David Bell, who worked for a Davis biotech firm, AgraQuest.

According to the News and Review article:

"Five months later, he came down with severe flu symptoms. His face and teeth grew numb. Breathing became difficult and he developed severe headaches. His nose bled and his sputum turned bloody.

Ten years, four sinus surgeries and numerous medical treatments later, Bell remains incapacitated by the illness, which he and his mother, Sandi Trend, of Citrus Heights, claim was caused by bacteria and fungi he was exposed to at AgraQuest."

The Vanguard has been investigating this story for the last several months and is very concerned about the possibility that some of the microbes and bacteria that were used in this lab could have escaped into the Davis environment and exposed Davis residents to potentially lethal infections. One of the problems that David Bell faced was a broken Worker's Compensation system. The main focus of the News and Review Article was the plight of David Bell and the problems in the Worker's comp system.

Our concern however is also with the residents who live and work near 1105 Kennedy Place, in Davis, the original location of Agraquest. It is located near two school sites and surrounded by residential neighborhoods.


At this point in time, we would like a regulatory agency to explore the area around the lab and determine whether there are possible pathogens that would represent a health risk. One of the challenges we face however is uncertainty as to who holds regulatory authority over this issue. Efforts at this time are underway to determine who holds regulatory authority and how the possibility of a health threat can be investigated.

WHAT THE LAB CONTAINED AND THE OFFICIAL RESPONSE OF CAL-OSHA

According to the News and Review:

"AgraQuest was founded in 1995 by Pam Marrone, a respected entomologist who had specialized in agriculture and insects at biotech giant Monsanto. Bell was a semester away from earning a bachelor’s degree in biology from Sacramento State when he started at the company in 1998. According to the transcript from his first workers’ compensation hearing, Bell worked primarily on two biopesticide projects, Laginex and Serenade.

Laginex is the brand name of Lagenidium giganteum, a water mold (fungi), which infects and kills mosquitoes. In a series of experiments, Bell documented what happened in water with mosquito larvae and Laginex and how to lengthen the biopesticide’s shelf life.

Serenade is a biopesticide used to control insects on crops. Its active ingredients are the Bacillus subtilis bacteria, which AgraQuest first found in a Fresno peach orchard. Bell tested soil samples taken from locations worldwide, using a fermentation process to extract the bacteria. He and a co-worker filled 10-kilo bags of Serenade from a larger drum. Bell did not wear a respirator while loading the Serenade."

At the March 18, 2008 Davis City Council meeting, the Davis City Council presented Pam Marrone with the 2007 Business and Economic Development award. According to the News and Review, "Marrone left AgraQuest in March 2006 to found Marrone Organic Innovations in Davis."

Marrone declined to comment for the News and Review Story; however, in October 2002, they write:

"As recently as October 2002, Marrone wrote that Serenade is “safe to workers and ground water,” in the industry journal Pesticide Outlook. At the workers’ compensation hearing, Denise Manker, AgraQuest’s vice president of global product development, testified that the company and its employees followed proper safety procedures and had tested its strain of Bacillus subtilis to ensure it did not contain a substance that causes allergic reactions. While noting that soil samples in the laboratory can be hazardous if handled incorrectly, she said it was highly unlikely that Bell had become infected by the Bacillus subtilis, since it’s not known to be harmful to humans."

Doug Haney is an advocate for human and patient rights who specializes in mold and microbe exposure. He wrote a book entitled "Toxic Mold! Toxic Enemy!" In it, he argues that over the years many researchers and doctors have been skeptical about the possibility of micro fungi infection, however in recent years there is increasing evidence of the danger of such organisms.

David Bell visited the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and they discovered a whole range of possible infectious agents. Sandi Trend, Bell's mother, was able to link many of the agents in the patents that AgraQuest was using to agents found in David Bell's body over the course of the last decade.

"According to peer-reviewed articles in British medical journal The Lancet, and other sources, serious questions have been raised about the safety of Bacillus subtilis for humans and animals.

Tests conducted at the clinic determined Bell had histo yeast, a mold found in soil, in his blood serum. He had developed histoplasmosis, which according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention affects the lungs and other organs and can be fatal if not treated."

Unfortunately, it does not appear that OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is equipped to handle this sort of problem.

CAL-OSHA investigated AgraQuest and found three of its ventilator hoods did not meet state standards. However, this was unrelated to the problems that David Bell is suffering from.

One of the big problems was pointed out by esteemed Dr. Larry Rose, who was the last doctor that worked for CAL-OSHA. OSHA has increasingly relied upon industry doctors and more often they have simply looked at smaller technical problems. They simply do not have the expertise to examine and diagnose this sort of problem.

As Larry Rose pointed out during a video interview which also featured local Davis activists and author of "Death on the Job" Dan Berman:

"When you're called in and a worker has possibly picked up a very serious infectious disease from the work process, you don't just go in and measure a face velocity and give a tag. You've gotta do some... you know real investigation. Go over all the medical records and you've got to get the organism and submit it to the proper lab to determine it's patogenicity. In other words, there's a series of steps you would take because you're not only trying to protect all the workers there now and future workers, but you also have to protect the community when you're talking about an infectious disease, this is a serious public health matter. So looking at what OSHA did [and] I'm just astounded that they had that kind of very weak response, inappropriate response according to the law."

THE THREAT TO DAVIS--BIOTECH LAB IN A RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD

As Doug Haney pointed out to me early on in my examination of this potential problem, he would be much less concerned about the possible health implications for the surrounding community of Davis if he believed that the lab was properly contained from the outside environment. Instead both photographic evidence and testimony from David Bell lead us to the opposite conclusion.

"The 20,000 microbes that they boast had been discovered throughout the world... were not fully contained in a way that specialized laboratories would require. That means they were in drawers, that they were open at some point, and exposed employees to whatever they were, they were unanalyzed, they were not determined at any point as to whether they were dangerous or not dangerous. That type of thing tells me that the laboratory was not a well-kept laboratory. The other part of it is that the building was in a residential area rather than a specific area for laboratories over in the Davis area."

The problem as Mr. Haney pointed out:

"[AgraQuest was] very soft in their application of training, in fact there was little or none that I know of that David [Bell] indicated. There were open suitcases of dirt or soil that had been brought in from foreign countries that were exposed in the laboratory. OSHA and other standards for laboratories indicate that you should not have any kind of drinks or foods associated in the actual work areas of laboratories, they have to be set aside, that wasn't the case at AgraQuest."

One of the biggest points of concern are photographs that show considerable corrosion on the outtake pipes several years after the lab moved from Kennedy Place to Drew Avenue. Is this residual pollution from the AgraQuest lab? Doug Haney believes so. As alarming was the fact that the dead crow in the picture above lay just beneath the pipe--undecomposed for two weeks between the time that the picture was taken and when Mr. Haney inspected the location.

"Ms. Trend had gone to that location about two weeks before I had a chance to view and told me about the fact there was this bird out there that was under this water outlet that showed a lot of corrosion, a lot of chemical build up. One thing about microbes, especially microfungi, is that they are the first to decompose in the external elements outside. This bird was not decomposed which told me that the company that produced the chemicals, Agraquest, were to destroy microfungi. And in this case, it kind of gave me the conclusion that those chemicals even six years after they had moved from the building were still strong enough and in the soil enough to eliminate rapid decomposure that rapidly takes place after an animal or person or a live species dies."

It would be a fairly easy task to have an agency or the health department take soil samples from around this building and determine if this actually represents a threat to the health of Davis and whether or not AgraQuest was responsible for this contamination of the environment.

Another concern is accounts by David Bell that indicate the use of a type of drain as a place to dump chemical and possibly biological residues.



David Bell told the Vanguard by phone from his current residence in Texas:

"It was more like a concrete culvert that enters onto a lawn, I don't think it actually goes into a sewer system. They chiseled out most of it already. It would kind of be like a big water runoff area, it was concrete and kind of sloped to the center, and that's where the cleaning of everything took place."

In the video that featured Dan Berman and Dr. Larry Rose, Sandi Trend, the mother of David Bell gave a full description of what occurred:

"David was instructed.... He was told to pick up this "drum" that was on an offsite farm because they wanted to use this drum for other broth, fermentation broth. So what he did is he went over to this farm and he brought it back and there was still liquid in it. So he didn't really know what he was suppose to do so he was told to clean it out and dump it down the drain. What drain? Well outside the lab..... and I went up there after this because I was trying to visualize in my mind, he's telling me that they mixed up powder in the bathroom and that the only ventilation was the bathroom fan, which is a normal household fan - ok. So I'm trying to visualize this and when I get there I'm going, "What drain"? And I wasn't the only one that was there so there was somebody with me. It's like "what drain" and "I don't see a drain" and it's like "Well I wonder if that's what David's talking about "? And what it was was it was like a storm drain, right outside the lab door that had just been hollowed out into the concrete and it led right into the dirt. So, when I called up David I go, "Is this the drain you're talking about"? He says "yeah". And excuse the expression... ok? I go "you dumped it out there"?! And he said, "that's where we dumped everything". I said, "what the hell did you do that for"? "That's were we dumped everything Mom, that's where I was told to dump everything". So, right into the dirt."

The Vanguard asked David Bell whether there were pathogens in the drums:

"There should have been by that point [live pathogens in the drum]. Everyone was arguing whether bacillus subtilus was pathogenic, however the fermentation process would get contaminated. If it sat that long there definitely could have been anything sitting in there. The fermentation process was still relatively rich in nutrients. So once it’s opened up to the air for the very first time things start in at that point."

In addition to dumping drums in the ground, there was also loss of some of the specimens from the lab.

"We were losing mosquitos all the time until I came up with a system to hold them in a mason jar with a screen on it. We were actually losing mosquitoes that weren't even endemic to our area in our area."

What kind of mosquitoes I asked David Bell:

"In particular what we were releasing were the malaria mosquitoes. There was no way to keep them contained when I showed up there."

He said he believed the number that were released was probably too small to allow them to reproduce, but nevertheless this is another example of the lax control standards at the original.

AgraQuest's new location on Drew Street may in fact be much more secure and up to date in their practices. It is important to note that the OSHA violations occurred at the new Drew Street location rather than the original location on Kennedy Place. As far as anyone knows, OSHA never inspected the original lab on Kennedy Place.

Where does this leave Davis at this point? It is difficult to say. Someone needs to thoroughly examine the soil around Kennedy Place to determine whether or not the agents in the soil represent a health threat to the Davis community.

I asked Doug Haney how big a concern this was. He pointed out that scientists estimate there are roughly 1.5 million microfungi and other species that have not been discovered and we only know about perhaps 400,000 species. That means you have an area from a foreign country that has ben excavated, you have a lot of unknown factors here.

"When you excavate an area that has never been excavated before into a foreign country, you are bringing those microbes in a new area and what happens with microbes in order to survive, they either fight off or ward off other species, or they integrate with other species and hybrid the species which makes them far more dangerous. "

Moreover, these species can survive for long periods of time as spores or in dormant stages. The health implications are unknown but potentially very serious.

"You could possibly rise in say neurological diseases, a rise in lower birth rate, a rise in cancer, a rise in leukemia, a rise in serious diseases."

These could show up almost immediately in some cases such as David Bell or they could could impact the population down the line. It could be 10 to 20 years before some of the implications of this are fully known.

Again, much of this is simply unknown because no responsible agency or regulatory agency has really investigated the matter. That is perhaps the most alarming aspect of all of this.

On October 1, 2007, Sandi Trend and Doug Haney met with District Attorney's Office Investigator Dan Stroski. Mr. Stroski was immediately interested and alarmed, however, he informed them some time later that the Yolo County District Attorney's office did not have the resources to do such an investigation.

The Vanguard will have a follow up article on this next Monday where we will examine the implications for how AgraQuest got these soil samples into the country and the potential threat that that represents.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting