From The Morning Call, September 14, 2006

The United States has a large stockpile of methyl bromide, a pesticide that depletes the ozone layer, yet the Environmental Protection Agency continues to allow chemical companies to produce millions of new pounds every year.

The pesticide is banned under an international treaty designed to stop the thinning of the ozone layer, which shields the planet from harmful ultraviolet radiation. But under the pact, the United States is granted annual exemptions for uses deemed ''critical,'' particularly California strawberries and Florida tomatoes.

In 2005, 28.6 million pounds were stockpiled by U.S. chemical companies, but the Bush administration received permission from the United Nations to produce an additional 17 million pounds that year, according to newly released EPA data. That amounts to twice as much as U.S. farmers needed last year.

This year, the inventory dropped to almost 22 million pounds, but the EPA still allowed production of another 15 million pounds �?again totaling twice as much as farmers will use.

Environmental groups say that the United States is slowing the healing of the ozone layer by hoarding thousands of tons of the chemical �?more than a year's supply �?while convincing other U.N. countries that it must keep producing more every year.

''If we were following the treaty's rules, we wouldn't be producing any new material until the stockpile was drawn down. But for three years, the EPA has kept authorizing new production and adding to the stockpile,'' said David Doniger, a policy director of the Natural Resource Defense Council, a national environmental group.

But Drucilla Hufford, director of the EPA's stratospheric protection division, emphasized that the existing stock is dropping and that an ample inventory remains necessary to provide a ''cushion'' to protect U.S. food growers from a ''shock to the system'' if production is interrupted.

Methyl bromide �?a highly toxic gas used to sterilize soil and kill pests �?is considered the most powerful ozone destroyer currently in large-scale use. Scientists say the thinned ozone layer has increased the rate of skin cancers and cataracts and damaged ocean plankton and coral reefs as well as terrestrial wildlife.

In the United States, the stockpile alone, without counting new annual production, is four times larger than the entire amount applied to crops in the European Union, which is the world's second-largest user of methyl bromide.

In their yearly negotiations to set each nation's allocations, the U.N. parties to the 1987 Montreal Protocol have been kept in the dark about the size of the U.S. stockpile. Now, with the release of the EPA data, that secrecy ends as the parties convene next month to set 2008 allocations. The Bush administration will have to defend its stockpiling as it seeks permission for the United States to manufacture more.

In addition, the EPA data for the first time show that growers other than those designated by the U.N. as ''critical users'' are also drawing from the U.S. stockpile, as much as 2.5 million pounds last year. U.S. tomato and strawberry growers and others deemed critical used 21 million pounds last year but a total of more than 23 million pounds was used.

Marla Cone is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.
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