Pesticides concern for homeowners 

ALEX CUKAN / UPI 1may02

ALBANY, NY - Many homeowners are unaware their property legally may have been treated with pesticides that have been ordered removed from the marketplace because of health risks, activists and experts told United Press International.

A builder of a 200-home subdivision using federal government-mandated pesticide pretreatment against termites can pump up to 76,000 gallons of chemicals into the ground under those homes, an environmental group said.

"Last year about four million gallons of chemical termiticides were pumped onto American soil, that's enough chemicals to fill 80,000 semi-tanker trucks and in most cases it is a chemical that has been removed from the marketplace because of health risks to children," Jay Feldman, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Beyond Pesticides/National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides told United Press International in a telephone interview.

"Homeowners never have to be told of the pesticide application."

Even though the termite insecticide chlorpyrifos, or Dursban, has been banned from store shelves, produce application and lawn sprays, pest control companies can use existing stocks to treat new homes until 2005, Feldman said.

"EPA's agreement with Dow Agro is that Dursban for pretreatment will stop production by Dec. 31, 2004, and pretreatment uses will stop on Dec. 31, 2005," Feldman said. "Unless the agency requires Dow Agro to institute a product recall, there is every reason to believe that Dursban will continue to be used until the legally allowable date through 2005."

"I wasn't aware of this type of pesticide used against termites," Dave Deegan, media officer for the Environmental Protection Agency, told UPI. "Certified pesticide applicators are the only ones who can apply the pesticide and since it is applied under the foundation it's not likely residents have exposure."

Further treatments

Often, it is not the only pesticide application made. Termite treatments used to be done less often, the pesticide chlordane lasted 30 years after application, but it was taken off the market in 1988 as an environmental threat.

Since then, pest applicators have relied on chemicals such as Dursban that last for shorter durations. After the initial pretreatment, pest control applicators often have had to drill dozens to hundreds of holes through a foundation's concrete slab and pump gallons more of the pesticide under the home.

"U.S. Housing and Urban Development requires its Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration loans to have pretreatment, treatment or non-attractive materials to termites," Kevin Powell, of the Research Center of the National Association of Home Builders, in Washington, told UPI.

"If people read every paragraph in every paper they get when buying their house, they may know about the pesticide treatments but I believe most are ignorant of it.

"Unless they live in an area with a termite problem and have experienced the need for termite treatment, most would not know about this, but many want and need the treatment to protect their investment," Powell added.

Family poisoned

Joe Crozier said he believes it was the recurrent application of pesticides in the house he bought in Phoenix that poisoned his family and left his home "unlivable and unsellable."

"My wife and I are from Canada, so we had no experience with this type of pesticide application, but we were a healthy, health-conscious family when we moved into our 40-year-old home in 1996," Crozier told UPI.

"We found out later that about 750 gallons of five different pesticides were applied in our house nine times in less than three years before we moved in.

"After living there for six months we were all sick and my four-year-old son was the sickest - he would grind his teeth at night, had headaches, digestive trouble, vomiting and coughing," he said.

The Croziers had to abandon the house, and while some of the physical symptoms improved after leaving the house, Crozier said he no long produces testosterone and his son still has medical problems that may not improve.

Despite a requirement the seller should have informed Crozier of the pesticide treatments, he said he received no notification.

"If you own a home you're on your own, government agencies have not been able to help, but millions of houses have been treated this way," he said.

It is not a state requirement to pretreat concrete slabs before construction, but lending institutions will require it to protect against termite damage, according to Jerry Davis, head of the Arizona Structural Pest Control Commission.

"One of the problems we have is people move in and they start planting bushes, installing irrigation and lighting and they disturb the soil around the foundation and that breaks the chemical barrier to the termites, so more treatment must be made," Davis told UPI.

Pest control alternatives

Many in the pest control industry are switching from pretreatment to the bait system that deploys a slow-acting termiticide when it finds termites in wood-baited monitoring stations dug into the soil around a house, Davis said.

There are termite control methods that are less toxic to people and the environment. Borates, made from the mineral boron, are sprayed directly on wood during the construction.

"Borate-based products exhibit low toxicity to humans and other mammals, because instead of acting on the insects' neurological system, it affects the stomach enzymes of the termite and it can no longer digest wood," Kevin Kirkland, president of NISUS, a Tennessee-based company that produces boron-related pest control products, told UPI.

"This answers the concern of the homeowner who has become better informed and more demanding about less-toxic alternatives," Kirkland said. "By spraying the wood, there are no weather delays that pretreatment requires, work crews don't have to leave the building site and treatment near water sources is no longer a concern."

Other alternatives to pesticides include steel mesh barriers and steel termite shields under and around foundations. Metal studding can also be used, but it is more expensive than wood.

"People like designs that attract termites, such as porches and decks that are not well drained and attract water and thus termites, and affordability that wood and sheetrock provide, and putting mulch around the foundation," Powell added.