Toxics

A controversial measure that would have banned some of the most toxic pesticides from being used at schools is likely dead for the year, after the bill's author would not agree to an amendment that a powerful lawmaker insisted was necessary for the bill to clear his committee, supporters of the legislation said.

Outgoing pesticides department director Paul Helliker, anticipating severe regulatory overlap, this week blasted the water board's recent approval of a controversial aquatic pesticides general permit that increases monitoring requirements on pesticide applicators. Although environmentalists, pesticide applicators and water board staff are scheduled to meet later this month to negotiate a possible regional monitoring program for the permit, Helliker called the permit an example of the need for government reform to lessen duplicative regulatory action.

Paul Helliker is resigning as director of the pesticides department effective June 18 to take a job at a Bay Area water district in a move he says is wholly unrelated to the change in administration. There are no plans yet to name a replacement at the department, according to Cal/EPA, though several names have been bandied about in the past as possible successors, including current deputy director Paul Gosselin.

A pending reorganization of the Agriculture Department's (USDA) conservation agency may help resolve the agency's long-standing inability to measure water quality gains from its conservation programs, as evidenced in a recent agency decision to restrict farmer enrollment in a key program because it lacked the technology to quantify these gains, environmentalists say.