The board of trustees for the Marin/Sonoma Mosquito and Vector Control District shot down a controversial resolution by a 6-12 vote last Wednesday that would have allowed an unpopular pesticide, called methoprene, to be used in septic systems in West Marin starting next year. Long opposed by residents, methoprene has been kept out of West Marin for a decade due to an agreement that is set to expire at the end of December.
The resolution would have revised the agreement to add methoprene briquets and pellets to a list of 20 other pesticides approved for use in West Marin—compared to the 30 products that the district’s general manager, Phil Smith, said are currently applied in Marin and Sonoma.
The resolution, however, made no mention of whether the longstanding agreement itself would also be renewed.
Critics at the meeting blasted the resolution on grounds that the district’s West Marin subcommittee—which oversees West Marin-specific issues—did not meet with any members of the West Marin community before drafting the resolution. In fact, the committee has not met in over a year with the West Marin Mosquito Council—an unelected body of local leaders that helped forge the original agreement in 2005 and a series of renewals—even though the agreement will expire by year’s end.
According to West Marin’s representative on the board, Fred Smith, the move would have flown in the face of years of constructive, positive negotiations between the district and West Marin.
“I feel like you’re adding fuel to the fire,” Mr. Smith said. “I’m just kind of amazed. It concerns me that so many people on this board who are not from West Marin are making decisions for West Marin.”
Mr. Smith and several other locals who traveled to the district’s headquarters in Cotati for the meeting contested the committee’s decision to bring the resolution before the board as an action item rather than an informational discussion that would not require a vote. If approved, the resolution would have taken effect on Jan. 1, 2016, without further discussion.
Despite repeated attempts, Mr. Smith could not elicit a straight answer from the committee’s chair, Nancy Barnard, as to why the resolution was presented as an action item. Instead, Ms. Barnard reiterated that the committee does not consider methoprene to be toxic to humans, fish or other invertebrates in the environment.
“I understand where you’re coming from, and I feel for you,” said Ms. Barnard, who represents Corte Madera. “I wish you could see how the committee felt about the non-toxicity of methoprene. That’s how we feel about it.”
“But I wasn’t asking about the toxicity,” Mr. Smith said. “I was asking about the process.”
“The process?” Ms. Barnard asked, puzzled. “The committee’s report is to the board. That’s our duty today.”
“So, again,” Mr. Smith said. “Why are we having an action item rather than an information item?”
“We don’t feel that methoprene is toxic,” she replied, then quickly called for the board to vote on the resolution.
Ms. Barnard and the committee based their recommendation on a report on methoprene completed earlier this month by Dr. Sharon Lawler, a professor of entomology and nematology at the University of California, Davis. Aggregating 1,700 studies published since 1974, Ms. Lawler’s report concluded that using methoprene in septic tanks “will not cause any significant adverse environmental effects.”
Dr. Lawler conceded that methoprene would prove toxic—even fatal—to a variety of animals in high dosages, but that those dosages would be hundreds of times higher than any amount applied for mosquito-control purposes at 10 parts per billion or less. But of the 1,700 studies consulted, only four related directly to methoprene in septic systems, and none evaluated the potential for methoprene to escape leaky tanks and contaminate groundwater, as Ms. Lawler’s metastudy said no such studies were available.
Saving money is the prime reason, for Ms. Barnard and the committee, to introduce methoprene into West Marin. In a memo to the district, the committee estimated that septic treatment using pesticides in the agreement currently costs about $100 per visit for materials and labor, and usually requires two or three visits. Methoprene, on the other hand, was estimated to cost under $90 per visit, with only one visit needed.
Jim Zell, a director of the Stinson Beach County Water District, disagreed with Dr. Lawler’s conjecture, as well as with the opinions from several trustees that leaks would not pose a risk to the environment. He said that if the district would notify the S.B.C.W.D. whenever they arrive to treat a septic tank—work the district only notes in annual reports—the water district could help reduce follow-up treatments.
“I’m somewhat alarmed by the misinformation regarding septic systems and how they work,” Mr. Zell said. “Better communication could prevent repeat visits.”
Mr. Zell’s sentiment echoed the general discontent with the district’s lack of communication that many West Marin residents expressed last Wednesday. Some even hinted that if the situation does not improve, the individual towns in West Marin might consider breaking away from the district.
“This is about trust,” said Barry Smith, of Point Reyes Station. “To abandon this agreement, particularly with the process you’re using or the non-process, strikes me as a betrayal. And I would predict that we’d be faced with de-annexation if that’s the direction you’d like to go.”
The agreement between West Marin and the district has come under fire in recent months after the district’s attorney, Janet Coleson, wrote a legal opinion released in August that the agreement constituted an illegal delegation of the district’s “police power” to curb pest populations, granted an improper veto to the council and could expose the district to litigation. But in September, attorney and executive director of the Environmental Action Committee, Amy Trainer, submitted a review of Ms. Coleson’s opinion that deemed it to be incorrect in the interpretation of “police power.”
“In renewing the prior agreement, the District would only be contracting away its police power improperly to the Council if the agreement forever prohibited the District from any consideration or actual use of methoprene or more toxic chemicals than that,” Ms. Trainer’s review said. “The prior agreement does not at all purport to do this…. The agreement was for a limited period of years, not open-ended.”
Supervisor Steve Kinsey, who represents West Marin on Marin County’s Board of Supervisors, threw in his support for a one-year extension of the current agreement despite the potential for future legal disputes. He did not, however, give any indication of his stance on methoprene.
“I am confident that a more careful crafting of the Statement of Intent, and an appropriate community dialogue, could result in an agreement which would not diminish the ultimate authority of the M.S.M.V.C.D. in managing mosquitoes, while also supporting the West Marin Mosquito Council as a useful framework for discussion of vector control issues in the community,” Supervisor Kinsey wrote in a letter to the district.
Many board members suggested that the directors table a vote on the resolution and return to the matter next month, but Ms. Barnard pursued the vote, which failed.
The board agreed to add an item onto next month’s consent calendar that would extend the agreement through March, with the condition that the district’s West Marin committee meet with the West Marin Mosquito Council—which last month came under the supervision of the Bolinas Community Public Utility District—in the interim.