COMMISSIONER WILL FIGHT FOR HIS LONG-LIVED CAREER.

Byline: David Greenberg Daily News Staff Writer

County Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail knew his career path ever since he first stepped on a farm four decades ago.

From age 10 to 17, he spent summers on his grandfather's farm in Corona, working 12-hour days - not for money, but for the privilege of driving a tractor, packing cabbages and selling tomatoes at a roadside stand.

``There's just something about a freshly plowed field and working the ground and getting your hands dirty that gives you a really good feeling,'' said McPhail, now 52. ``Somewhere out there, somebody was eating what you produced off the soil. You're doing something that's productive and beneficial.''

After 20 years at the helm of agriculture in a county where farming is the top industry, McPhail is now caught in a political firestorm, with environmentalists calling for his ouster and the county supervisors, his bosses, placing him on probation until mid-July.

Critics say the commissioner's record on pesticide regulation has been lax. And they contend that his office, which operates on a $1.9 million budget and oversees agricultural regulations, has not displayed the communication skills needed in a county that over the past year has undergone devastating El Nino floods and $74 million worth of citrus damage in the recent winter freeze.

Then last week, the state Department of Pesticide Regulation revealed that McPhail had habitually failed to fine pesticide users who violate safety laws - reports that fanned the flames of environmentalists' discontent.

``The reports of the agricultural commissioner's cursory investigations of complaints and potential violations have been adding up,'' said John Buse, managing attorney at the Ventura-based Environmental Defense Center. ``The performance could have been better.''

But McPhail said the battle stems from the EDC's ongoing fight to ban methyl bromide, which is used to kill bugs on strawberries. Although environmentalists claim the pesticide poses health risks, federal law allows for its use until 2005.

And while he acknowledges that his enforcement method is different than his critics would like, he prefers to educate growers about pesticide use rather than slap them with immediate fines.

``They think the appropriate enforcement action is fining everybody for everything,'' he said. ``I don't have that philosophy.''

Besides, he said, the fines that range from $50 to $1,500, adding up to as much as $10,000 a year countywide, are not a big penalty for growers in the county's nearly $1 billion agricultural industry.

``We're not talking big bucks here,'' he said. ``Our job is to gain compliance. I feel we're doing a better job by not fining them. Most growers are very conscientious people. They know they have to abide by the laws and regulations or they're not going to be in business.''

But critics contend the problems run deeper and point to communication problems at the commissioner's office.

Last month, the supervisors delayed until July 15 a vote on renewing McPhail's $84,000-a-year contract for another four-year term. They complained he meets with them only once a year and that they have no idea of his goals for his department.

McPhail immediately vowed to meet with the board every other month and also announced plans to publish a newsletter and keep the board apprised of other developments affecting the county's No. 1 industry.

McPhail readily admits that his office is generally two months behind on paperwork, which is required for every inspection so state DPR officials can examine procedures for their annual report.

But with only 17 inspectors on staff, including three full-time and two part-time pesticide inspectors, McPhail said there are not enough hours in the day to keep paperwork up to date. McPhail wants to beef up his office with three additional inspectors, each of whom would cost the county $60,000 in salary, benefits and use of a vehicle.

``I'd rather have them out in the field than in the office doing paperwork,'' he said. Employees conduct five to seven site inspections a day as well as one or two calls a month for complaints of pesticide misuse.

Buse, the EDC lawyer, is not sympathetic to McPhail's cry for more help.

``I don't buy that as a full excuse,'' he said. ``There are other agricultural commissioners in other counties that have the same staffing and budget limitations, that are more responsive.''

Supervisors appear to have relaxed their stance since McPhail recently met with each of the five members of the board and sent the board a letter vowing to meet bimonthly to keep supervisors abreast of agricultural issues.

Supervisor John Flynn puts the blame in part on the state DPR for failing to notify the supervisors of the backlog of reports detailing inadequacies in the county's pesticide control program.

``If there's blame to go around, it should go around to a lot of people, not just Earl,'' Flynn said. ``He's striving now to overcome these problems. I'm not going to condemn him right now.''

McPhail, who graduated from California Polytechnic State University, Pomona, in 1971 with a degree in agricultural biology, plans to put up a good fight for the career where he planted his roots decades ago.

Lacking the capital to buy a farm himself - agricultural land on the soil-rich Oxnard Plain costs $20,000 an acre today - he accepted a job after college as an agricultural inspector for Imperial County. After six years, he was hired for a similar position in Santa Cruz County and two years after that landed the post in Ventura County.

``It is a good way to be involved in agriculture,'' McPhail said. ``It's a good profession. I can't imagine doing anything other than what I'm doing now.''

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