Address: 8770 Highway 25, Hollister, CA 95024
President: Dean Storkan
Tel: (408) 637-0195
Fax: (408) 637-0273

Major Businesses: Sale of soil fumigants, especially methyl bromide.

Operations: Based in Central California, TriCal and its network of related companies, dominate the methyl bromide fumigation business in the United States.

Revenues: Unknown
Profits: Unknown
Member: Methyl Bromide Working Group, Methyl Bromide Global Coalition, Methyl Bromide Coordinating Committee, Western Growers Association.

A largely mysterious entity, TriCal is owned and operated by its President, Dean Storkan. Together with some of his top lieutenants, Roger Hruby, Hank Maze and Tom Duafala, Storkan operates a series of thirteen related corporations in which he has significant, if not controlling financial interests (see below). TriCal and these corporate cousins virtually dominate the methyl bromide fumigation business in the United States.

For the large methyl bromide producing transnationals such as Albemarle, Great Lakes and Dead Sea Bromine, TriCal serves as a pivotal link to agribusiness growers. Indeed, situated strategically between the chemical producers and the agricultural users of methyl bromide, TriCal is playing a critical role in building corporate coalitions aimed at keeping methyl bromide on the market. For instance:

• TriCal has reportedly convinced growers to block California government supported efforts to monitor methyl bromide emissions of their fields.

• TriCal works through the Methyl Bromide Working Group, a U.S.-based organization whose other members include the three big methyl bromide producers. The MBWG employs scare tactics to convince growers that banning methyl bromide would produce an agricultural and economic crisis of major proportions. Working through the MBWG, TriCal also aims to persuade the growers it provides fumigation services to, that no viable alternatives to methyl bromide exist -- something belied by broad scientific evidence.

• Through the Methyl Bromide Coalition, which is Chaired by TriCal's Dr. Tom Duafala, the company leads its chemical industry allies from around the world in an attempt to convince United Nations Delegates, growers and the general public that methyl bromide is not a significant hazard to the ozone layer.

• Working with producers and growers, TriCal has lobbied on the state, national and international levels to keep methyl bromide on the market.

TriCal also serves the transnational chemical corporations' interests in another way. Unlike Albemarle, Great Lakes and Dead Sea Bromine, TriCal is a private corporation, unaccountable to shareholders. What's more, TriCal does not produce consumer goods that would be vulnerable to a boycott. Up until now, TriCal has neither worried about its public image, nor come under much public scrutiny. Rather it has operated with virtual impunity, be it in the agricultural fields of California -- where it seems to determine when the state can and cannot monitor its emissions -- or in the halls of the United Nations, where its representatives mingle with international statesman.

TriCal related companies:

• TriCal Inc.
• Alternative Atmospheres
• Bolas Research Associates Inc.
• Hendrix and Dail Inc.
• HMS Chemicals
• Hollister Development Corporation
• LCL Environmental Consulting
• San Juan Development Co.
• Soil Chemicals Corporation
• Tri-Tech Ag Products
• Shadow Mountain Products
• Huges Agricultural Adhesive Products
• Modified Atmospheric Systems Inc.
• Storkan/Hanes Research Foundation