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Fumigant use near schools has increased in California and in Ventura County over the past decade.
OXNARD — At five news conferences (on Nov. 18), farmworker communities across our State were scheduled to speak of their outrage over the Department of Pesticide Regulation’s recent policy regarding California’s third most used synthetic pesticide, the cancer-causing fumigant 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D; brand name Telone). They are also deeply concerned about the increasing use of not just 1,3-D but other harmful drift-prone fumigants near schools and daycares and call for significant changes to the regulation of fumigants, especially near schoolchildren in California.
These news conferences, all sponsored by Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR), will be held in Watsonville, Fresno, Modesto, and Oxnard, as well as a statewide event online.
Farmworker communities are alarmed about what they see as a weak regulation of 1,3-D recently finalized by the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR). 1,3-D is used primarily on berries and grapes in the Central Coast region, while applied largely on almond and walnut orchards in the Central Valley. 1,3-D is a cancer-causing, lung-harming, toxic air contaminant, and volatile organic compound fumigant that most of the world finds so dangerous, it has been banned in 40 countries.
An “unscientific and racist” regulation
But here in California, DPR has not only refused to ban 1,3-D, but has refused to follow the findings of the State’s own cancer experts at the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) in setting the allowable exposure targets of its new regulations. DPR has created two regulations for this one fumigant with contradictory restrictions and targets. In the end, DPR has written a regulation that allows schoolchildren to be exposed to 14 times more 1,3-D than the cancer risk threshold level established by our state toxicologists at OEHHA, who calculated a safe exposure level based on the most recent health protective science: just 3.7 micrograms per day, or 0.04 parts per billion (ppb) in the air. DPR went with 50 micrograms or 0.56 ppb as the “target” concentration. That was the same figure Dow Chemical supported. Dow makes 1,3-D.
The newest 1,3-D regulation regarding “occupational bystanders” – workers in fields near where the fumigant is applied – is full of assumptions that appear not to be grounded in real world evidence. It assumes farm workers only work 8am to 4pm. The new regulation also presupposes that people aren’t exposed to 1,3-D before or after work, or as kids living near fumigated fields, or retired adults in homes where the chemicals drift. Also, the regulation relies on a computer model that has been shown to underestimate high levels of 1,3-D every single time.
Public Health Nurse and Safe Ag Safe Schools member Erika Alfaro put it this way, “When Science is ignored, Injustice thrives.”
1,3-D is sprayed in farmworker communities—where Latino and Indigenous people live in disproportionately high numbers. The schoolchildren are overwhelmingly Latino and Indigenous in these communities. In the 10 California counties with the highest 1,3-D use, 8 are majority Latino. These counties see 10 times more 1,3-D per person than counties with lower (less than 25%) Latino populations.
Gabriela Facio, a Senior Policy Strategist with Sierra Club California, said: “California has created an environmentally racist regulation that sacrifices Latino and Indigenous kids for the profits of 1,3-D manufacturer Dow Chemical.”
Fumigant use has increased near schools
Back in 2014, the California Department of Public Health published a first-of-its-kind study of the use of highly hazardous pesticides within ¼-mile of public schools in the 15 counties with the highest pesticide use. In comparing the fumigant data from the 2014 study (which used 2010 pesticide use reports), to the estimates of fumigant use for the year 2022, CPR found large overall increases in these 15 counties. 1,3-D applications by pounds climbed from over 149,000 to nearly 190,000 pounds – a 27% increase. Chloropicrin, among the most used synthetic pesticides in the State, is a lung damaging agent similar to tear gas. It grew from 161,000 pounds to 259,000 pounds within ¼-mile of California schools. That is a 61% increase. Altogether, the combined use of these two fumigants – both banned in at least 40 countries – increased 45% between 2010 and 2022.
In Ventura County, 98,966 pounds of 1,3-D and chloropicrin were applied in 2010 within ¼-mile of schools. That figure jumped to 164,488 pounds in 2022 – a 66% increase.
After the original Department of Public Health report in 2014, California later required ¼-mile pesticide buffer zones around schools and essentially restricted fumigant applications near schools to weekends. However, all six of the pesticide air monitors in the state – five of them at schools – continue to record 1,3-D air concentration levels far above the OEHHA cancer risk threshold (See attached). The air-monitored 1,3-D concentrations range from 2.3 to 30 times the OEHHA cancer level (See attached).
Second grade teacher Oscar Ramos commented, “This is a policy of environmental racism … We must stop attacking and sacrificing our schoolchildren in farmworker communities. We’re supposed to protect our children. Let’s protect them from these invisible but truly harmful pesticides.”
The call for new protections
Californians for Pesticide Reform and its allies are calling for significant policy changes focused on protecting children from fumigant harms. Cristina Gutierrez of the Fresno Pesticide Reform Coalition and CPR said, “If the individual pesticide regulation process can give us the unscientific and racist policy we now have with 1,3-D, then the whole process is broken. Our attorney friends are already working on a legal challenge.”
Others added that the problem isn’t just 1,3-D; it’s the entire class of drift-prone and highly hazardous fumigants.
Eulalia Mendoza of MICOP in Ventura County, allied with CAPS 805 and CPR, laid out three main demands:
- We call on the State, specifically DPR, to phaseout fumigants entirely.
- In the meantime, our County Ag Commissioners must step up to protect our kids. The buffer zones have not been big enough to reduce fumigant exposure from extremely high levels. We call on the expansion of buffer zones from the current ¼-mile to at least one full mile around schools and daycares.
- Finally, we call on Ag Commissioners and DPR to get together to fund and implement pilot projects to infill school buffer zones with organic farming.
News conferences also online
Oxnard event live streamed at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077352068463
A statewide news conference will be streamed on Zoom from Noon – 1p.m. with “drop-in” views of all four local news conferences at https://zoom.us/j/97527987438
Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR) is a diverse, statewide coalition of 200+ member groups working to strengthen pesticide policies in California to protect public health and the environment. Member groups include public and children’s health advocates, clean air and water groups, health practitioners, environmental justice groups, labor, education, farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates from across the state. The Coalition Advocating for Pesticide Safety in the 805 (CAPS 805) is the Ventura County regional affiliate of Californians for Pesticide Reform.
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