SALINAS – A coalition of environmental and social justice groups have filed a lawsuit in Monterey County Superior Court alleging the county agriculture commissioner and a state regulatory agency have failed to prevent pesticide use within a short distance of three different area schools.
Five different Monterey County nonprofits signed on to the 29-page complaint that was filed Thursday in Monterey, including the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers, Safe Ag Safe Schools, Center for Farmworker Families, Monterey Bay Central Labor Council and Californians for Pesticide Reform, which is being represented by the international environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.
The groups are demanding that the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, or DPR, and the Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner end what they call is the illegal practice of disregarding the health of Latino schoolchildren, farmworkers and community members in the restricted materials permitting process.
The lawsuit also names five farms in northern Monterey County as defendants.
The pesticides in question are the fumigants chloropicrin and 1, 3-dichloropropene (1,3-D). Both compounds have been targeted for more than a decade because of the health effects they could have on school children.
Chloropicrin has been around for at least a century, and can cause eye, nose, throat and upper respiratory irritation. Results from a chloropicrin human sensory irritation study indicate that eye irritation is the most sensitive effect, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Germany used it as a powerful tear gas agent against allied forces during World War I, one of the first uses of a chemical weapon. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has determined that 1,3-D is reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen. As with any toxic chemical, toxicity is determined by age, closeness to the application and duration of exposure.
Both chemicals are used to control pests, pathogens and weeds. For example, one of the pests the fumigant targets are nematodes, the most abundant family of roundworms in the world. When they are present in the soil under strawberry plants, a $1 billion crop in the county, roots are attacked which can cause stunting and other symptoms that lower yields and consequently revenue for growers. Chloropicrin gas is injected into the soil to control nematodes.
The lawsuit alleges county officials, under the purview of state regulators, have repeatedly approved permits allowing fumigations in the vicinity of Ohlone Elementary School, Pajaro Middle School and Hall District Elementary School, which also house onsite daycares.
“The State and our County Ag Commissioner have allowed a cancer-causing pesticide in the air that Ohlone Elementary Schoolchildren breathe at more than twice the level the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment says is safe,” said Yanely Martinez, Greenfield city councilwoman and Safe Ag Safe Schools organizer. Our kids need protections from the regulators — not dereliction of duty,”
There have been no recent official reports of any of the children suffering ill effects from fumigant exposure.
The Department of Pesticide Regulation, acting on a request from the Monterey Herald for a statement, provided a 29-page comprehensive response to an appeal by the plaintiffs of a DPR decision last month that concluded that the Agricultural Commissioner correctly followed all established protocols and regulatory requirements in approving permits to the growers named in the lawsuit.
“Evaluating the potential impact of pesticide exposure on sensitive populations, including children, is a part of DPR’s registration review of pesticides as well as part of its continuous evaluation process,” DPR’s statement reads.
The department conducted a number of evaluations on alternatives to the two chemicals and found that presently there are no viable alternatives available.
Monterey County officials declined to comment on pending litigation. But Norm Groot, the executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau, said there is a reason no children have been sickened. Fumigants aren’t sprayed onto fields; they are injected into the soil and then covered with plastic sheets until the compounds have dissipated.
“The growers’ kids attend these schools,” Groot said. “Do you think they would use these chemicals if there was any risk to the children?”
Elizabeth Fisher, an attorney with Earthjustice, said in a press release that California officials are mandated by law to address the cumulative impacts of harmful pesticides on human health and consider safer alternatives.
“The Ag Commissioner and DPR continue to rubber-stamp pesticide applications without doing either, disregarding the health and safety of our state’s most vulnerable people – young children,” she said.
But Groot, who has been at the helm of the Farm Bureau for 14 years, said California ranchers and growers are under extremely strict regulatory oversight, not just with chloropicrin and 1,3-D, but all agriculture chemicals. The process of approving applications of restricted chemicals ensures all comply with regulatory requirements, he said.
