In 2018, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) proudly rolled out a new protection for children at schools from exposure to nearby agricultural pesticides. “These rules will help to further protect the health of children, teachers and school staff from unintended pesticide exposure,” said then DPR director Brian Leahy.
However, it quickly became apparent that major (but easily fixable) loopholes in the regulation made it hard to enforce. Thousands of likely violations each year were simply unprovable because the way pesticide use was reported didn’t match up with the provisions of the regulation.
So you’d think the DPR would move swiftly to fix this important protection, right? Think again.
Despite years of pleading by community advocates in Fresno and other counties with schools located next to treated fields, the DPR refused to act. So advocates turned to the legislature, which wasted no time passing AB 1864, a common-sense bill that makes the 2018 regulation enforceable by changing reporting requirements, and includes kids at private schools in the existing protections.
But even after the legislature overwhelmingly passed the regulation, the DPR tried to kill the bill by claiming that it would cost “in the low millions” to implement. Fortunately, Governor Gavin Newsom listened to the experts who assured him the work could be done for far less, and he signed the bill into law.
This was not an isolated incident of the DPR failing to do its job. Now, after decades of community advocacy and a lawsuit, the DPR is putting the finishing touches on a draft regulation for the fumigant pesticide, 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D, or Telone), and simply put, its plan protects industry profits, not you or your loved ones from cancer.
If you’ve never heard of this chemical, you are not alone: Despite being the third most used pesticide in California, 1,3-D is hardly a household name. But it really should be because 1,3-D causes cancer, is highly drift-prone, is classified as a toxic air contaminant and a volatile organic compound, and is banned in 34 countries.
Use of this chemical is concentrated in mostly Latino farmworker communities in the San Joaquin Valley and Central Coast, where it can drift for miles.
According to the DPR’s 2023 air monitoring data, the monitoring site at Parlier in Fresno County detected 1,3-D in an astonishing 36% of the samples collected. It’s clear that for residents of places like Parlier, exposure to 1,3-D is a routine occurrence.
But the DPR’s rule does nothing to protect Parlier residents from cancer. Although state scientists at the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) ruled in 2022 that the safe level of exposure to 1,3-D is 0.04 parts per billion (ppb) in the air we breathe, Dow Chemical, the pesticide’s manufacturer, argued the level should be 0.56 ppb—14 times higher. The DPR has chosen Dow Chemical’s level, ignoring the OEHHA scientists who work for the same California Environmental Protection Agency as the DPR.
What that means is more profits for Dow and more cancer for residents of farmworker communities. The 2023 air monitoring has recorded average 1,3-D levels in excess of the OEHHA safe level at all six pesticide monitors across the state, and more than 23 times higher at the Parlier monitor.
The DPR’s stated mission is “to protect human and environmental health,” not industry profits. So what will it take to get the DPR to do its job? Do we really have to turn to the legislature to force our regulators to do the right thing?
