Public Hearings for Pesticide Control

On Nov. 15, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) issued a draft regulation of cancer-causing pesticide 1,3-dichloropropene (aka 1,3-D, brand name Telone) that will create a two-tier system of protections—one level for adult workers and a second far less health-protective one for children and other residents of farmworker communities.

The pesticide 1,3-D is a soil fumigant manufactured by Dow Chemical under the brand Telone II. It is a drift-prone pesticide used to kill organisms in the soil prior to planting, applied mostly on strawberry and grape fields in the Central Coast and almonds and walnuts in the San Joaquin Valley.

The fumigant is injected into the ground or applied by drip lines and typically—but not always—covered with tarps. 1,3-D drifts initially from wind and later from volatilization for many miles at health-harming concentrations.

Acute harms include immediate exposure symptoms from high air levels due to drift: irritation of skin and nose, as well as possible slow weight gain in infants. Very high exposure to 1,3-D, such as a spill, can cause nausea, vomiting, headache, depression and damage to the liver, intestines and the bladder, and difficulty breathing.

The long-term health threats from chronic exposure to even tiny amounts of 1,3-D over time can cause cancer, damage to the lining of the nose and can pollute groundwater. 1,3-D is listed as a Prop 65 carcinogen and a Toxic Air Contaminant by the State of California.

1,3-D is banned in 34 countries, but not in the United States. The pesticide was prohibited in California between 1990 and 1995 after high air concentration levels were recorded in the Central Valley.

The DPR’s new draft regulation is grounded in assumptions that “occupational bystanders”—farmworkers in fields near but not at the application site—can be exposed to air with 1,3-D concentrations of an average of 0.21 parts per billion (ppb), while at work for eight hours a day, five days a week for 40 years. This cancer risk exposure level also assumes the farmworkers will not be exposed to 1,3-D outside of work, which the DPR maintains will keep the occupational bystander exposure level below an average of 0.04 ppb per 24-hour day.

The 0.04 ppb per day 1,3-D exposure level is what pesticide reform advocates say should be the one standard for all California residents, as that is the legal lifetime cancer risk level determined by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

But the DPR currently sets—and has announced no plans to change—the daily exposure target for children and residents at a level 14 times higher of 0.56 ppb. This unfair double standard will expose children in farmworker communities to unsafe levels of a cancer-causing pesticide.

Take Action!