Quick Take
Watsonville resident and environmental justice activist Woody Rehanek believes Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commissioner David Sanford is not doing enough to inform the public about toxic chemicals used on crops in Watsonville. He points to a recent response Sanford made to a grand jury report as evidence and makes a plea for more transparency from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and from Sanford. Santa Cruz County, Rehanek writes, “has the highest percentage of fumigants by weight of overall pesticide used of counties in the state.”
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Money and politics loom large in the California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s decision making, with Big Ag and Big Chemical lobbyists exerting enormous pressure on this agency. Thrown into the mix are 58 county agriculture commissioners functioning as semi-autonomous permit grantors and enforcers of pesticide laws at the local level.
Environmental activists claim the department (DPR) is ignoring scientific research targeting negative impacts of pesticides on human health. Conventional chemical farmers complain they need new pesticides – rather than healthy soils – to combat climate change. Small wonder that DPR Director Julie Henderson announced on Dec. 20 that she will retire on Jan. 20, the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration as president.
She’s had a tough, often unrewarding job.
Amid all this, our county agricultural commissioner, David Sanford, who is one of the 58, has essential commitments to the public.
I’m not sure he is fulfilling all of them.
A recent Santa Cruz County civil grand jury report, titled “Honoring Commitments to the Public,” took a look at the duties of our ag commission and how it informs residents of pesticide application.
Sanford disagreed with some of the grand jury’s findings, but he agreed with the following statement: “As science progresses, less toxic pesticides are being developed and released regularly, and growers are finding acceptable alternatives to many pesticides. Less toxic pesticide use in Santa Cruz County is leading to lower risks to human and environmental health.”
Sanford’s statement gives a false impression and is worrying.
Many of the pesticides “being developed and released regularly” by Syngenta, Dow, Monsanto, etc., negatively affect pollinators, humans, waterways, air and soil. Relatively nontoxic substances, such as sulfur and mineral oil, are used in both conventional and organic farming, and the quantities applied are rising.
Between 2022 and 2023, organic acreage in Santa Cruz County increased over 12%. However, pesticide use in our county has held steady at over a million pounds per year, 67% of it being drift-prone fumigants which can travel for miles.
Santa Cruz County has the highest percentage of fumigants by weight of overall pesticide used of counties in the state.
An essential part of implementation of our ag commission’s mission is spelled out in the state code, which requires pest control advisors (PCAs), who prescribe pesticides for growers, to certify that less-toxic alternatives to prescribed chemicals have been discussed and considered.
It is the ag commissioner’s job to verify discussion of alternatives when permits for restricted chemicals are issued. For several years, Safe Ag Safe Schools (SASS) and Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR) have been asking for proof that is actually being done. County ag commissioners have been unable or unwilling to document this.
Compounding this problem is that the majority of PCAs work for chemical distributors and receive commissions on the pesticides they sell. You read that right.
So where is the incentive to discuss – much less document – less-toxic alternatives?
Acute, short-term exposures to pesticides are often routinely ignored unless dramatic spray drift incidents poison farmworkers. For example, a statistical analysis using six years of fumigant data in Southern and Central California linked a very small (1/100th of a part per billion) increase in the pesticide 1,3-D use led to an average 13.5% increase in same day emergency room visits for asthma attacks.
About 240,000 pounds of 1,3-D are applied in Santa Cruz County every year, often adjacent to homes and schools. Respiratory ailments are well documented in farmworker communities.
In testing of long-term, chronic exposures, researchers have identified 1,3-D as a known carcinogen. Already, 34 countries have eliminated it from use. While DPR tinkers with “safe” exposure levels in parts per billion, moving the goal posts to enable 1,3-D applications, the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has established a lifetime “safe harbor” level of 0.04 parts per billion for 1,3-D.
PESTICIDES IN THE PAJARO VALLEY: Read more news and Community Voices opinion coverage here
This is difficult to achieve in the fields. DPR set a level over five times higher for “occupational bystanders” (farmworkers), and 14 times higher for residential bystanders.
Like an old mule with blinders on, DPR keeps going around in circles, grinding out single-chemical studies in a multi-chemical pesticide world.
This kind of magical thinking is a fatal flaw in DPR and EPA toxicology studies. In reality, most ag chemicals are applied in proximity or tandem with other active ingredients and so-called “inert” ingredients. The latter often are not inert as claimed, but enhance effects of the main chemical.
Another roundly ignored study at the state and county levels is a UCLA law school study which states: “The state and federal agencies responsible for pesticide regulation … are currently focused primarily on the effects of a single chemical.” In discussing three fumigants – chloropicrin, 1,3-D and methyl bromide – this report concludes that DPR is required by law to assess the interactions and cumulative impacts of multiple chemicals over time but isn’t doing so.
Monterey County is already being sued for failing to lawfully consider – and document – less-toxic alternatives, including such well-established best practices as crop rotation, biodiversity and pathogen-resistant berries. On behalf of the Monterey Bay Labor Council, Pajaro Valley Federal of Teachers, Safe Ag Safe Schools and the Center for Farmworker Families, Earthjustice sued the Monterey County Ag commissioner and DPR this year regarding chloropicrin and 1,3-D fumigant applications near three schools in Pajaro Valley Unified School District, on grounds they disproportionately impact the health and safety of children and residents of color. The case is pending.
To make matters worse, 80% of DPR’s operating budget is funded by “mill fees” – taxes charged when pesticides are sold. Translation: The more pesticides sold, the more money DPR receives for its operating expenses.
In the byzantine, “Twilight Zone” realm of pesticide regulation, something’s got to give – and soon.
Woody Rehanek was a farmworker in Washington state for 18 years and a special education teacher in Pajaro Valley Unified School District for 18 years. He is a member of Safe Ag Safe Schools and a founding member of the Campaign for Organic and Regenerative Agriculture. He lives in Watsonville.