Kathleen Kilpatrick

For families in Watsonville and the Pajaro Valley, California’s pesticide air monitoring system offers the appearance of protection while leaving significant gaps in what is measured and how exposure risks are understood, writes retired nurse and healthcare activist Kathleen Kilpatrick. A single monitor is expected to represent vast agricultural regions where residents live, work and attend school near heavily sprayed fields, even though only a fraction of pesticides are tracked. She argues that the system reassures regulators more than communities, particularly as local residents face overlapping exposures from pesticides, air pollution and other environmental hazards. Real protection, she contends, requires reducing pesticide use near schools and neighborhoods — not simply expanding a monitoring network that captures only part of the problem.