A lawsuit filed April 4 against farms and county and state agencies allege that the approval of pesticide use near three schools in North Monterey County is disproportionately harming those who live and work in the area.
The suit was filed by Earthjustice on behalf of the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers, Safe Ag Safe Schools, Center for Farmworker Families, Monterey Bay Central Labor Council and Californians for Pesticide Reform. It states that the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) and Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner’s “repeat rubberstamping” of applications to use pesticides such as chloropicrin and 1,3-dichloropropene within a mile of Ohlone Elementary School, Pajaro Middle School and Hall District Elementary School causes severe health impacts, and officials are approving the permits “with disregard for their cumulative health impacts and without a meaningful evaluation of feasible, safer alternatives.”
"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 Councilmember and Safe Ag Safe Schools organizer, in a press release. “Our kids need protections from the regulators—not dereliction of duty.”
According to the suit, studies link fumigant exposure to acute and chronic health harms such as fetal death and cancer. Unsafe fumigant levels have also been recorded by an Ohlone Elementary air monitoring station, it continues.
County of Monterey officials declined to provide a statement, as agencies typically do not comment on pending litigation. A representative of the DPR confirmed the agency received a copy of the lawsuit.
According to the DPR, anyone who uses what is considered a “restricted material pesticide” must be licensed by the agency and receive a permit from their local county agricultural commissioner. Before a pesticide can be sold or used in the state, the DPR evaluates its health and environmental risks, evaluating the potential impact on “sensitive populations” that include children, says Leia Bailey of the DPR.
On March 6, DPR Director Julie Henderson affirmed Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner Juan Hidalgo’s decision to issue six permits for the pesticides, after an appeal was filed by the community groups.
Among other things, the agricultural commissioner reviewed the permit application and “determined that the proposed application complied with the DPR-registered pesticide label requirements and applicable use laws and regulations, which, in part, address cumulative impacts from multiple applications over time,” Henderson wrote.
“The Monterey CAC determined that the proposed permits with additional permit conditions were consistent with the label restrictions and California laws governing the use of chloropicrin and 1,3-D and that they did not present any substantial adverse environmental impacts that had not been mitigated through the permit terms and conditions,” she wrote.
In the lawsuit, the groups are asking for a temporary restraining order that prohibits the agricultural commissioner from issuing more permits within a mile of the three schools pending a trial, as well as a judgment that the agencies are “issuing restricted material permits in violation of CEQA and the Food and Agricultural Code,” among other things.
A case management conference is scheduled for Aug. 6 in Monterey County Superior Court.