Most officials refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement on pesticide report.

When is a nondisclosure agreement not a nondisclosure agreement?

Apparently when it’s issued by the California Department of Public Health, and it’s more of a nondisclosure suggestion. That seems to be the case with the nondisclosure whatever, sent to 76 people before they previewed a draft of CDPH’s report on ag pesticide use near public schools.

The 76 included officials from the California Department of Education, the Department of Pesticide Regulation, Cal Environmental Protection Agency, every county agriculture commissioner in the state, and representatives from a number of non-governmental organizations (Californians for Pesticide Reform and California Farm Bureau Federation, for example). The list also included representatives from the California Environmental Health Tracking Program, including the Breast Cancer Fund and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

Of the 76 who previewed the report, only nine signed the nondisclosure agreement. State agency reviewers (like DPR and Cal EPA) weren’t asked to sign it. Apparently all of the ag commissioners refused to sign it. For us, that’s Ag Commissioner Eric Lauritzen.

Who did sign it? The organizations like Californians for Pesticide Reform, CRLA, The Breast Cancer Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Healthy Homes Collaborative.

“Your review of the report is not contingent on your signing of the nondisclosure agreements, but your signature will demonstrate a good-faith effort to ensure that there is no unnecessary confusion before the report is finalized and released,” reads the text of an email that accompanied the agreement sent to ag commissioners.

What’s missing in this equation: When the agreements were sent out and why CDPH bothered to include them in the first place.

I’ve asked CDPH spokesman Matt Conens to figure out the “why bother” part for me. He hadn’t responded to several requests by the Weekly’s deadline, but I think he’s looking.

The “when” part is relevant because some activists and a few government officials have told me the report’s release date was pushed back, then pushed back more, because the draft caused a good deal of freak-out among state and county officials. It appears the report was held back just long enough so that a bill introduced by State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, died in committee (though she can reintroduce it).

Jackson’s SB 1411 would have expanded existing legislation and authorized county ag commissioners to prohibit the use of ag pesticides within a quarter-mile of a school – unless the state director of pesticide regulation exempts it.

The report was released the day after SB 1411 failed.

Lauritzen writes in an email that the County Agricultural Commissioners & Sealers Association decided as a group not to sign the agreement, and that he testified against SB 1411 on the association’s behalf. The organization supported forming a working group “to critically evaluate all current and potential regulatory tools that might enhance protections for farmworkers and schoolchildren.” He also says the commissioners pushed for a transparent and collaborative approach on the pesticide report and SB 1411, but it never happened.

“We were very uneasy with the whole CDPH process,” he writes. “The approach CDPH took with the study was not transparent and therefore disturbing.”

What the report showed is this: Monterey County has two spots on the top-10 list of schools with the largest total amounts of pesticides applied nearby. Gavilan View Middle School, in North Salinas off Russell Road, is second on that list, with 25,771 pounds of pesticides applied within a quarter-mile. Bolsa Knolls Middle School, also in North Salinas off Rogge Road, is seventh, with 17,515 pounds applied within a quarter mile. And nearby, Pajaro Middle School in Watsonville is third on the list, with 23,706 pounds applied. The data comes from 2010.

Monterey County had 64 public schools where ag pesticides are applied within a quarter-mile.

MARY DUAN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com.