The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) announced recommended restrictions on a controversial pesticide on Nov. 15, and growers in Santa Barbara County will have to comply.
The recommendations–including buffer zones, application guidelines, and discontinued use on most crops–further restrict the use of chlorpyrifos, a chemical insecticide used on California nut trees, and fruit, vegetable, and grain crops to kill mites and other insects.
It’s a pesticide that many researchers think could cause harmful health effects, according to the DPR, and the recommended restrictions will provide increased protections from potential exposure to chlorpyrifos while the agency develops permanent limitations on its use.
County agricultural commissioners across the state will be able to decide whether they’ll implement and enforce the guidelines, and Santa Barbara County Agricultural Commissioner Cathy Fisher said her office plans to adhere.
“The Santa Barbara County Department of Agriculture will be implementing all of DPR’s recommended new interim permit restrictions on the use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos in Santa Barbara County,” Fisher wrote in an email to the Sun.
In accordance with the DPR’s suggested guidelines, all aerial applications of chlorpyrifos will be banned in Santa Barbara County, and its use will only be allowed on crops for which there are few, if any, alternative pesticides, as determined by the University of California Cooperative Extension.
A quarter-mile buffer zone will be required during all allowed applications of the pesticide and for 24 hours afterward, and a 150-foot setback from houses, businesses, schools, and other sensitive sites will be required at all times, regardless of whether those sites are occupied at the time of application.
The department is recommending that county agricultural commissioners begin implementing the interim measures on Jan. 1, 2019.
Charlotte Fadipe, the DPR’s assistant director of communications, said that while the new guidelines are not mandatory, they will allow for increased protections from chlorpyrifos in many counties, although she said it’s too soon to tell how many will actually implement the restrictions. The limits, she said, will provide at least some kind of temporary protection from chlorpyrifos while the DPR continues developing permanent regulations, a process that will likely take another two years.
Chlorpyrifos was banned from household use in 2000, and an EPA health risk assessment of the pesticide published in 2016 found that exposure to it could potentially cause serious, lasting health issues.
Studies conducted by the DPR also found that chlorpyrifos may act as a “toxic air contaminant,” and that excessive exposure to chlorpyrifos in the air could cause nausea, dizziness, respiratory paralysis, and developmental disorders. Exposure to the pesticide in water, according to the DPR, may be toxic to fish, aquatic invertebrates, and marine organisms.
On Sept. 19, the DPR announced a proposed regulation that would officially and legally mark chlorpyrifos as a toxic air contaminant, which could lead to further restrictions on its use in California. The toxic air contaminant listing process included a 45-day public comment period on the proposed decision, which closed Nov. 9.
Days after the DPR announced its proposed regulation on chlorpyrifos, the U.S. Department of Justice announced plans to fight a court-ordered nationwide ban on the pesticide, saying the the federal court’s ruling was based on an incorrect assessment of the scientific evidence.
Despite the controversy surrounding chlorpyrifos that is playing out on the national, state, and local levels, Fadipe said its use has significantly declined in the past decade. While California growers used about 2 million pounds of the pesticide in 2005, the state used more than 900,000 pounds in 2016, Fadipe said.
“Growers want to do the right thing,” Fadipe said. “They know that socially this pesticide is a little challenging, and from what I’ve heard they’re looking to use something else. I would anticipate that this pesticide is on its way out.”
This article appears in Nov 22-29, 2018.