After years of back-and-forth on the local, state, and national levels, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration announced plans on May 8 to ban the use of a controversial pesticide in California.
A recent press release from the California Environmental Protection Agency stated that the state’s Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) will initiate a cancellation 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 decision to ban chlorpyrifos follows what the DPR called “mounting evidence” that the pesticide causes serious health effects in children and other sensitive populations, even at lower levels of exposure than previously thought. These effects include impaired brain and neurological development, according to the DPR.
“California’s action to cancel the registration of chlorpyrifos is needed to prevent the significant harm this pesticide causes children, farmworkers, and vulnerable communities,” Jared Blumenfeld, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, said in the press release. “This action also represents a historic opportunity for California to develop a new framework for alternative pest management practices.”
The process to ban chlorpyrifos could take up to two years to complete, according to Charlotte Fadipe, the DPR’s assistant director of communications. The DPR still needs to take a number of steps, including consultations with local air districts and county agricultural commissioners, before fully implementing the ban.
The use of chlorpyrifos has significantly declined in the past decade. While California growers used about 2 million pounds of the pesticide in 2005, the state used a little more than 900,000 pounds in 2016, according to the DPR. Santa Barbara County farmers used 354 pounds of the pesticide in 2016.
Santa Barbara County agricultural advocacy organizations expressed concerns over the increasingly stringent regulations being placed on local farmers and the difficulties of finding new and effective plant protection tools.
But the DPR says it and other state departments are working to identify and develop safer and more sustainable alternatives to chlorpyrifos, including the use of biological controls and other integrated pest management practices. The state plans to partner with growers as they transition from using chlorpyrifos to implement safer alternatives. Fadipe said Gov. Newsom proposed $5.7 million in new funding in his May budget proposal to support the transition to “safer, more sustainable alternatives.”
Local farmworker advocacy organizations, including CAUSE (Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy), have long fought for increased restrictions on chlorpyrifos in Santa Barbara County. At a pesticide reform conference in March 2018, advocates and farmworkers called on the Santa Barbara County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office to impose a countywide ban on chlorpyrifos use.
Though the county did not ban the pesticide, it did agree to comply with DPR recommended chlorpyrifos safety restrictions—including buffer zones, application guidelines, and discontinued use on most crops—in November 2018. These recommended restrictions will remain in place while the DPR works to cancel the pesticide.
The cancellation is the result of a lengthy process DPR undertook in an effort to legally mark chlorpyrifos as a toxic air contaminant. Though the pesticide was listed officially as an air contaminant in April of this year, most of that work was carried out in 2018.
During that process, the U.S. Department of Justice made an opposing move when it announced plans to fight a court-ordered nationwide ban on the pesticide in September 2018, saying the the federal court’s ruling was based on an incorrect assessment of the scientific evidence. The federal government still hasn’t banned the pesticide.
This article appears in May 23-30, 2019.