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Environmental Health Reports
Executive Summary
As the new home of CALPIRG's environmental work, Environment California
can be contacted with any questions regarding this report. A new California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) Charitable Trust survey of school pesticide use finds that California school children face possible exposure to pesticides that have been linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental effects, endocrine (hormone) disruption, acute systemic and nervous system damage. This is the second CALPIRG Charitable Trust analysis of school pesticide use. A 1998 survey also found widespread use of these toxic chemicals. The survey results are particularly alarming in light of the heightened national awareness of children’s special vulnerability to pesticides. In June 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) announced that chlorpyrifos, one of the most widely used insecticides for the past 30 years, poses unacceptable health risks to children. Given U.S. EPA’s reassessment of the chemical, chlorpyrifos will be eliminated from use in homes, schools, day care centers, and other places where children may be exposed. Although chlorpyrifos use will continue on many agricultural crops, it will be sharply curtailed on apples, grapes and tomatoes, in order to reduce children’s exposure through fruit juices and staple foods such as tomato sauce.1 For years, children’s health advocates, medical professionals and scientists have advocated restricted use of pesticides like chlorpyrifos, citing the same risks U.S. EPA now refers to for its restrictions. With few exceptions, those years saw little action taken to reduce children’s exposure. In the aftermath of U.S. EPA’s belated action on chlorpyrifos, we must ask how much longer we will permit children’s health to be put on hold pending incontrovertible evidence of harm. Rather, we should adopt the precautionary principle, which in this case would dictate that in the face of uncertain, but suspected, harm, we protect children from exposure to potentially dangerous pesticides until exposure is proven safe. Chlorpyrifos brings home the lesson, much as DDT did with birds and fish, that by inverting the age-old adage “look before you leap,” we have unnecessarily exposed our children, our most valued resource, to poisons. Chlorpyrifos is one of many toxic pesticides used in California schools. To determine the extent of school pesticide use, CALPIRG Charitable Trust surveyed the 15 most populous school districts in California, accounting for over 1.5 million students, or 26.4% of all children in California public schools.2 The data, collected throughout the months of March and April 2000, reveal the following information about school pesticide use, pest management decision-making, notification and record keeping in California schools.3 Highly toxic pesticides are still being used in California schoolsOf the 13 most populous school districts responding to our information request, all 13 used one or more of 42 particularly hazardous pesticides that can cause cancer, reproductive or developmental effects, endocrine (hormone) disruption, acute systemic or nervous system damage in 1999. Eight of the 13 responding districts used chlorpyrifos. The number of surveyed schools districts using each of these types of pesticides is summarized in Table A. Table A: School District Toxic Pesticide Use
Toxic pest control practices predominate, with few exceptions; the majority of California schools have failed to adopt and implement less-toxic means for pest controlAll 13 responding districts reported using toxic pesticides. Combined, the districts used over 70 pesticide active ingredients in over 180 product formulations. Our latest survey confirms that the handful of districts using least-toxic pest control methods is the exception that proves the rule: school pesticide use is as rampant as ever. Alternatives workMany school districts, including San Francisco Unified, Ventura Unified and Los Angeles Unified, have adopted policies and are implementing programs to use alternative methods of pest control. These school districts are not sitting idly by, and should be commended for their forward-thinking policies. Unfortunately, they remain the exception to the rule. School districts are often unable or unwilling to produce basic information about pesticide use in schools; parents, teachers and policymakers are left in the darkAlthough pesticide use records are technically public information that should be available for teachers, parents and the public to review, in practice, school districts are often unwilling or unable to share even the most basic information. We believe these records are crucial to ensuring the health and safety of our children’s learning environment. Unfortunately, many districts delayed their response to our request, and two failed to respond entirely.4 In many cases, even the districts that did respond provided inadequate or incomplete records, further inhibiting the compilation of full information. As we learned in researching our earlier report, Failing Health,5 lack of uniformity among districts’ responses does not permit us to determine the amount of pesticides used in all reporting districts or at any particular school. The most comprehensive information this report can present is simply the types of pesticides used in the 13 responding districts during the year beginning January 1, 1999, and ending January 1, 2000. This report does not begin to address where the pesticides were used, how often, or whether children were present during applications. The foregoing deficiencies highlight a fundamental problem with the issue of pesticide use in California schools: lack of easy access to full information. If a school district needs an entire month to respond to a simple request about pesticide use, how can parents, teachers and staff become and stay informed about the pesticides to which students and staff are exposed on a daily basis? Despite numerous rights California grants parents with respect to their children’s schools, no law requires notification of parents or teachers before pesticides are applied in schools. Similarly, schools need not report overall pesticide use to a central repository of information, making it next to impossible to find comprehensive information. Without notification or record keeping, parents, school officials, state regulators and the public are denied a tool essential to ensuring protection of our children’s health. BackgroundTwo years ago, CALPIRG Charitable Trust released Failing Health: Pesticide Use in California Schools. Failing Health examined pesticide use in 46 California school districts, accounting for approximately 25% of California public school children. The startling fact emerged that 87% of reporting districts used toxic pesticides in the schools or on school grounds. Results for the most toxic pesticides were particularly disturbing: 20% of schools used “probable” or “known” carcinogens, 70% “possible” human carcinogens, 52% developmental and reproductive toxins, 26% pesticides listed by U.S. EPA as Category I Acute Systemic Toxins, and 41% pesticides listed by U.S. EPA as Category II Systemic Toxins, most of which are cholinesterase- inhibiting nerve toxins. The intervening years since Failing Health have witnessed the issue of school pesticide use gain increasing prominence in California and across the country. In November 1999 the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) released Pesticides: Use, Effects, and Alternatives to Pesticides in Schools. Despite evidence that schools use a wide range of carcinogens, reproductive and developmental toxins, endocrine disruptors and nerve toxins, GAO concluded that comprehensive information on the amount of pesticides used in the nation’s public schools is not available.6 Further, GAO found only limited data on short-term illnesses linked to school pesticide exposure, and virtually none on long-term effects.7 Although these poisons can have long-term health consequences, school districts do not provide information to parents, and often fail to keep proper records. As this report details, school pesticide use is of significant concern for children: their behavior increases risk of exposure while their physiology heightens susceptibility to toxins’ effects. Unlike adults, children face exposure to hormone- mimicking and nervous system-altering pesticides during the critical period of growth and organ development. Distressing trends in children’s health continue to mount: with about 8,000 children diagnosed each year, cancer remains the leading cause of disease-related death of non-infants under age 19, often in the forms of leukemia and brain cancer.8 Asthma, the leading chronic childhood illness and number one cause for student absenteeism, annually strikes an estimated 4.8 million children under age 18—one in 15.9 Moreover, asthma rates for children under five have increased 160% in the last 15 years.10 In 1990, the cost of asthma was estimated at $6.2 billion.11 Pesticide exposure has been linked to all of these ailments and more. RecommendationsUnfortunately, the more things change, the more they stay the same when it comes to pesticide use in California schools. Despite many available non-toxic and less toxic alternatives to control pests, our children continue to confront highly toxic chemicals while parents remain unaware—and therefore unable—to act. CALPIRG Charitable Trust and the statewide coalition of Californians for Pesticide Reform urge parents, schools and policymakers to combine efforts to protect our children’s health from exposure to dangerous pesticides. • Policymakers should eliminate school use of pesticides that cause cancer, adverse reproductive and developmental effects, hormone disruption or nervous system damage; require prior notification of parents and school staff before pesticide application; provide training, incentives, materials and quantifiable reduction goals to promote pesticide reduction in schools; and ensure that school pesticide use is identifiably reported under the state pesticide use reporting system. • School districts should implement policies that eliminate use of pesticides that cause cancer, adverse reproductive and developmental effects, hormone disruption or nervous system damage; provide prior notification of parents and school staff before pesticide application; and maintain complete records of all pesticide use in a manner easily accessible to the public. • Parents, teachers and students should request information about pesticides used in and around schools and participate in school pest management decision making; and advocate strong policies that ban use of pesticides that cause cancer, adverse reproductive and developmental effects, hormone disruption or nervous system damage. Notes 1 “E.P.A., Citing Risks to Children, Sharply Limits a Chief Insecticide,” New York Times, 9 June 2000; see also U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), Office of Pesticide Programs, “Administrator’s Announcement on Chlorpyrifos,” http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/. 2 See Enrollment in California Public School Districts Ranked by Highest Enrollment, 1998-99, http://www.cde.ca.gov/demographics/reports/district/rank/ rnk98100.htm. 3 See Appendix F for survey methodology. 4 Oakland Unified, San Bernardino Unified. 5 CALPIRG Charitable Trust wrote Failing Health: Pesticide Use in California Schools in 1998. This study presented the first comprehensive data on school pesticide use in California, profiling 46 California school districts, which accounted for approximately one quarter of all California public school children. Failing Health is one in a series of reports on pesticide use by CPR. 6 U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division, Pesticides: Use, Effects and Alternatives in Schools, GAO/RCED-00-17, November 1999. 7 Pesticides: Use, Effects and Alternatives in Schools, GAO/RCED-00-17, 2 8 U.S. EPA, Office of Children’s Health Protection, Childhood Cancer, http:// www.epa.gov/children/cancer.htm; American Cancer Society, “Childhood Cancer,” Facts and Figures 2000, http://www.cancer.org/statistics/cff2000/ special.html. 9 U.S. EPA, Office of Children’s Health Protection, Asthma and Upper Respiratory Illnesses, http://www.epa.gov/children/asthma.htm. 10 U.S. EPA, Asthma, http://www.epa.gov/children/asthma.htm. 11 U.S. EPA, Asthma, http://www.epa.gov/children/asthma.htm.
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