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Poisoning the Air: Airborne Pesticides in California 9/21/1998 Poisoning_The_Air.pdf

Executive Summary

Pesticide contamination of food and water has received the lion’s share of public attention and regulatory oversight, both in California and around the nation. Unfortunately, this focus on food and water may come at the expense of understanding and regulating other potentially dangerous routes of pesticide exposure, particularly exposure to pesticides in the air. Research presented in this report indicates that current regulatory attention given to airborne pesticides in California is not adequate to protect human health.

Pesticides released in one location may be a source of human exposure or environmental contamination several hundred feet or several hundred miles away. Some of the older pesticides, such as DDT for example, have been found hundreds of miles from where they were used. While many of today’s pesticides are less persistent than their predecessors, they too contaminate the air we breathe and travel great distances from target areas. Many pesticides commonly used in California have been detected far from the site of application— some as far as 25 to 50 miles—and at high elevations in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Although only limited air monitoring has been performed, studies in California consistently find pesticides in air, rain and even fog. Of the 26 pesticides monitored as part of the State’s Toxic Air Contaminant Program, 19 were detected in ambient air in and around California communities between 1986 and 1998. These detection efforts have only scratched the surface. Monitoring for pesticide air contaminants as part of this program has not been done in 42 of California’s 58 counties, and regulators have failed to monitor for nearly 100 pesticides prioritized by the state of California for their potential to be airborne contaminants.

Findings:

Millions of Californians live near heavy agricultural use of known or suspected air contaminants, including those that cause cancer, reproductive and developmental disorders or disrupt the brain and nervous system.

Agricultural pesticides are the greatest source of outdoor airborne pesticides. A spatial analysis of U.S. census data and state agricultural pesticide use data carried out by CALPIRG Charitable Trust indicates that nearly four million Californians live within one half mile of heavy annual applications of the 152 pesticides identified by state regulators as those most likely to contaminate air and threaten human health. Our analysis also found that more than 30% of these chemicals are designated by state or federal regulatory agencies as carcinogens, reproductive toxins or acute nerve poisons.

These findings are underscored by years of complaints and illness reports from communities living near agricultural lands. In 1995 alone, California’s Pesticide Illness Surveillance Program reported 300 drift-related acute poisonings. This figure is generally accepted as a gross underestimate of actual acute poisonings and does not address the risk of cancer, immune system suppression, birth defects, intelligence loss, asthma and a wide array of other injuries that may result from long-term pesticide exposure.

Urban and suburban Californians may be exposed to dangerous pesticides in the air.

In the urban and suburban environment, structural fumigation is among the greatest sources of pesticides in the air. The total pounds of pesticides used for structural fumigation in 1995 was second only to agricultural uses. Structural fumigation involves covering a structure with a plastic “tarp” and filling it with a toxic gas, usually methyl bromide or Vikane (sulfuryl fluoride). This practice can lead to exposure of persons living close to the application site. According to studies by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, airborne methyl bromide may exceed the safety levels 50 to 100 feet away and can penetrate into nearby houses even when doors and windows are closed.

The authors were unable to estimate numbers of people living in close proximity to structural fumigations due to limitations in the pesticide use data. Unlike agricultural applicators, urban and suburban applicators are not required to provide detailed information on location of use.

California regulators have ignored laws intended to protect the public from airborne pesticides.

Despite the potential increased risk of both short-term and long-term illness posed by airborne pesticides, the state agency charged with regulating these chemicals, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), has virtually ignored legislation intended to protect Californians from pesticides in air.

Enacted in 1983 and 1984, the California Toxic Air Contaminant Program requires DPR to rank chemicals for their potential to contaminate the air and harm human health. The law then requires the department to create a public, peer-reviewed health effects report for each high priority pesticide based on extensive air monitoring and literature review. Finally, the agency is required to officially list and stringently regulate those pesticides found to pose significant risk.

In the 15 years since passage of the law, DPR has completed the process for just one chemical, ethyl parathion, which had already been banned for nearly all uses by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Over the years the department has shuffled and reshuffled its pesticide priority rankings, but never completed the Toxic Air Contaminant process, which includes air monitoring, production of a health effects report and regulation, for any pesticides commonly used in California. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of pounds of prioritized candidate Toxic Air Contaminants continue to be applied in California, many of which are carcinogens, reproductive toxins and acute nerve poisons.

Policy Recommendations

The widespread use of pesticides in and around California communities, combined with their startling mobility in air, suggests that millions of Californians may be exposed to these chemicals. These exposures may pose significant risk, particularly to pregnant women, children or chemically sensitive/immune system compromised individuals.

In light of these findings, piecemeal strategies to regulate one chemical at a time are inadequate, resulting in years of study and delay while millions of pounds of pesticides continue to be released. Regulators and policymakers should develop powerful incentives to move urban and agricultural pest management away from its current dependence on pesticides toward strategies for pest prevention and sustainable non-toxic alternatives.

CALPIRG Charitable Trust and Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR) call on California regulators to:

• Create incentives to phase out the use of pesticides identified as carcinogens, reproductive and developmental toxins and acute nervous system toxins.

• Implement the California Toxic Air Contaminant Program to reduce public exposure to dangerous pesticides in the air.

• Expand right-to-know activities to include publicizing air monitoring results, timely release of pesticide use data and expansion of the pesticide use reporting system to include detailed information on urban pesticide applications (including location of use).

• Regulators should adopt a precautionary approach and establish buffers zones between pesticide intensive farmland and homes, schools or other sensitive areas until pesticides are proven not to drift or cause harm.

CALPIRG Charitable Trust and CPR call on individual Californians to:

• Use least toxic alternatives to fumigations.

• Demand pesticide air monitoring in local communities.

• Write and call state Assembly and Senate members and demand full implementation of AB 1807, the Toxic Air Contaminant Program.

• Contact CPR to find out how you and your community can reduce pesticide use.

CALPIRG Charitable Trust and CPR call on growers to:

• Use preventative pest management strategies and least toxic alternatives to pesticides.

• Notify neighbors in advance of pesticide applications.

• Write and call state Assembly and Senate members to request more funding to implement sustainable alternatives.