Monterey County teachers sue over pesticide spraying near schools

(CN) — A coalition of environmental activists, teachers and labor groups sued a California state regulator on Thursday, challenging a decision to allow the spraying of toxic and restricted pesticides near three schools in Monterey County.

"Schoolchildren, teachers, farmworkers, and other community members in Monterey’s Pajaro Valley have long suffered dangerous and disproportionate exposure to pesticides due to the Commissioner’s many past, present, and foreseeable future pesticide permitting decisions," the various plaintiffs said in their complaint, filed against the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, the Monterey County Department of Agriculture and a number of farms.

"The Agencies have allowed farms in Monterey County to apply nine million pounds of pesticides in a single year," the lawsuit added, "including close to three million pounds of the restricted fumigants chloropicrin and 1,3-dichloropropene."

The fumigants are sprayed within one mile of three different schools in Pajaro Valley — all with almost entirely Latino populations, according to the complaint. The lawsuit notes that as of 2014, "Monterey had the largest proportion of students attending schools within a quarter-mile of the highest pesticide use."

"California officials are mandated by law to address the cumulative impacts of harmful pesticides on human health and consider safer alternatives," Elizabeth Fisher, an attorney for Earthjustice who is representing the plaintiffs, said in a written statement.

The state and county agencies "continue to rubber-stamp pesticide applications without doing either," she wrote, "disregarding the health and safety of our state’s most vulnerable people — young children.”

First used as a poison gas in World War I, chloropicrin is widely used as a pesticide to kill fungi, insects and microbes. It is categorized as a lung-damaging agent by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The chemical is often used with 1,3-dichloropropene, another pesticide and one that has been banned in 34 countries and the European Union. Neither are classified as human carcinogens, though their cancer-causing properties are the subject of some debate. Close exposure can cause certain acute effects, such as dizziness, vomiting and difficulty breathing.

Last year, a number of community groups requested that the California Department of Pesticide Regulation review six permits allowing six different farms to use restricted chemicals, including chloropicrin and 1,3-dichloropropene.

That request was denied. Now, the groups — including Californians for Pesticide Reform, Safe Ag Safe Schools, Center for Farmworker Families, Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers and the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council — are suing, asking a Superior Court judge to vacate the the decision and block the usage of the chemicals in fields near the schools.

In a statement, Yanely Martinez, a Greenfield city council member and a Safe Ag Safe Schools organizer, zeroed in on Ohlone Elementary School in Monterey County.

Students there, she said, were forced to contend with "cancer-causing pesticide in the air" at "more than twice the level the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment says is safe."

"Our kids need protections from the regulators," Martinez wrote — "not dereliction of duty."

In a written statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Pesticide Regulation, or DPR, said, "Evaluating the potential impact of pesticide exposure on sensitive populations, including children, is a part of DPR’s registration review of pesticides as well as part of its continuous evaluation process... Restricted materials are the most highly regulated pesticides in the state and are subject to strict regulatory, permitting, licensing, and inspection requirements."

The Monterey County Department of Agriculture did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

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