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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A coalition of Northern California residents, advocates, grassroots organizations and professors is demanding that Gov. Gavin Newsom halt the spraying of the herbicide glyphosate in California’s private and state forests, citing concerns about potential health and environmental risks.
As of Aug. 5, 2026, the coalition has called for state action to stop the use of the herbicide across California forests.
This demand was prompted by the retraction of a landmark 2000 scientific study that deemed glyphosate safe for humans, which was quietly retracted in November 2025 by ScienceDirect, the journal in which it had been published.
The study was retracted after an employee of Monsanto, an agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology company, was exposed for ghostwriting the landmark study.
ScienceDirect Editor-in-Chief Martin van den Berg, Ph.D., stated in his retraction of the article, “The scientific concerns regarding the lack of carcinogenicity only derived from Monsanto studies, concerns regarding (ghost-) authorship(s) and potential conflicts of interest, none of which have been responded to, are sufficient to warrant this action.”
In March 2025, Newsom issued a statewide state of emergency because of the large number of wildfires and wildfire risks. The herbicide was then used to suppress natural regrowth to combat this, with 266,000 pounds of glyphosate used in 2023.
However, two groups clash in their interpretations of the herbicide. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC, classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” based on evidence of cancer in humans and animals.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, deemed glyphosate as having “no risks of concern to human health.”
There are also concerns regarding AMPA, the chemical breakdown product of glyphosate when it interacts with water or soil, as it has been demonstrated to have effects “correlated to cardiovascular/neuronal damages.”
Additionally, AMPA is known to travel easily with wildfire smoke, highlighting a risk associated with the continued use of the herbicide.
One of the advocates calling for a halt to glyphosate use is Kelly Ryerson, known as Glyphosate Girl online, who has organized residents in the Tahoe area and said, “We’re seeing it applied in record amounts right where our kids hike, play, and breathe. Governor Newsom must act now to protect California families.”
Another advocate, Josh Hart, director of Feather River Action!, a grassroots environmental organization based in Portola, California, is suing the U.S. Forest Service over plans to apply herbicides across 51,000 acres near the Feather River.
Hart stated, “It is not ‘reforestation’, ‘restoration,’ ‘community protection’ or ‘removal of invasives’ — it is the combined use of chemical and mechanical methods to convert wild public forestlands into poisoned tree farms…”
The California coalition is calling on Newsom to approve an immediate moratorium on glyphosate and other toxic herbicides in California’s state and private forests, provide statewide notice before herbicide use, monitor glyphosate in air, smoke, water and soil, and pursue other possible wildfire solutions.
Additionally, the coalition is calling on the federal government to enact an immediate moratorium on glyphosate use in national forests, restore public notice and comment on national forest land removed in 2025, disregard the retracted 2000 study, and conduct an independent review before the EPA’s assessment of glyphosate.
Professor Brenda Eskenazi, director of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health’s Center for Environmental Research and Community Health, or CERCH, examined the use of glyphosate in proximity to the homes of pregnant women and children under 5 years of age, stating, “There’s no reason why anyone should be using glyphosate on their lawn.”
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Categories: Breaking News Environment State of California Tags: California Forests Environmental Health Gavin Newsom Glyphosate U.S. Forest Service Wildfire Management