SACRAMENTO – Local pesticide activists went to Sacramento Tuesday for a legislative hearing evaluating the Department of Pesticide Regulation’s performance in protecting the public.
The department is responsible for evaluating pesticide risks to human health and the environment, enforcing regulations and designating restricted materials in the state.
Activists from Salinas, Greenfield and Watsonville were joined by members of agricultural communities across the state from Santa Maria, through the Central Valley and up to Plumas County.
Jacob Sandoval, the Salinas-based California state director of League of United Latin American Citizens, said pesticide regulation is particularly important to Latino agricultural communities like those in the Salinas Valley, where farmworkers and residents alike face disproportionately high exposure rates.
Former Greenfield City Councilwoman Yanely Martinez, who currently organizes the group Safe Ag, Safe Schools, said that the department is not doing its job to protect the communities it serves.
Renowned farmworker rights leader Dolores Huerta, now 96 years old, joined the group before the hearing on the lawn of the State Capitol.
The joint legislative hearing lasted more than four hours, with the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee and the Senate Environmental Quality Committee hearing testimonies from organizations like Californians for Pesticide Reform, California Rural Legal Assistance as well as Nevada County Agricultural Commissioner Chris de Nijs and Department of Pesticide Management Director Karen Morrision.
Such hearings are designed to inform legislators in both the Assembly and Senate with a variety of perspectives to factor into future legislative decisions. Activists from around the state took the opportunity to express concerns with the department’s operations to the legislature.
Angel Garcia, co-director of Californians for Pesticide Reform said that the department’s continued approval of a number of hazardous pesticides inhibits growers from transitioning to safer methods and puts California far behind many parts of the world in its regulatory system.
“Just to list one (pesticide), we can go with 1,3-D, a carcinogenic soil fumigant linked to cancer and serious respiratory harm and has been banned in 40 countries. In California, more than seven million pounds of 1,3-D were used on crops in 2023,” said Garcia. “Why is California, a supposed environmental leader, so far behind the times on this?”
Numerous groups and members of the public also raised concerns about a structural conflict of interest in the department’s funding. Currently, a large portion of the department’s budget is paid for by the “mill fee,” which takes a portion of pesticide sales.
“The system is broken,” said Cesar Lara, California Labor Federation of Monterey Bay representative. “The way that mill fees are structured are unfair to communities and it’s not protecting California.
“The Department of Pesticide Regulation, the very agency charged with protecting human health and the environment, relies heavily on pesticide sales to fund its operations,” said Garcia. “(The department’s) budget, roughly 80% of it, is tied to the continued use and sale of the chemicals it is supposed to regulate.”
Different substances, regardless of their varying toxicity levels, are all subject to the same mill fee rate, meaning that there is no incentive to use fewer toxic chemicals, said Garcia.
Multiple speakers concerned about the mill fee suggested the possibility of a “tiered” mill fee, which would charge different rates for less toxic chemicals, incentivizing growers to use more benign substances.
While the issue of the mill fee was brought up multiple times by different organizations and members of the public, Director Morrison did not directly address it.
Chris Hamilton is a California Local News fellow covering Salinas and the Salinas Valley for The Herald. To find out more about the California Local News Fellowship, visit https://fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows/