Pesticides found in 80% of air samples from California farm communities

Almost 80% of air samples collected last year in California’s four most agriculture-intensive communities contained pesticide residues, though the concentrations were “unlikely to be harmful to human health,” according to a recently released state regulatory report.

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) collected 207 air samples at stations in Oxnard, Santa Maria, Shafter and Watsonville once a week throughout 2023, finding at least one of the 40 pesticides they tested for in 163 of the samples, according to the results.

The monitoring stations detected a total of 19 different pesticides in the air samples, including the herbicide pendimethalin and the fumigant 1,3-dichloropronene (Telone), which have both been linked to cancer.

These chemicals and others detected by CDPR have also been linked to nausea, shortness of breath, and eye and respiratory irritation.

Despite being banned in 34 countries, Telone is the third-most heavily used pesticide in California, and CDPR has been criticized for failing to implement regulations that adequately protect mostly Latino farmworkers from the chemical.

The samples were all collected on school grounds, raising concerns among environmental and health advocates about safety risks for children and other vulnerable community members.

“The latest air sampling results continue to show pesticides sprayed on fields drift off site and contaminate the air nearby, a serious concern for those who live, go to school or work near farm fields,” Alexis Temkin, a senior toxicologist at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said in a press release.

“Some pesticides can drift several miles from fields, putting many people at risk, including farm workers and vulnerable populations like young children, pregnant people and the elderly,” said Temkin.

None of the pesticides in the 2023 air samples were detected at concentrations at or above the levels CDPR considers threatening to public health, CDPR said.

The “detections of pesticides below health protective targets do not indicate risks for people living, working or going to school near agricultural fields,” the state agency said.

Despite detecting the presence of pesticides in the majority of samples, the agency issued a press release earlier this month stating that “95% of all samples analyses had no detectable pesticides.”

The way the agency publicly reported its data misrepresented the findings and appeared intentionally misleading, critics said.

“This is deliberate disinformation intended to deceive the public,” said Jane Sellen, co-director of the Californians for Pesticide Reform. “It’s so industry-serving.”

As a major agricultural hub, California applies more pesticides than any other US state. A 2022 study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment found that an average of 5.7 million pounds of pesticides per year were sprayed in Ventura County, California, alone, from 2016 to 2018, including more than 60 products with known links to cancer. Township sections within Ventura County where people of color make up the majority of the population had both the most pesticide use and the most toxic pesticide use, the study found.

But even city dwellers may not be able to avoid pesticide exposure, according to findings published earlier this month.

A study published in the journal Environment International found glyphosate, the most widely used weed killer in the world and the main ingredient in the weedkiller Roundup, in all 99 air samples collected inside urban homes in New York and 15 other states across the country even though the chemical is not used indoors.

“We found ubiquitous occurrence of glyphosate and AMPA [its degradation product] in indoor dust from residential homes in urban areas across the United States,” the authors write, noting that the widespread presence of the weedkiller in indoor dust “can be explained by its extensive application in the USA.”

(Featured image by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.)