SASS response to the end of the Monterey County Fumigation Notification Pilot Project, FarmingSafelyNearSchools.com, by the Agricultural Commissioner Henry S. Gonzales
July 21, 2020
Dear Board of Supervisors Members,
On July 20, the Safe Ag Safe Schools (SASS) coalition and numerous stakeholders in Monterey County received a letter from Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner Henry Gonzales stating that his office is ending the FarmingSafelyNearSchools notification pilot project. The notification system sent text and email updates to interested community members and teachers about upcoming fumigant applications, five days before an application was scheduled to take place within a quarter mile of ten schools. Fumigants are the most toxic and drift-prone pesticides used in the area, and receiving these notifications allowed parents, teachers, students and others to take reasonable precautions to prevent exposure.
SASS has been at the forefront in establishing key protections for our school children from pesticide drift. Our county was first in the state to adopt a 1/4-mile buffer zone around schools and pioneered the pilot notification program that gave a 5-day-advanced email notification about fumigants for parents at 10 schools.
In 2016, the County Agricultural Commissioner’s office agreed to establish the fumigant notification program in response to pressure from SASS members, teachers, parents, community members, and unions to know when pesticides are used around schools. A grant from the Department of Pesticide Regulation to the Ag Commissioner funded the notification system, which took years to develop and includes a website, and text and email notices. The notification system was expanded from three schools in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District to seven additional schools in North Monterey County. FarmingSafelyNearSchools was officially launched in 2019. Since then, SASS has asked Commissioner Gonzales to expand the notifications to all schools in Monterey County. FarmingSafelyNearSchools was the first step for all of our community to claim their Right To Know when pesticides are used near where we attend school, live, work, and play.
Now, however, schoolchildren are in their homes and have none of the protections from pesticide exposure they had at school - no 1/4-mile buffer, and no fumigant notification. Hundreds of scientific studies, including many conducted by UC Berkeley in Monterey County, have documented how chronic exposure to agricultural pesticides can cause a host of underlying health conditions, including cancer, developmental and reproductive harms, and asthma and other respiratory ailments, which we now know leave people more vulnerable to the worst ravages of the coronavirus.
Our families cannot be kept in the dark when pesticides are used around them. We all have the right to know when pesticides are used so we can take measures to protect our own health. And with our homes becoming schools during the pandemic, that need has only grown. Now, at the very least, parents and community--the public--should have access to pesticide Notices of Intent (NOIs) on the Ag Commissioner website, so they can be informed and take precautions to protect their children. NOIs are requests the County Ag Commissioner’s office must approve before growers can apply Restricted Materials -- the most hazardous agricultural pesticides.
The County Agricultural Commissioner’s letter indicates termination of the program is necessary since “the grant funding for this project has come to an end.” However, the additional cost of keeping the program going in its current state isn't clear. The FarmingSafelyNearSchools pilot, at $100,000 for a single class of pesticides and just ten schools, is just too large an investment to squander, especially when the need is so great and the cost of continuing is likely small. We believe that as a county we need to do better than to discard the fruit of so much time, effort and money. Nowhere in his letter does Mr. Gonzales affirm the value of the pilot program or his desire to continue to protect the community from pesticide drift.
We are calling on the County Agricultural Commissioner to commit to the continuation and expansion of the FarmingSafelyNearSchools website and, as an immediate step to let the public know when the most hazardous agricultural pesticidesare used by making Notices of Intent (NOIs) publicly available on the county website before applications happen. Although NOIs aren’t perfect - they’re not as community-friendly as we would like - they provide the most accurate and detailed information about upcoming applications that anyone, other than the grower, has. And this is an immediate low-cost and low-resource option Commissioner Gonzales can implement today. Making NOIs public imposes no burden or cost to growers, as Commissioner Gonzales has this information at his fingertips. It is just a matter of Commissioner Gonzales making this information publicly available.
We need to be creative and use all of the resources available to protect our community. For this reason, we ask the Supervisors to work with Commissioner Gonzales to continue with the notification program and make NOIs public while we figure out the resources to expand FarmingSafelyNearSchools to ALL schools and residents in the county.
Sincerely,
Monterey County Residents
Dear Board of Supervisors Members,
On July 20, the Safe Ag Safe Schools (SASS) coalition and numerous stakeholders in Monterey County received a letter from Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner Henry Gonzales stating that his office is ending the FarmingSafelyNearSchools notification pilot project. The notification system sent text and email updates to interested community members and teachers about upcoming fumigant applications, five days before an application was scheduled to take place within a quarter mile of ten schools. Fumigants are the most toxic and drift-prone pesticides used in the area, and receiving these notifications allowed parents, teachers, students and others to take reasonable precautions to prevent exposure.
SASS has been at the forefront in establishing key protections for our school children from pesticide drift. Our county was first in the state to adopt a 1/4-mile buffer zone around schools and pioneered the pilot notification program that gave a 5-day-advanced email notification about fumigants for parents at 10 schools.
In 2016, the County Agricultural Commissioner’s office agreed to establish the fumigant notification program in response to pressure from SASS members, teachers, parents, community members, and unions to know when pesticides are used around schools. A grant from the Department of Pesticide Regulation to the Ag Commissioner funded the notification system, which took years to develop and includes a website, and text and email notices. The notification system was expanded from three schools in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District to seven additional schools in North Monterey County. FarmingSafelyNearSchools was officially launched in 2019. Since then, SASS has asked Commissioner Gonzales to expand the notifications to all schools in Monterey County. FarmingSafelyNearSchools was the first step for all of our community to claim their Right To Know when pesticides are used near where we attend school, live, work, and play.
Now, however, schoolchildren are in their homes and have none of the protections from pesticide exposure they had at school - no 1/4-mile buffer, and no fumigant notification. Hundreds of scientific studies, including many conducted by UC Berkeley in Monterey County, have documented how chronic exposure to agricultural pesticides can cause a host of underlying health conditions, including cancer, developmental and reproductive harms, and asthma and other respiratory ailments, which we now know leave people more vulnerable to the worst ravages of the coronavirus.
Our families cannot be kept in the dark when pesticides are used around them. We all have the right to know when pesticides are used so we can take measures to protect our own health. And with our homes becoming schools during the pandemic, that need has only grown. Now, at the very least, parents and community--the public--should have access to pesticide Notices of Intent (NOIs) on the Ag Commissioner website, so they can be informed and take precautions to protect their children. NOIs are requests the County Ag Commissioner’s office must approve before growers can apply Restricted Materials -- the most hazardous agricultural pesticides.
The County Agricultural Commissioner’s letter indicates termination of the program is necessary since “the grant funding for this project has come to an end.” However, the additional cost of keeping the program going in its current state isn't clear. The FarmingSafelyNearSchools pilot, at $100,000 for a single class of pesticides and just ten schools, is just too large an investment to squander, especially when the need is so great and the cost of continuing is likely small. We believe that as a county we need to do better than to discard the fruit of so much time, effort and money. Nowhere in his letter does Mr. Gonzales affirm the value of the pilot program or his desire to continue to protect the community from pesticide drift.
We are calling on the County Agricultural Commissioner to commit to the continuation and expansion of the FarmingSafelyNearSchools website and, as an immediate step to let the public know when the most hazardous agricultural pesticidesare used by making Notices of Intent (NOIs) publicly available on the county website before applications happen. Although NOIs aren’t perfect - they’re not as community-friendly as we would like - they provide the most accurate and detailed information about upcoming applications that anyone, other than the grower, has. And this is an immediate low-cost and low-resource option Commissioner Gonzales can implement today. Making NOIs public imposes no burden or cost to growers, as Commissioner Gonzales has this information at his fingertips. It is just a matter of Commissioner Gonzales making this information publicly available.
We need to be creative and use all of the resources available to protect our community. For this reason, we ask the Supervisors to work with Commissioner Gonzales to continue with the notification program and make NOIs public while we figure out the resources to expand FarmingSafelyNearSchools to ALL schools and residents in the county.
Sincerely,
Monterey County Residents
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