Department Of Pesticide Regulation Research Articles

Statewide Evaluation of the California Medical Supervision Program Using Cholinesterase Electronic Laboratory Reporting Data: An Update

The California Medical Supervision Program is designed to protect agricultural workers from overexposure to Toxicity Category I and II organophosphate (OP) and carbamate (CB) pesticides by routinely monitoring their blood cholinesterase (ChE) activity levels. ChE testing is conducted at State-approved laboratories and electronically reported to the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) and the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) for review. In 2015, OEHHA and DPR evaluated the effectiveness of the Program by analyzing ChE data from pesticide handlers performed between 2011 and 2013, which revealed issues with the data quality that hindered the evaluation process. Several interventions have been implemented since then to improve data quality and the overall function of the Program. A new evaluation was conducted in 2020 to 2021 using data from 2014 to 2019 to determine the effectiveness of the Program, Program compliance, and efficacy of the interventions. The analysis revealed similar data quality issues identified in the last evaluation, however, an improvement in data quality was observed. The number of individuals with ChE depression below the action level threshold have decreased in recent years, corresponding to the implementation of certain interventions, indicating that the effectiveness of the Program has improved. Spatial and temporal analysis showed the proportion of pre-exposure baseline tests inversely correlated with pesticide use data while routine follow-up ChE test results showed a positive correlation, indicating a high degree of Program compliance across the state. Major improvements in the data cleaning and analysis since the last evaluation have also improved the evaluation: pesticide handlers under the Program were able to be identified with more certainty and ChE depressions were able to be calculated with increased accuracy. However, further improvements to the data collection process could enhance future evaluations of the Program.

California court orders end to sulfoxaflor use

The pesticide sulfoxaflor can no longer be used on crops in California, a state superior court ruled Dec. 3 . The decision is a win for beekeepers and environmental groups, which challenged California’s approval of agricultural uses for sulfoxaflor in 2020. The groups claimed that the state’s Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) violated state environmental law by failing to consider the chemical’s adverse impacts on bees. The court agreed with the petitioners, represented by the environmental law group Earthjustice, that the DPR violated state law when it approved sulfoxaflor pesticides, which are produced by Corteva Agriscience, formerly Dow AgroSciences. Sulfoxaflor targets the same nicotinic acetylcholine receptor in insects as do neonicotinoid pesticides, which have been under scrutiny for their ability to harm bees. Both sulfoxaflor and neonicotinoids are systemic insecticides, meaning they are taken up by plants and distributed throughout plant tissues. Both are harmful to bees at low doses.

California to ban chlorpyrifos sooner than expected

California regulators have struck a deal with pesticide manufacturers to phase out the sale of chlorpyrifos by Feb. 6, 2020, and nearly all uses of the organophosphate insecticide by the end of 2020. Earlier this year, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) started the process of canceling all uses of the pesticide in the state. But the process could have taken up to 2 years if companies pursued administrative hearings or appealed the decision. “This agreement avoids a protracted legal process while providing a clear timeline for California farmers as we look toward developing alternative pest management practices,” Jared Blumenfeld, the state’s secretary for environmental protection, says in an Oct. 9 statement. Chlorpyrifos is associated with neurodevelopmental problems and impaired brain function in children, and is likely to be removed from the European Union market by January 31. The chemical is sprayed on numerous crops grown in California, including

Agricultural Exposures and Breast Cancer Among Latina in the San Joaquin Valley of California.

The aim of this study was to assess the role of agricultural work, pesticide exposure, and age at first farm labor exposure in breast cancer (BC) risk among Hispanic women in Central California. A BC case control study was conducted. Latina BC cases were identified through the California Cancer Registry and controls were recruited. Both cases and controls completed a detailed questionnaire. Pesticide exposure data were obtained by linking the crops, work locations, and dates worked in specific farm jobs with the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) Pesticide Use Reports (PUR). Chemicals associated with BC risk included organophosphates, organochlorines, and a phthalimide, Captan. Age at first work in farm labor was younger in cases than controls (P = 0.03). Agricultural work may be associated with the increased BC risk in female Hispanic farm workers.

People need to know! Notification and the regulation of pesticide use near public schools in California

This article takes up a recent proposal by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation to regulate pesticide use near public schools with the goal of examining notifications and the public debate over their use. Entailing an exchange of information between growers and schools, notifications provide schools with information about pesticide applications taking place nearby. While the procedural aspects are coherent, the regulatory purpose behind notification and its subsequent effects are considerably less so. I draw on literature related to pesticide drift and the politics of scale in order to discuss the strategic differences between notifications and their better known regulatory counterpart, buffer zones, and to highlight the significance of these differences for public debate over the problem of pesticide drift, and how best to regulate it. I argue that Department of Pesticide Regulation’s proposal presents conflicting imperatives that obfuscate the scale of pesticide drift risk and correspond to disparate sets of actors and prescribed actions. This central contradiction has put stakeholders in the position of being unsure about what notifications can do, and has led them to invoke disparate justifications for and against the proposed requirements. I argue, however, that the on-the-ground effects of notifications are the same, regardless of discursive framing. Intended to function as a protective measure, notifications instead shift the burden of protection on to individual school staff and parents through a neoliberal process of responsibilization. Literature on governmentality and health risk management animates the ways that information dissemination can work as responsibilizing policy. This effect is especially problematic considering the limitations faced by Latinx farmworker communities. As this case shows, the lack of choice in a governmental structure that ostensibly provides more freedom to take action when pesticide drift is imminent is a constraint on poor, minority communities, even while it is considered an increased freedom by others.

California to ban chlorpyrifos

California is slated to become the third US state to ban the organophosphate insecticide chlorpyrifos, following action in Hawaii and New York. California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) has initiated the process of canceling all uses of the pesticide in the state to protect farmworkers, children, and the environment, the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) announced on May 8. Chlorpyrifos is associated with neurodevelopmental problems and impaired brain function in children. Earlier this year, California listed chlorpyrifos as a toxic air contaminant. The state is therefore required to establish measures to protect farmworkers and other people who are likely to be exposed to the pesticide. The state determined that sufficient control measures are not feasible, so it is now proceeding with a ban on the chemical. The process is likely to take up to 2 years, according to the CalEPA. “California’s action to cancel the registration of chlorpyrifos is needed

Pesticides and Lung Health: Pediatric Association between Agricultural Pesticide Use and Respiratory Health in Fresno, California

Previous studies suggest that exposure to pesticides may be linked to increased risk of pediatric asthma; however, there is currently insufficient evidence to demonstrate a causal link. We investigated the association between exposure to agricultural pesticide application of three classes of pesticides (organophosphates (OP), carbamates (C), and methyl bromide (MeBr)) and lung function in a pediatric cohort in Fresno, CA, a community with intense agricultural pesticide use and high asthma prevalence. Study participants were members of the Fresno Asthmatic Children’s Environment Study (FACES), a cohort of racially and ethnically diverse children recruited from ages 6 – 11 with a physician diagnosis of asthma. We developed the “purexposure” package in R to pull publically available data from the California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation and calculate exposure to pesticide application. Exposure to three classes of pesticides was estimated by calculating the kilograms of relevant pesticides applied within a 3,000-meter buffer around each child’s home for the year prior to the baseline measure of FEV1. Study participants’ baseline measure of forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1) was the primary outcome for this analysis. The association between pesticide application and FEV1 was estimated by fitting a generalized linear model controlling for sex, age, height, and weight. Compared to participants in the lowest quartile of pesticide exposure, participants in the highest quartile of exposure demonstrated a positive association between FEV1 and exposure to OP (RR: 1.004, 95% CI: 1.004, 1.018), C (RR: 1.004, 95% CI: 1.004, 1.017), and MeBr (RR: 1.006, 95% CI: 1.007, 1.020). These results do not support our hypothesized harmful association between FEV1 and exposure to pesticides, and suggest that the association between pesticide application and lung function may be confounded by other environmental exposures such as air pollution.

A Review of the Chemistry, Pesticide Use, and Environmental Fate of Sulfur Dioxide, as Used in California.

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is an atmospheric pollutant that is moderately persistent in the atmosphere and highly water soluble. When applied as a pesticide, SO2 may be transported, deposited, or transformed in various chemical reactions. SO2 participates in the sulfur biogeochemical cycle, which involves complex reactions of sulfur-containing compounds between abiotic and biotic components of ecosystems. The main degradation route of SO2 is atmospheric oxidation, and sulfur oxides may undergo long-distance transport prior to removal from the atmosphere by wet or dry deposition. According to the Pesticide Use Reporting (PUR) database maintained by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), SO2 use in California from 2010 to 2015 was primarily for fumigations (96%), including treatments of postharvest grape products and winery equipment sterilizations. Other site uses contributed less than 5% of reported statewide SO2 use from 2010 to 2015. A slight increasing trend in use of SO2 as a pesticide was observed from 2010 to 2015, with the highest reported uses of SO2 within California counties during the months of July-November. Although the primary sources of SO2 in the environment are anthropogenic emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels, emissions of SO2 from pesticide uses have the potential to contribute to the environmental and public welfare impacts of SO2 pollution. Oxidation of atmospheric SO2 may contribute to the negative environmental and public welfare impacts of acid rain, which include toxicity to aquatic organisms, fish, and terrestrial vegetation, and corrosion of man-made materials.

Review of the published exposure data to pesticides for residents and bystanders, and for environmental risk assessment: Final report

Review of the published exposure data to pesticides for residents and bystanders, and for environmental risk assessment: Final report

A method for quantitative risk appraisal for pesticide risk assessments

ABSTRACTPesticide risk assessments are fraught with uncertainties that arise from the process of estimating exposure to and toxicity of chemicals. Regulatory agencies resolve those uncertainties in a health-protective (conservative) manner, typically acknowledging only inter- and intraspecies uncertainties quantitatively. Other uncertainties may be acknowledged qualitatively, but those safety factors (SF) are not enumerated. Quantitative risk appraisal may be used to enumerate the multiplicative SF generated by conservative assumptions regarding uncertainties. The magnitude of SF derived from decision points dealing with historically unquantified uncertainty may far exceed explicit SF used to gauge acceptable margins of exposure (MoE). Examination of the basis for some previously unenumerated SF may justify potential changes in regulatory practices and policies. Using past risk assessments of 3 pesticides (mevinphos, parathion, and methyl iodide) for which the California Department of Pesticide Regulation found unacceptable risk as examples, the previously unquantified SF ranged from 47 to 1 × 106 for scenarios involving handlers, reentry workers, and bystanders.

Revised chloropicrin use requirements impact strawberry growers unequally

Buffer zone requirements are by nature spatial and their effects are site-specific, with some fields — because of their location — more impacted than others. Using a set of strawberry fields in Ventura County that were preplant soil fumigated in 2013 as a baseline, we examined how much acreage eligible for chloropicrin fumigation would have been lost if either of two buffer zone distance regulations had been in effect: any one of the four sets of alternative distances proposed in May 2013 by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) or the buffer zone distances DPR released in January 2015. Buffer zone distances are based on several factors including the anticipated protection of human health, referred to as the percentile of protection. We find that the effects are highly dependent on the percentile of protection. From 4% to 29% of the fumigated blocks analyzed would have had an increase in buffer zone acreage depending on the percentile of protection. In those blocks, the share of total acreage that would no longer have been eligible for fumigation with chloropicrin varied from 3% to 45%. We also identify strategies that growers employed to reduce required buffer zone distances under use requirements in effect in 2013. The most frequently used strategies were using a tarp type with the lowest buffer zone requirements (“60% tarp”), extending a buffer onto a neighboring property, road and/or farm path, and reducing application rates. The results have an important policy implication: spatially defined use regulations have very different effects for different fields; aggregated industry-level analyses will miss the range of impacts on growers.

The Healthy School Act: School IPM Training Models in California Schools

The California Healthy Schools Act is a right-to-know law that provides parents and staff with information about pesticide use taking place at public schools and child care centers. The Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) is committed to encouraging the adoption of integrated pest management to protect children from the potential risks associated with pesticide use in schools. DPR currently offers a suite of training opportunities. New pesticide use reporting and training mandates have allowed DPR to explore new IPM training models that will help increase the adoption of IPM in California schools and childcare centers.

Whose Life Counts

In the context of the mandated phaseout of methyl bromide, California’s strawberry industry has increased its use of chloropicrin, another soil fumigant that has long been on the market. However, due to its 2010 designation as a toxic air contaminant, the US Environmental Protection Agency and California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation have developed enhanced application protocols to mitigate exposures of the chemical to bystanders, nearby residents, and farmworkers. The central feature of these mitigation technologies are enhanced buffer zones between treated fields and nearby buildings. Not only do buffer zones inherently privilege neighbors over farmworkers, but the determinations of the size of these buffer zones are also based on acceptable threshold levels and probabilities that allow significant exposures to those they are designed to protect. Moreover, these protocols require human monitors to detect sensory irritation. While the science and technology studies literature is highly useful for understanding the inextricability of science and politics in developing protective measures and is attentive to what counts as data in setting acceptable thresholds, it tends to overlook that social sorting is intrinsic to such regulation. We thus turn to Foucault’s biopolitics to make sense of regulations that are designed to protect but inherently allow some to become ill. Doing so illuminates how determinations of the bright line are at once technical–political as well as implicit decisions about whose bodies count.

Midas’ Not-So-Golden Touch: On the Demise of Methyl Iodide as a Soil Fumigant in California

The demise of the soil fumigant, Midas, was heralded as a major environmental movement achievement, when Arysta LifeScience eventually deemed it economically non-viable and withdrew from US markets just before resolution of a lawsuit. Building on scholarship that focuses on strategy to understand how social movements sometimes win, we show how activist tactics were able to exploit the missteps of their opponents. These included the unreasonable expectations of Arysta for grower adoptions, the foibles of the director of California's Department of Pesticide Regulation in registering the chemical, and the reluctance of California's strawberry industry to discontinue use of methyl bromide. Although activist tactics, such as public comments and protests, had only a modest impact on the regulatory process, they had a major impact on grower adoptions of the chemical. This, together with a lawsuit that was not going well for the defendants, ultimately led to the withdrawal. Still, there was a great deal of luck involved, especially in the lawsuit in which the judge made rulings and statements favourable to the plaintiffs. Here, ‘scientization’, worked in favour of the movement rather than the industry.

The Health Risk Assessment Performed in California for the Herbicide Simazine: A Case Study

ABSTRACTSimazine, a member of the triazine group, is registered in California for weed control in soils where a wide range of crops will be (or are) planted. The health risks from simazine use in California were recently assessed by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) for all potential (acute and long-term) exposure scenarios relevant to Californian residents and workers. The results of the CDPR risk assessment indicate that current exposure levels in many of the scenarios under consideration are not health protective for the people in California. The main objective of the present summary report (i.e., case study) was two-fold, both for offering a forum to advance further scientific discussion: (1) to highlight the toxicity and exposure data as well as the assumptions used in the CDPR simazine risk assessment and then (2) to systematically requalify the uncertainties and complexities involved in terms of the toxicity and exposure appraisals given in that risk assessment. In both attempts, the focus was more on residential exposures for young children and women of child-bearing age in that simazine was reportedly seen to exhibit neuroendocrine effects across a variety of species.

Community air monitoring for pesticides. Part 1: selecting pesticides and a community

The CA Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) developed methods to select pesticides and a community to fulfill criteria for an ambient air monitoring study it conducted as part of the CA Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Justice Action Plan. Using a scoring system, CDPR evaluated 100 pesticides based on statewide-reported pesticide use, volatility, and priority in CDPR's risk assessment process (indicators of exposure and toxicity) to produce a list of pesticides to consider as candidates for monitoring. The CDPR also evaluated and scored 83 communities based on demographics and health factors, availability of cumulative impacts data, and reported pesticide use to create a list of community candidates. The scores provide relative rankings to distinguish more highly impacted communities from less impacted ones and to identify which pesticides might contribute most to potential adverse health effects. These methods use criteria that can be quantified, validated, and verified in order to provide a transparent and fair selection process. Based on public comments and highest scores, CDPR recommended 40 pesticides (including some of their degradation products) and one community for its yearlong monitoring study. The CDPR then further refined its list of pesticides by soliciting input from local and technical advisory groups. The CDPR plans to use these methods to select pesticides and communities in future monitoring activities.

Environmental Exposures in the Context of Child Care

Just beyond the front door of the Montessori School at Five Canyons, a square glass-walled foyer is brimming with verdant houseplants in clay pots. Garden sculptures and glazed ceramic art are interspersed throughout. Above it all floats the looped sound of softly chirping birds. This lush tableau provides a fitting transition between the world outside and the carefully controlled atmosphere within, where child care director Meher Van Groenou has made environmental health one of her top priorities. The school serves 120 toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners in Castro Valley, California.1 Within its five classrooms, most toys and utensils are made of wood, glass, or stainless steel. Ample windows welcome natural light and permit cross-ventilation on warmer days. The carpets contain no glue, nor does the tongue-and-groove wood flooring. Van Groenou helped design the building 11 years ago, drawing from her experience seeking to provide a healthy home for her own children. Green construction was by then already being embraced in California’s residential and commercial sectors, and in many schools—but not child care centers. There were few child care–specific resources to support her, no local standards to lead her, and hardly any other centers to offer a model. Research has proven that infants and toddlers, who spend more time on the floor and experience the world with their hands and mouths, are not merely in closer contact with many indoor pollutants2 but also more sensitive to them.3 Yet environmental health standards in child care settings nationwide—which can include not just centers but also private homes, workplaces, universities, and places of worship—still lag behind those of schools, where children are older, larger, and somewhat less susceptible to environmental exposures. Unlike with more uniformly regulated schools, child care licensing, permitting, and oversight occur on a variety of levels, resulting in a fractured regulatory landscape. A host of other factors, many of them specific to child care, contribute to the challenge. For example, licensing guidelines and quality rating systems—which often emphasize infection control and cleanliness—can steer centers toward bleach or other potentially toxic sanitizers and disinfectants that are now recognized as asthma triggers,4 says Ellen Dektar of the Alameda County Childcare Planning Council; even the Five Canyons center disinfects with diluted bleach. For similar reasons, other facilities may choose pesticides over prevention-based approaches to pest management. Tight budgets and slim profit margins in the child care industry leave little room for pricier green products and hazard mitigation or removal. Meanwhile, licensed child care providers must meet growing requirements pertaining to disaster preparedness and care of children with special needs, says Hester Paul, national director of Eco-Healthy Child Care® (EHCC),5 a green child care endorsement and training program. Teaching child care staff—who may be poorly educated, nonfluent in English, and/or already challenged by the demands of their jobs—about environmental exposures “can be a formidable task,” says Vickie Leonard, a researcher at the University of California (UC), San Francisco, who is working to develop child care–specific resources on green cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting. The same can be true for credentialed child care directors, says Karen Teliha, community and environmental health coordinator for Indiana’s 5-Star Childcare program,6 the nation’s only comprehensive statewide environmental health certification program for such facilities. “For most child care providers, environmental health is a newer area,” Teliha says. “Educating them about pest control and proper pesticide usage, that’s not something that’s necessarily taught when you go to become a child care director.” In each case, the first step is to learn more about what, exactly, infants and toddlers are being exposed to. But the deeper one looks, the more complex it gets.

Imputation vs. Substitution

CSA NewsVolume 58, Issue 2 p. 20-20 News & Perspective Imputation vs. Substitution John Troiano Ph.D., John Troiano Ph.D. Research Scientist III Ground Water Protection Program, Department of Pesticide Regulation, California Environmental Protection Agency, Sacramento, CASearch for more papers by this author John Troiano Ph.D., John Troiano Ph.D. Research Scientist III Ground Water Protection Program, Department of Pesticide Regulation, California Environmental Protection Agency, Sacramento, CASearch for more papers by this author First published: 08 March 2013 https://doi.org/10.2134/csa2013-58-2-11Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume58, Issue2February 2013Pages 20-20 RelatedInformation

Claim-Evidence Structures in Environmental Science Writing: Modifying Toulmin's Model to Account for Multimodal Arguments

This article develops a multimodal model for how claims and evidence work across linguistic, numeric, and visual modes in the professional writing of environmental scientists. I coded and analyzed two reports (Bacey & Barry, 2008; Levine et al., 2005) written by research scientists working for California's Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) by applying concepts from studies of argument, genre, and visual representations in science. The claim-evidence patterns show initial and summative claims as well as warrants being presented in linguistic forms; however, supporting evidence (i.e., data and backing) is found in numeric, visual, and linguistic forms. These findings highlight the need to extend Toulmin's understanding of claim-evidence relationships into a more robust multimodal model.

Use of SOFEA to Predict 1,3‐D Concentrations in Air in High‐Use Regions of California

Methyl bromide, a commonly used soil fumigant, is being phased out per the Montreal Protocol and multiple fumigants are being positioned as replacements. Most effective soil fumigants, including methyl bromide, have the potential for inhalation exposure if the material volatilizes from soil. Chronic exposures for the fumigant 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D) are managed in part by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation by limiting the annual amount that can be used within a given township. A stochastic/deterministic numerical system (SOil Fumigant Exposure Assessment system [SOFEA]) was developed using the USEPA air dispersion model ISCST3, field study observations for flux loss, and links to Geographic Information Systems (GIS). SOFEA was used retrospectively to simulate concentrations of 1,3-D in air for direct comparison with monitoring program observations conducted by California Air Resources Board in Fresno County. These results indicated slight overprediction but correct magnitudes for regional air concentrations, especially at the higher percentiles, and provide a performance test. SOFEA was also used, prospectively, to predict air concentrations in potential future-use scenarios. These simulations of chronic air concentrations in two high-use 1,3-D counties of California (Ventura, Merced) consisted of 25 contiguous townships treated either at 1.5 times the current township allocation (40,937 kg) or at the maximum levels of 1,3-D used between 1999 and 2006. Exposure predictions for large regions are necessary to evaluate chronic population-based lifetime exposure and risk to 1,3-D should use patterns change. SOFEA provides a tool to estimate regional air concentrations within high-use areas required for such risk assessments.