Prevent Pesticide Poisoning in Farmworkers

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PAN ALERT: And AGAIN, please support AB 1530 to prevent pesticide poisoning

Last week we asked you to support Assembly Bill 1530 through the California Senate's Environmental Quality Committee. Many of you did, and the bill made it through! Now it is on to the Senate Health Committee for consideration on Wednesday, July 11. We again need your help get it through.

Act Now! Email members of the Senate Health Committee, and urge him to support AB 1539 when the committee meets on July 11.

To review: California's cholinesterase medical supervision program was implemented more than 30 years ago to test and help protect pesticide handlers from poisoning by neurotoxic organophosphate and carbamate pesticides. Unfortunately, the program does not include a requirement for reporting test results to any state agency. Without reporting, we have no information on whether it initiates workplace review or actually prevent pesticide poisoning.

AB 1530, co-sponsored by Pesticide Action Network, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles and United Farm Workers of America, aims to improve the cholinesterase program by requiring labs that conduct relevant testing for pesticide exposure to report test results to appropriate regulatory agencies, allowing the agencies to conduct program evaluation and oversight and prevent poisoning.

Send your email as soon as possible! Help get AB 1530 through the Senate Health Committee on Wednesday, July 11, and on to the full Senate.

Note: sometimes email to one or more decision makers bounces--systems fail or are changed without notice, but we do our best to get your messages through.


For More Information about AB 1530:


http://action.panna.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=12106

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http://www.panna.org/

Of course beyond these political measures we also recognize the need to alter our farming methods to shift away from the dependency on toxic pesticdes altogether. For this we need to restore campesino polyculture farms instead of expending energy to maintain the petroleum dependent agribusiness monocultures that currently dominate the valley..

One of my goals is to participate in a voluntary Central Valley Earth First! organizing campaign around the specific ecological issues of any community, given the great geographical distances across the entire San Joaquin and Sacramento Valley. The Earth First! concept of ecosystem restoration combined with exposing abusive corporate pollution of the bioregion are needed in this valley of dos rios. Another name could be Dos Rios Valley Earth First! We're only limited by our imaginations..

The central feature of the dos rios central valley is of course the dominant agribusiness corporations and their plantation style agriculture. Sprawl and suburban development are also threatening the central valley ecosystem with additional pollution runoff, aquifer capping by pavement/concrete, etc..

We cannot ignore how our food is grown and/or processed and the prevalence of pesticides and herbicides in the central valley waterways is alone to great an issue to leave to the Blue Dog Democrats or even worse, Arnold SSchwartzenegger, the Bad Actor who reads the script handed him from agribusiness..

Water loss from the Trinity River also effects the salmon populations on the Klamath, the same practice of allowing plantation agribusinesses to take agua from the delta are also doing this with the Trinity in the northen valley..

After having witnessed several polyculture farms in isolated locations throughout the valley, evidence has indicated numerous times (see Cuba, organic permaculture) that there exsists enough land space for campesino farms that are inclusive of valley oaks, riparian ecosystems, seasonal floodplains, polycropping, symbiotic planting (three sisters; maize, beans, squash) and other water conservation methods that also provide people with ample crop yield AND nutritional diversity..

By finally practicing water conservation on our collective campesino farms, the rios will be less burdened with water withdrawals and the salmon, sturgeon and other migratory native fish species can indeed increase their population 6-8 X over the next few decades, providied that those Klamath dams come down and the central valley agribusinesses are converted into campesino farms with polycropping and other conservation methods listed above..

All these ideas are fine and dandy on the computer, though if the land remains under control of corporate agribusiness plantations these practices can never be even attempted, let alone put into action..

The agribusiness plantation's percieved yield surplus is a direct result of our petroleum dependency for the manufacture of the industrial chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers) that are required by the monocultura system of plantation agriculture. The migrant workers are the first in line to be exposed to the carcinogenic pesticides/herbicides that bring the agribusiness plantations their yield. In addition we need to factor in the cost of petroleum extraction from the Middle East, as the source of these pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers is a petroleum dervided chemical base..

If the migrant farm workers were given a choice, then they would most probably choose their location of employment on an organic polycultura farm that does NOT spray their crops with toxic carcinogenic pesticides. Organic polycultura farms depend on a healthy surrounding ecosystem for beneficial predator insects, thus decreasing the dependecy on toxic petrochemically derived pesticides..


Unless we want to send our grandchildren to die for the last drop of oil in the Middle East (Iraq, Iran, etc..) so that Exxon-Mobil and them can profit form our young soldier's blood (see; Iraqi oil privatization), we can make the wise choice and evolve our collective selves away from all this petroleum dependency..

Not only does Arnold the Bad Actor reside in the Sacto capitol following a suspicious recall election, we are breathing Bad Actor pesticide chemicals everyday we emerge outside. How severe the concentration of toxic chemicals entering your lungs depends upon your proximity to the crops beings sprayed..

Here's Pesticide Action Network's (PANNA) list of CA's Bad Actors;

"California Bad Actor Pesticides: Types of Toxic Pesticides

Carcinogens: Pesticides listed as known or probable carcinogens by the U.S. EPA or the state of California.


Reproductive and developmental toxicants: Pesticides known to cause infertility, sterility, birth defects and impaired childhood development, listed by the state of California.

Groundwater contaminants: Pesticides found repeatedly in groundwater in California. By state law, use of these pesticides is severely restricted in designated areas of the state that are susceptible to groundwater contamination.

Pesticides with high acute toxicity: Pesticide active ingredients that are acute systemic poisons. These materials are lethal to laboratory animals when they eat less than 50 mg per 1 kg of body weight, inhale air containing a concentration of the substance less than 0.2 mg per liter of air, or are exposed through the skin to levels less than 200 mg per kg of body weight. In other words, for a 150-pound person, consumption of as little as one-tenth of an ounce can be fatal.

Cholinesterase inhibitors: Neurotoxic pesticides known to interfere with proper functioning of cholinesterase (ChE), an enzyme which facilitates transmission of nerve impulses. Two chemical classes of pesticides -- organophosphates and carbamates -- constitute the ChE-inhibiting pesticides. The list of ChE inhibitors was constructed based on DPR's list of cholinesterase-inhibiting pesticides.

Endocrine disruptors: Pesticides linked to the disruption of hormone function in humans and/or wildlife. These chemicals have been shown to alter levels of male and female hormones, as well as certain thyroid hormones. While it is clear that some pesticides are capable of having endocrine disrupting effects, no comprehensive list of the endocrine-disrupting abilities of pesticide chemicals has yet been compiled. In this report, we designate a pesticide as an endocrine disruptor based on multiple references. Because insufficient information exists on these chemicals to determine the extent of potential harm they might cause, designation of a pesticide as an endocrine disruptor alone does not place it on the list of CA Bad Actor pesticides.

Restricted use pesticides (RUPs): Both the U.S. EPA and the state of California restrict the use of some pesticides because they are acutely toxic to humans or beneficial insects; have been shown to cause worker illnesses, groundwater contamination, bird or fish kills; or their drift damages other crops. RUPs can be used only by applicators certified and licensed by the state, and then only under specific conditions."

resource info @;
http://www.panna.org/resources/gpc/gpc_200008.10.2.06.dv.html