A coalition has filed a lawsuit challenging the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) and Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner’s repeat rubberstamping of applications to use highly toxic and legally restricted pesticides, including the fumigants chloropicrin and 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D), near three schools in the Pajaro Valley of Monterey County.

Children at Ohlone Elementary School, Pajaro Middle School, and Hall District Elementary School, which also house onsite daycares, suffer some of the highest exposure to fumigants in the state. Fumigants cause severe and immediate health effects, including difficulty breathing, as well as long-term effects including cancer. County officials, under the purview of state regulators, have repeatedly approved permits allowing fumigations in the vicinity of these schools, with disregard for their cumulative health impacts and without a meaningful evaluation of feasible, safer alternatives.

Exposing Latino schoolchildren in Monterey County to especially harmful pesticides amounts to racial discrimination and a violation of civil rights, the California Environmental Quality Act, and interrelated provisions of the Food and Agricultural Code. Yet every year, the Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner, under DPR’s purview, allows farms to apply close to three million pounds of chloropicrin and 1,3-D – this, plus an additional 6 million pounds of other pesticides sprayed in Monterey County annually.

Groups File Lawsuit Challenging Toxic Pesticide Approvals Near Public Schools in Monterey County

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