What You Don't Know Could Hurt You: Press Release

What You Don't Know Could Hurt You

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SACRAMENTO -- Two years of independent scientific monitoring by the
Environmental Working Group (EWG) detected an array of toxic pesticides
drifting into the air Californians breathe -- the tip of a
100-million-pound iceberg of hazardous chemicals emitted statewide each
year as a result of pesticide use.

From June 1996 to September 1998, EWG collected nearly 100 air
samples in Sonoma, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Luis
Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, which were then analyzed by a
certified laboratory in Oakland. Almost two-thirds of the EWG air samples
contained pesticides known to cause cancer, brain damage, birth defects,
acute poisoning or other illnesses.

At the same time, an EWG analysis of the latest available state
data found that pesticides drifting into the air at the time of application
are only a small part of the air pollution caused by pesticide use. An
estimated 100 million pounds a year of smog-forming volatile organic
chemicals contained in pesticides or formed by the breakdown of pesticides
also evaporate into the air after application -- four times more than all
the oil and gas refineries in California.

EWG and Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR) said the monitoring
results and statistical analysis provide strong evidence that the state is
failing to adequately regulate pesticides in air, placing millions of
Californians at risk of exposure. They called on the new Davis
Administration to clean house at the state Department of Pesticide
Regulation (DPR), and shift authority over airborne pesticides to the Air
Resources Board (ARB).

"DPR is in denial about the public health risks of the excessive
use of pesticides in California," said Bill Walker, state director of
Environmental Working Group and a principal author of the group's report,
"What You Don't Know Could Hurt You: Pesticides in California's Air."
(Available online at www.ewg.org.) "The evidence shows that pesticide use
routinely exposes Californians to multiple hazardous chemicals in the air
where they live, work or attend school. For the state to claim that's not a
problem is unacceptable."

Levels of airborne pesticides detected by EWG monitoring were in
most cases relatively small, but that does not necessarily mean they were
safe. Health-based safety standards for most pesticides in air have not
been established, and those that do exist are not set to protect children
or other sensitive populations, but are based on supposedly safe levels of
exposure for the average adult.

"For communities near heavy pesticide use, the issue is not whether
DPR considers the amount of poison in the air to be safe," said David
Chatfield, executive director of CPR. "The real issue is the right not to
be poisoned at all."

EWG's monitors collected 55 air samples to test for multiple
pesticides. Twenty-nine samples, or 53 percent, tested positive for
pesticides known or suspected to cause cancer, birth defects or damage to
the brain, nervous, endocrine or reproductive systems. Separately, 39 air
samples were collected to test for methyl bromide, a fumigant known to
cause nerve damage and birth defects and erode the ozone layer. Thirty-one
samples, or 80 percent, tested positive.

In most of the counties where EWG found drifting pesticides, DPR
has never conducted air monitoring. Between 1991 and 1995, DPR monitored
only 50 times in 14 locations -- about one test for every 84,000 pesticide
applications in the state.

But pesticide drift during applications is only part of the
problem. After application, pesticides give off large quantities of
reactive organic gases (ROGs, also known as volatile organic chemicals),
which can cause cancer, birth defects, nerve damage and kidney and heart
disease. ROGs also contribute to the formation of smog.

According to the ARB, some 98.9 million pounds of ROGs are emitted
from pesticides each year -- nearly four times the total of ROG emissions
from petroleum refining (25.5 million pounds annually) and more than double
the ROG emissions from all other industrial sources (46 million pounds.) In
the San Joaquin Valley, one of five areas in the state where air quality
fails to meet federal standards, pesticides emit an estimated 34 million
pounds of ROGs a year -- 13 percent of the region's total ROG emissions.

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