In California, a new law will prevent farmers from “banking” their use of the pesticide Telone and carrying over permits for its use from one year to the next, says the Los Angeles Times. The practice can double the base amount applied.
Telone is listed as a carcinogen in California. Studies haven’t found Telone residues on food, but it can cause harm to farmworkers and others, who frequently breathe it in during the application process.
Under the revised rule, a farmer’s use of Telone will be capped at 136,000 pounds a year. Previously, farmers could apply up to 90,250 pounds of the chemical each year within six square miles with the option of transferring any unused amount to the next year. The new rules will also prohibit spraying Telone in December, when weather conditions cause the pesticide to linger in the air.
Telone is used on a range of crops, including almonds, grapes, strawberries, sweet potatoes, and carrots. Farmers have argued that the new regulations will make their job more difficult and drive up costs at the grocery store. “[The law] is going to have an impact on consumers,” California sweet potato farmer Bob Weimer said. “There’s no question about it.”
Growers in the state sprayed more than 13 million pounds of Telone in 2014, according to the latest records from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.
The chemical has long been a source of frustration for public health advocates. The Oakland-based Center for Environmental Health recently sued Dow Agro-Sciences, Telone’s manufacturer, arguing that the company had failed in its legal responsibility to alert residents and schools when the pesticide is sprayed in their vicinity.
An investigation by writer Liza Gross, FERN, and The Nation discovered that Latinos make up roughly 70 percent of the population in the 10 California ZIP codes with the most intensive use of pesticides. Latino schoolchildren, in particular, had a far greater chance of being exposed to the chemicals from nearby farms than white children.