Tulare County, in the Fresno area of California, is a heavy agricultural area. Pesticide-reform activists said mid-July, 2006, that their monitoring shows airborne pesticide levels in Tulare County are unsafe.
County and state pesticide regulators said the group's monitoring needs to be verified before they can react to the report or decide whether pesticide regulations need to be re-evaluated.
The results of the monitoring were reported by representatives of Californians for Pesticide Reform, the Pesticide Action Network and local community members working on a project based in Lindsay, CA.
The pesticide in question is chlorpyrifos — a pesticide banned for household use but still applied to oranges, cotton and almonds.
"We want a buffer zone to prevent spraying around vulnerable areas, like schools and houses, so we can protect our children," said Margaret Reeves, senior scientist and program coordinator for the Pesticide Action Network.
Chlorpyrifos kills insects by disrupting their nervous systems. In humans, the toxin can cause headaches, blurred vision and difficulty breathing. It also has been associated with low birth weights in babies, the action network said.
[Editor's Note: Pesticide exposure has also been linked to four serious diseases: Type II Diabetes, MS, Parkinson's, and seizures. People already sensitized to chemicals almost universally are impaired by even slight pesticide exposure.]
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