From our amazing and hard working friends at Pesticide Action Network….Wine & Water Watch signed will your organization?

Requesting sign on by Aug 27: letter to Governor on brain harming pesticide chlorpyrifos

I’m writing to request that Wine and Water Watch consider signing onto the attached ORGANIZATIONAL letter calling on the Governor and the California Department of Pesticide Regulation to immediately suspend use of the brain-harming insecticide chlorpyrifos.

The Ninth Circuit ordered the Trump Administration to ban chlorpyrifos in the next 60 days, but every day chlorpyrifos is used in California is one day too long. 

Join in demanding that Governor Brown institute an immediate suspension of chlorpyrifos in California.

To sign on, please send me (mchandra@panna.org) the following by Monday, August 27:

              1. The name of the person authorized to sign on for your organization

              2. Title of that person

              3. Name of your organization

              4. Your organization’s logo (if you have one)

Why we need to suspend chlorpyrifos use in California:

• Chlorpyrifos is a neurotoxic pesticide that the U.S. EPA effectively banned for home use nearly two decades ago because of the developmental harm it can cause to children. Despite its potential harm to children, the agency allowed chlorpyrifos’ continued use on fields, leaving rural agricultural communities, and especially children in those communities, at continued risk.  

• California uses nearly 1 million pounds of chlorpyrifos on fields each year, and chlorpyrifos is the eighth most heavily used pesticide applied within 1/4 mile of schools in the top ag counties in California. Latino school children are disproportionately exposed (about twice as likely to be exposed as white school children). 

  • Prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos can lead to changes in brain structure, loss of IQ, reductions in working memory, ADHD, and developmental and behavioral disorders, among other harms. 
  • Childhood exposure to chlorpyrifos can trigger or exacerbate asthma and has been linked to reduced lung function the equivalent of being exposed to a parent’s second-hand smoke in the home.
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• According to 2016 findings by U.S. EPA scientists, all chlorpyrifos food exposures exceed safe levels, with children ages 1-2 years of age exposed to levels 14,000 percent higher than what is considered safe. Washing and peeling produce does not necessarily help. U.S. EPA scientists also concluded that air levels of chlorpyrifos pose a risk to children and women of childbearing age, with the highest air concentrations found at air monitoring sites in California, also far exceeding U.S. EPA safety levels (44x higher in Shafter, Kern County, than what U.S. EPA scientists consider safe; 7x higher than what is considered safe in Ripon in San Joaquin County; and 3x higher than what is considered safe in Salinas in Monterey County). 
• California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) scientists recently concurred that young children in California are exposed to an unacceptable risk of harm caused by exposure to chlorpyrifos from food residues, drinking water and drift up to half a mile from treated fields. Each exposure route was determined to exceed safe levels on its own. In combination, DPR’s latest risk assessment makes clear that all children in California are at risk of the brain-harming impacts of chlorpyrifos, with the greatest risk to rural children in farmworking communities. 

Please join us and sign onto the attached letter calling on the Governor and the California Department of Pesticide Regulation to suspend use of chlorpyrifos NOW. 

In solidarity,

Medha

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