California starts program offering pesticide spraying notifications

After years of health concerns and advocacy from residents who live near farms, California has launched a first-in-the-nation program to let the public know beforehand when pesticides are going to be applied on agricultural fields.

The program, called “Spray Days,” was started recently by the state Department of Pesticide Regulation.

It allows people to enter their address and sign up to receive an email or text message alert at least 24 hours before farmers apply “restricted material pesticides,” some of the more toxic fumigants and other chemicals, to fields within a square mile of where they live.

The program also includes a new website — spraydays.cdpr.ca.gov — with maps showing pesticide locations around the state, when farmers plan to apply the pesticides and what type are being applied, with links to health and chemical details on each, with a translate function for people who speak Spanish, Chinese and other languages.

“Pesticides are closely regulated in California,” said Karen Morrison, director of the Department of Pesticide Regulation. “This gives people information relative to make an informed decision if they want to go about their day differently. We see it as a public information and transparency tool.”

Morrison, who has a doctorate in chemistry, said that so far more than 1,500 people have signed up to receive the alerts, with the largest number coming from Monterey, Santa Cruz, Ventura, Fresno and Kern counties.

California is the nation’s largest agricultural state, with a farm economy worth $59 billion in 2023.

Even though California is known for Silicon Valley and Hollywood, more than a third of America’s vegetables and three-quarters of the nation’s fruits and nuts are grown in California. The state has 68,400 farms and ranches that comprise one-quarter of California’s land.

And although the amount of pesticides used on commercial farms has fallen by 8% over the past decade, and state officials have phased out many of the most toxic types, there are still millions of pounds applied each year across most counties in California, including some that are known carcinogens.

Farmworker and environmental advocates from Gilroy to the Salinas Valley, Watsonville to the Central Valley and Southern California have pushed for years for more detailed notification so residents living near fields and orchards can choose to close their windows, turn off air conditioning, bring toys, laundry, and children inside, or make other adjustments to reduce the risk of pesticide drift causing health problems.

“Finally after many many years, people have the opportunity to know what is being applied,” said Yanley Martinez, an advocate with Safe Ag Safe Schools, a non-profit group in Salinas. “It’s like a fire alert, or an earthquake alert. It’s a tool to protect yourself.”

Martinez, a former councilmember in Greenfield, in the Salinas Valley, said her son, Victor, had a severe asthma attack when he was 10 years old only hours after pesticides had been sprayed on a field of grape vines adjacent to his school in Greenfield.

“I got a phone call from the school saying, your son is having an asthma attack. We can’t find his inhaler,” she said. “It was scary. The school is next door to fields. I knew his portable classroom was right next to the fence. My son was helpless. He went to the hospital. He ended up in the emergency room. I don’t want any other mother to go through that.”

In 2018, California tightened state laws to prohibit many farm pesticide applications within a quarter mile of K-12 public schools and day-care facilities during school hours, Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Last September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to include private K-12 schools also.

But there have been several high-profile incidents that have continued to raise public concerns.

In January 2023, firefighters and paramedics were called to Modesto Christian School, after 20 students and several teachers experienced symptoms, including headaches and itchy eyes, when they went outside for a fire drill while pesticides were being sprayed in the orchard next door.

In December 2022, a San Joaquin County judge required a helicopter company, Alpine Helicopter Service, to pay more than $217,000 in fines after it released pesticides illegally in five separate incidents between 2014 and 2020. In one of those, in 2017, the company was spraying an orchard, but its chemicals drifted over Turner Academy, a special education school in Lodi. School employees discovered pesticides on school buildings, grass fields, playground equipment, picnic benches and sidewalks.

In 2019, pesticides being applied to a Stockton pumpkin field by the company drifted onto nearby soccer and baseball fields where children and their families were present.

The new “Spray Days” website and notification program, which was funded with $10 million from the Newsom administration in 2021, does not require farmers to submit any new information. State law already mandates that when they apply the more toxic “restricted material” pesticides, they provide advance notice to each county’s agricultural commissioner. Now that information is online and more easy for the public to search.

Farmers are wary, however. During a state pilot program four years ago, they asked that the exact locations of their properties not be added to any public notification system, fearing observers or protesters might trespass when they were spraying. Environmental groups still want the exact locations. The Department of Pesticide Regulation compromised, and each location is now shown within a 1-square-mile area.

“Some farmers are concerned that it might cause unnecessary alarm,” said Jess Brown, executive director of the Santa Clara County Farm Bureau. “We’ll wait and see how it all plays out. But it is what it is.”

The Spray Days website is at spraydays.cdpr.ca.gov.