Communities Demand Phaseout of Fumigants and 1-Mile Buffer Zones Around Schools. Fumigant Use Near Schools has Increased in California over the past decade.
For Immediate Release: November 11, 2025
WHAT: Zoom news conference about the Department of Pesticide Regulation’s new 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D) regulation and new data showing large increases in highly hazardous fumigant use near schools and daycares. The Zoom news conference will include “drop-ins” at local news conferences in Fresno, Modesto, Oxnard, and Watsonville.
WHY: The Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), has finally completed its new 1,3-D regulation eight years after the courts ordered a redo. Farmworker communities, who have been protesting the use of this cancer-causing fumigant for decades, are outraged that the regulation allows schoolchildren and other farmworker community members to be exposed to concentrations 14 times more than the lifetime cancer risk threshold established by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). 1,3-D is banned in 40 countries and is disproportionately applied in Latino and Indigenous communities. Yanely Martinez, the Safe Ag Safe Schools (Monterey Bay) organizer said, “The policy and the whole process is a cruel and glaring example of environmental racism.”
Adding to farmworker community concerns is the news that applications of the two most used fumigants in the State have increased near our schools. The top 15 pesticide use counties in 2010 saw a 45% increase in combined 1,3-D and chloropicrin use within a ¼-mile of schools in 2022.
Community leaders call for a rejection of the pesticide regulation-making process, a statewide phaseout of all fumigants, expanding the current ¼-mile school pesticide buffer zones to at least a full mile, and infilling the buffer zone areas with organic farming.
WHERE: A statewide news conference will be streamed on Zoom from Noon – 1p.m. with “drop-in” views of all four local news conferences at https://zoom.us/j/97527987438
WHEN: Tuesday, November 18 at Noon.
WHO: Californians for Pesticide Reform has organized the news conferences.
SPANISH: The news conference will have simultaneous interpretation in Spanish.
VISUALS: News conferences during “drop-ins” will feature banners, signs, flags, and colorful t-shirts.
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Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR) is a diverse, statewide coalition of 200+ member groups working to strengthen pesticide policies in California to protect public health and the environment. Member groups include public and children’s health advocates, clean air and water groups, health practitioners, environmental justice groups, labor, education, farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates from across the state.