Skip to ArticleSkip to Radioplayer

Fact-based journalism is worth fighting for.

Donate
Environment

California’s ‘vomiting gas’ pesticide use rose 650 percent in 2 decades

Now reading piece 10 of 10

Dark Side of the Strawberry

Dark Side of the Strawberry

By /

strawberries chloropicrin

California regulators have ruled that farmers must restrict their use of chloropicrin, a toxic pesticide widely used to prepare soil for planting.

Credit: Sam Hodgson for CIR

Top Posts

1

The Pentagon Papers: Secrets, lies and leaks

2

Unmasking the secret landlords buying up America

3

Behind the Smiles

This week, California regulators ruled that the state’s farmers must restrict their use of chloropicrin, a toxic pesticide widely used to prepare soil for planting.

The new controls set by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation are intended to protect farmworkers and pesticide applicators who work closely with the tear-gas-like chemical, as well as people who live and work nearby. The state is imposing wider buffer zones around fields where the chemical is applied and smaller restrictions on how many acres can be fumigated at once. Growers also will be required to give 48 hours’ notice, instead of the usual 24 hours.

Chloropicrin is injected into soil as a gas, and it has the potential to drift off-site. Exposure can cause eye irritation and watering and respiratory trouble. It was used during World War I as “vomiting gas” because it could penetrate gas masks and force soldiers to pull them off to throw up and expose themselves to other toxic chemicals.

After the war, America had a surplus of chloropicrin. That’s when farmers realized it made a great pesticide.

To get an idea of how reliant farmers are on this pesticide, we analyzed the state’s Pesticide Use Reporting data. And the numbers are striking: California’s use of chloropicrin increased 650 percent from 1991 to 2012.

How did this happen? The spike in chloropicrin use came as the U.S. phased out methyl bromide, a fumigant that contributes to depletion of the ozone layer.

Chloropicrin applied in California |Crear infográficos

In 2012, the most recent data available, California growers used 8.7 million pounds of chloropicrin on fields. The bulk of it went to strawberry crops, but it also is commonly used for growing raspberries, peppers, tomatoes and lettuce.

Ventura County accounts for almost one-third of all chloropicrin applied in the state. Monterey County is the next biggest user, followed by Santa Barbara. Fumigant use in California overall is on the rise. In November, The Center for Investigative Reporting revealed how California’s strawberry industry is hooked on fumigants such as chloropicrin, 1,3-Dichloropropene and others.

This story was edited Robert Salladay and copy edited by Nikki Frick.

Rachael Bale can be reached at rbale@cironline.org. Follow her on Twitter: @Rachael_Bale.

Republish Our Stories

×

California’s ‘vomiting gas’ pesticide use rose 650 percent in 2 decades

By

Thanks for your interest in republishing this story. As a nonprofit newsroom, we want to share our work freely with as many people as possible. We only ask that you follow a few guidelines.

You may embed our audio and video content and republish any written story for free under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license and will indemnify our content as long as you strictly follow these guidelines:

TEXT

Credit and tag Reveal when sharing the story on social. We’re @reveal on Twitter and you can find us on at facebook/ThisIsReveal.

Include this language at the beginning of the story: “This story was produced by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting (link organization name to revealnews.org), a nonprofit news organization. Get their investigations emailed to you directly by signing up at revealnews.org/newsletter.

Our reporter(s) must be bylined. We prefer the following format: By Emmanuel Martinez, Reveal.

If you plan to republish our content, please notify us at republish@revealnews.org.

Do not change or edit our material, except only to reflect changes in time and location. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)

Include all links from the story.

PHOTOS

You can republish Reveal photos only if you run them in or alongside the stories with which they originally appeared, include the original caption, and do not change them.

If you want to run a photo apart from that story, please request specific permission to license by contacting our web team, webteam@revealnews.org. Reveal often uses photos we purchase from The Associated Press; those are not available for republication.

DATA

If you want to republish Reveal graphics or data, please contact Director of Audience Hannah Young, hyoung@revealnews.org.

IN GENERAL

We do not compensate anyone who republishes our work. You also cannot sell our material separately or syndicate it.

You can’t republish all of our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, please contact our web team, webteam@revealnews.org

If you plan to republish our content, you must notify us at republish@revealnews.org.

If we send you a request to remove our content from your website, you must agree to do so immediately.

FYI, you can grab HTML code for our stories easily. Click on the “Republish this content” link at the bottom of every story. Please do not alter this code.

DO NOT APPLY IF

If you wish to only use portions of the work or create a derivative, you need separate permission and the license and indemnification do not apply. This license only applies to republication of full works.

Additionally, we will not provide indemnification if you are located or publishing outside the United States, but you may contact us to obtain a license and indemnification on a case-by-case basis.

CONTACT US

If you have any other questions, please contact us at republish@revealnews.org