No health threat says latest state pesticide air quality study

The latest overall air quality study taken from the Salinas testing station by the State Department of Pesticide Regulation has been released.

3 sites are monitored in the state for 32 chemical substances.

Researchers say, they found no immediate health risks or need for further evaluation of the 32 substances screened.

“DPR’s Air Monitoring Program, which is based on good scientific data, shows our overall approach is working to protect Californians as pesticides are used to grow food for the nation.” said Brian Leahy, Director of DPR. “It is a useful tool which gives us real life data about the pesticide levels in the air.”

One 24-hour sample was collected each week in Salinas on random days in 2014. Researchers found none of the pesticides exceeded any of their screening levels and only Chloropicrin was found to be the highest pesticide detected relative to its screening level.

Seven other pesticides were slightly detected in Salinas. The rest of the substances were detected at trace levels or not at all.

It’s important to distinguish this data of overall air quality in agricultural regions versus air quality that’s detected around individual pesticide applications in specific locations. Agriculture officials admit that the latter would most likely lead to more concentrated findings in air quality, perhaps around schools or subdivisions that are near recently treated fields.

This is the fourth year of collecting this data which measures overall air quality.

The 2014 air monitoring report can be found at http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/emon/airinit/air_network_results.htm