Good morning friends, Romans, and countrymen. Lend me your ears.
I hope you are all well and have a happy Labor Day.
I am going to give a talk about glyphosate use in our forests in a couple of weeks. Santa Margarita Group/Sierra Club General Meeting
Monday September 14th, 4pm, French Valley Library.
Pesticides and Herbicides in our Forests??
And I’ve been working a bit on that; revising slides, etc. I have also been exploring a few things that have turned up down in that Forest / glyphosate rabbit hole, but I know from my talks in the past that I can’t have too much brand new stuff or I get rambling. And me rambling is not a pretty sight. laughing.
One of the things I have recently been trying to do is to create a searchable list of environmental and human impacts of these chemicals. Such as proposition 65 chemicals, aquatic toxicity, endocrine disruption, forever chemicals, and a handful of other harms. I have a way now for each “issue” that I think will work. But, if anybody has knowledge of an Excel type system where you can search multiple factors _all at once_ let me know.
Roughly 3 years ago when I first started working with cdpr files I knew nothing! But there was a woman at the California department of pesticide regulation (cdpr) that was overwhelmingly helpful. She was wonderful, and led me to links that it would have taken me months or years to find otherwise. She also sent me lots of other useful info etc. But about 2 years ago the cdpr seems to have gotten a lot of money. I mean a lot. And they became “somewhat” less helpful.
One thing they did was to completely revise their website. But the only real effect other than a pretty new image (GUI) was, as far as I can tell, to specifically prevent anyone from doing what I did to get the database of chemical names vs cdpr chemical codes.
The cdpr bases most of their reporting through their “chemical codes” instead of any intelligent use of the (C)hemical (A)bstract (S)ociety’s identifying C. A. S. (CAS} numbers. Because of this, you need the cdpr’s chemical codes to fully explore their databases. It’s also useful to have their past chemical codes -even if the chemical is no longer actively approved.
I guess I understand why the cdpr revised their website to prevent anyone from actually getting their chem code database again. The cdpr’s chemical codes are certainly a dangerous database to have floating around right? I mean it’s not like it is public data or public information.
The cdpr’s chemcode database simply connects a chemical name to the cdpr designation number -(like CAS numbers only much sloppier). So it’s probably due to National Security for them to upgrade their web presence to prevent anybody from getting it again.
Although, I can certainly understand that they would want to hide their database. The cdpr chemical database is appalling. I don’t have words enough for how an organization (currently run by a supposed PHD in chemistry) can ignore chemical effects that in the past have actually caused harm -like the children of thalidomide. And turn around and track peanut butter and sphagnum moss, and milk. Going out on a limb here but these last items (if organic) will probably not kill you, or cause you to be born with birth defects. As far as I understand chemistry they are not even specific chemicals; nor are they designated by the cdpr as organic or not. Yet they have been given a cdpr chem code. I am unaware if milk, peanut butter, or sphagnum moss have any history of being used as pesticides.
However; poorly identified and poorly tracked chemicals (manufacturing contaminants, pesticide breakdown products, and certain adjuvants and “inert”s) which _can_ and _will_ kill and poison our endangered and native animals, as well as people, kids, grandkids and pets are simply not tracked by the cdpr. Or worse, actively hidden as chemical industry “proprietary”.
Apparently the cdpr has better things to track – like milk and peanut butter – than track the dangerous ones.
Don’t get me started on biological life forms used as pesticides and a bunch of … chemists? (at best).
The half life of any material sprayed into the environment is of absolutely critical importance. I filed a public records act (PRA) request for the data on half-lives that “the cdpr actively uses to approve” the 1,045 ingredients _they have approved_ in California.
They sent PDFs for 18 of those 1,045 active ingredients.
Eighteen. Several were duplicates and several didn’t have any reference to half-life or chemical longevity in the environment.
Much of the “science” on the remaining dozen was not something I would be happy to have a fourth grader of mine submit; and they declared the request closed.
Given what I feel was this pathetic response, I submitted a PRA request to cdpr asking for who for what is responsible for oversight of their answers to a PRA request and they responded with a link to their faq page which, incidentally, does not have this information. This response, like their response to the first question, doesn’t even remotely answer the question. And this second request was also declared closed.
The California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) is the parent governmental agency for cdpr. So I submitted a PRA request to CalEPA inquiring about who is responsible for oversight at the cdpr. I was informed that my request had been forwarded. And – you guessed it -the request was closed.
Several weeks later, guessing that my request had been forwarded to a circular file, I requested from Cal EPA all documents from the past year referencing the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) and oversight. The response contained a list of only three emails. They were to/from the current legal counsel for CalEPA, the current legal counsel for CDPR, and the former legal counsel for CDPR.
Three lawyers but no documented oversight at all.
I wonder where that grant money that the cdpr obtained in the last two or so years went.
I wonder where it came from.
Bob
We desperately need
#ChemFreeZones
Especially around our schools!
Please ask our environmental organizations to provide basic information on what pesticides the national parks are spraying.
https://chng.it/9Dj4vKwbK5