PESTICIDE REGULATION HAS
ADOPTED NEW RULES MEANT TO
PROTECT STUDENTS WHO
ATTEND SCHOOLS NEAR
FARMLAND.
THESE NEW REGULATIONS WILL
AFFECT SOME SCHOOLS IN SANTA
MARIA.
KSBY NEWS REPORTER MEGAN
ABUNDIS IS LIVE AT BONITA
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. MEGAN?
THE NEW RULES STRENGTHEN
REGULATIONS SURROUNDING THE
USE OF AG PESTICIDES NEAR
SCHOOLS AND DAY
CARES....WHERE KIDS MAY BE
UNINTENTIONALLY EXPOSED TO
PESTICIDES.
"Obviously Santa Maria is an
agricultural based city. And
a number of our schools are
near fields so what this
does is just give a greater
distance between the
application of
pesticides and the schools
and it also
really limits the hours that
farmers can
apply pesticides."
THE STATE ATTRIBUTES THE NEW
RULES TO A GROWING
CALIFORNIA POPULATION...WHE
RE CHILDREN MAY BEATTENDING
CLASSES RIGHT NEXT TO
WORKING
FARMS...INCREASIN G THE
POTENTIAL
FOR UNINTENDED EXPOSURE TO
PESTICIDES.
THE NEW RULES INCLUDE BUFFER
ZONES...PROHIBITI NG
PESTICIDE
USAGE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 6
A-M AND 6 P-M ON WEEKDAYS
WITHIN
A QUARTER MILE OF A SCHOOL
OR
DAYCARE.
"They are running, playing
breathing
really heavy and for areas
like this where
pesticides are used it's
been shown that
they do drift and they are
in the air"
"It's all about making sure
our schools are
healthy places for our
students and staff."
ANOTHER RESTRICTION REQUIRES
GROWERS TO
PROVIDE AN ANNUAL NOTICE TO
SCHOOLSABOUT THE PESTICIDES
THEY MAY USE FOR THE YEAR
"We will be working very
carefully with the
local farming community to
make
sure that they have our
schedule and we
know their schedule so that
there is no
overlap."
"These regulations are a bit
more
restrictive than what we
have in our permit
conditions, we are going to
enforce the
new regulations so we
obviously will
make sure our growers are
utilizing
these new regulations."
THE LATEST AIR MONITORING
RESULTS FROM THE STATE
SHOW THAT FOR THE LAST TWO
YEARS ALL OF THE PESTICIDES
MONITORED WERE FOUND BELOW
LEVELS THAT INDICATE A
HEALTH CONCERN. I DID REACH
OUT TO
GROWERS WITH LAND
SURROUNDING SCHOOLS FOR
COMMENT BUT NONE GOT BACK TO
ME BEFORE AIRTIME.
LIVE AND LOCAL IN SM IM MA
KSBY
NEWS.
THE NEW STATEWIDE STANDARDS
