I live in a fairly isolated mountain community on the edge of one of California's most productive agricultural counties. Local agriculture news here is often national news as a result. But I was still surprised by a press release that hit the news yesterday.
Lindsay Residents Find Pesticide Contamination in Their Bodies
The full press release is here. The local ABC affiliate reported on it as well.
Lindsay is a small agricultural community in Tulare County, not a whole lot different from the dozens of others throughout the county. Because of its location on the foothills, it is in planting "Zone 9" - it gets a slight warm air current which keeps citrus warmer in the winter. Lindsay and its small town neighbors grow a whole lot of oranges. Those oranges are fantastic.
But my mother, always the skeptic and a bit obsessive on some issues (much like her offspring), has always said "I would never live in those orange groves. They spray all the time."
Pesticide Drift
In my much less obsessive state since my darkest days of depression, I worry less about all of this stuff. I saw three different operations this morning spraying something as I drove through the valley. They weren't big operations and I drove past quickly, so I didn't even put on the recirclating air in the car.
Paranoia may be adaptive behavior apparently, at least on one level. It turns out that they do "spray all the time" and, more importantly, the spray is affecting the health of Lindsay residents.
A dozen or so residents decided to determine their own exposure to the pesticide chlorpyrifos, used in orange groves. Residents first tested their air and found it exceeded safety limits by eleven times limits. This past summer they had urine samples tested and found that eleven of twelve had levels of chlorpyrifos that could be toxic to infants or pregnant women.
The residents are in a tough spot. They are employed by the orange industry. They likely don't have the resources to move and if they did, they might be trading one environmental hazard for another. They could move to McFarland, known as the home of childhood cancer clusters. After many years, we still don't know what the cause is in McFarland.
They could move near me but apparently the only job here is to sit on the computer and pontificate. That job is taken.
Orange Lover
As a lover of food in general and of Lindsay oranges in particular, I sure would hate to stop eating oranges. I checked out an FDA database of pesticides in oranges and found that in 2003, about 2/3 of the orange samples had pesticide residue. That's not the worst crop in the pesticide department, but it's certainly not the best either.
And though I talk a whole lot about food contents on this blog, the issue here is not so much how much pesticide makes it into the food. The pesticide residue that ends up in the orange is really nothing compared to that which makes it into the lungs and passes through the skin of Lindsay residents.
Moms have a hard enough time getting enough folate (and oranges are a decent source, by the way) without worrying about pesticide drift.
The Lindsay residents suggest organic farming practices as a solution. Alternatively, they ask that farmers spray at night while families are sleeping, rather than out playing in the yard. Spraying in off hours seems to be a reasonable short-term solution to reduce exposure this summer as we wait for a policy word from the state.
In the meantime, I'll call a friend with a chlorpyrifos-free citrus tree.
