AUDIO:

The following is a rough machine transcript. Click the words to skip to that point in the audio.

TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week -- Tom Wheeler, executive director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. Joining me on today's show, we have Patty Mayall, the director and founder of Protect Our Watershed San Mateo County. Welcome, Patty

PATTY MAYALL:

Thank you.

WHEELER:

We also have Megan Kaun, the Director of Sonoma Safe Ag Safe Schools. Welcome to the Econews, Megan.

MEGAN KAUN:

Thanks, Tom.

WHEELER:

.. and we have a longtime friend of the show and friend of EPIC, Patty Clary, the director of Californians for Alternatives to Toxics. Hey, Patty.

PATTY CLARY:

Hey, Tom, glad to be here.

WHEELER:

So if folks remember back a couple months ago and I, I I think probably I suffer from the same problem everyone else does, which like a couple months ago feels like a couple of years ago these days. But a couple of months ago PG&E tried to come into the county and spray along its easement lines -- to try to spray herbicides along its easement lines -- and we had a revolt within Humboldt County whenever the topic of herbicide application comes up, and the people rose up and made a big fuss and the Board of Supervisors said this isn't really consistent with Humboldt County values. We wouldn't like you to do this. And the Board of Supervisors also pledged at at that time that they were gonna come back and maybe bring some forward some new policy that would not just touch on Caltrans, not just touch on PG&E but really kind of address the issue of pesticide use in Humboldt County more generally. And so my good friend Patty Clary of Californians for Alternatives to Toxics. CATS has been thinking about this, has been working on this, has been working at a statewide level, connecting with partners who are all addressing the same issue of toxicants being exposed in our communities. So we're we're going to learn about what other areas of the state are doing to address this issue. And then we're going to think about what we can do at a statewide level, and then what we can do at a local level to address the use of toxicants. Patty, how was all that? Did I summarize that correctly?

CLARY:

That sounds pretty good.

WHEELER:

That sounds pretty good. Alright, let's travel first to San Mateo County and Patty Mayall, who is the director and founder of Protect our Watershed San Mateo County. Patty Mayall, what's been going on in San Mateo County, and what have you been able to change at the Board of Supervisors level in your county regarding toxicants?

MAYALL:

Well, we're very grateful that in 2012 our Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that ended broadcast roadside herbicide and pesticide spraying on all county roads and within county parks. With the exception of the two airports. On our website, protect our watershed dot org, you can see the video of the Board of Supervisors' decision on that historical day, and one of our super great supervisors still is there. Dave Pine makes an eloquent speech saying one reason to make this resolution is because Caltrans often follows suit in counties to end spraying. Caltrans never did. So the county, our county Department of Public Works, has been doing a fantastic job without roadside spraying on the roads since 2012. Now they do an amazing job clearing and mowing, and they always had to clear and mow anyway, even when they were spraying. It's just the toxic chemicals from the spraying two times a year with Caltrans. It can be up to three or four times a year on the state roads that are within our community. These are toxic chemicals. We get no warning. We never know when they're going to spray. It can be December, October, in spring. So we have been dealing with Caltrans.

Thankfully, our county has given us support, but they've always said we can't tell Caltrans what to do. So I had support from our senator Jerry Hill's office -- his amazing aide, Joan Dentler, has helped us. We have very little communication with Caltrans. It's, it's aggravating. They change people and they don't even know where we live. They don't know the area. They they don't care about hundreds of signatures from, from local residents and beyond asking to end this practice. So we've we've been trying to get them to instead of spraying the last time they sprayed was in 2017 and we got lots of publicity on it. We had a television crew and that didn't stop it. We get no notification. People put up no spray signs along their properties And this is specifically around Highway 84 in San Mateo County and Highway 35, which are in a rural area. We all live here and these are redwood forests and it's all the watershed, it's all the watershed. Creeks run along these roads. All the roads drain into the creeks. All the creeks go to Highway 84, will take you to Highway 1, where the ocean is. Highway 1, Caltrans sprays. They once told us they don't spray on Highway 1, but one of my friends was behind the spray truck on a Saturday during the pumpkin festival, which had tons of traffic. The pumpkin festival is in Half Moon Bay and there was Caltrans spraying. So we've just been, it's just been aggravating that we can't get Caltrans to communicate with us on this ,and on top of it to not clear the roadsides. They're not mowing or clearing. It's like, oh, if we can't spray, well, we're not gonna clear. I don't know if that's their position, but a lot of people have that feeling. And our local fire safe councils have been doing the incredible job of clearing , like, Highway 35, but Highway 84 right now is deplorable and that it's lined with French and Scotch broom, big bushy woody plants encroaching the roadway. It's in the roadway along Highway 84. This is one of the most flammable plants you can have along a roadway and we're trying to get it clear. We put in requests on their website, we have the fire departments that the fire safe councils pushing Caltrans to do this. Highway 84 was our evacuation route for hundreds of people that live in this area. When we were all evacuated in 2020, I was evacuated for eight days. The fire came within 15 miles of Highway 84 and our communities. And right now it remains uncleared and it's the fire safe councils working to get grant money to do this, when Caltrans has billions of dollars and it's their job.

And I would just like to prioritize that the clearing and mowing happens because that's what you need for fire prevention anyway and for protecting the watershed and public health.

WHEELER:

So it sounds that if Caltrans is playing hardball here and they're withholding there their services as they should be there, withholding their services in an attempt to kind of force the county to accept what they would want to do, which is spray ... which is, which is, pretty obnoxious. Megan, if if we can turn to you, what's going on in Sonoma? So you are the director of Sonoma Safe Ag Safe schools. How are herbicides being used in your county?

KAUN:

I'm a little newer to this game than the Pattys, and I'm so thankful to have both of them as my mentors on this. I got involved with pesticide advocacy in 2015, and at that time my focus was really parks and schools because they were spraying all of them with Roundup in Sonoma County and my kids were using them. So fast forward to today. We now have policies in place in the majority of the cities and the county itself passed a resolution in 2019 that said no synthetic pesticides in parks and around buildings, pathways anywhere people go. And they also made a commitment to continue to reduce the pesticide use for things like invasive species management and roadsides. And so that program has been really successful. They put out an annual report, It's very clear. But the problem that we've had is is with Caltrans and how much they've been spraying just to give you an example in Sonoma County. So our transportation or public works department still does use a little bit of pesticides, but they don't spray anywhere in West County, which is where we have a lot of sensitive environments -- Russian Tiver, the laguna and the coastline. So our county does not spray that, it hasn't for a very long time. But they do use a little bit of pesticides on some of the other roads where there's tricky situations they're always trying to reduce. So just an example -- on average for 15 miles our agency uses about one gallon of pesticides and adjuvants. I mean, not great but not so much. Caltrans uses one gallon on about a third of a mile. So they're just broadcast spraying really highly toxic stuff on our rural roads, which go right by schools and businesses just like Patty Mayall said. They spray on Sundays, They spray when people are around. And the reason that my organization decided to elevate this issue, even though we didn't really want to touch it, is because Caltrans is a big beast and it's hard to work with. But they came out on a sunny Sunday afternoon one year ago in February when people were out biking, walking in their cars, there was a line of a dozen cars behind their spray truck. People tasted and smelled pesticides. It took us six months to figure out what they were sprayed with. It was a cocktail of three really highly toxic herbicides and no recourse nothing our county could do. Our Agriculture Commissioner's office tried to convince them to not spray on Sundays or give notifications but they refused to work with us. So we elevated this as our major campaign this year and really focused on it. We've had lots of community events to try to bring focus to the situation that we're having here, but also to the situation that other counties like San Mateo County has been been having with Caltrans. This work has been fruitful, all three of us and others to have banded together And now we, we have some state legislation that that, that may help to elevate the issue statewide.

WHEELER:

And we'll get to that state legislation just a moment. Patty Clary. I feel somewhat for Humboldt County, where for some reason Caltrans has taken a little different tack than than they have in San Mateo and Sonoma counties. Can you tell us how Caltrans employees herbicides within Humboldt County, why why it might be different here?

CLARY:

Well, broadcast spring hasn't occurred in Humboldt or Mendocino County for 30, 35 years. Actually the whole thing goes back way back. It goes back to where we had state Senator peter bear for our district. That's a long time ago. Look him up sometime, Tom. He's a great guy. So we're talking 45 plus years ago, people of Mendocino and Humboldt, especially around the Trinidad Bay area were protesting Caltrans spring and together with Laurie glasses organization, we, we told Caltrans we're gonna spray going to sue them in 1988 way back. And they invited us to talk to them and then they told us that they were going to do. There was no negotiation with Caltrans. They just tell you what they're gonna do. But what they wanted to do was probably more than we could have gotten court, which was they offered to do a programmatic environmental impact report for statewide they and a few other things and and to reduce their pesticide use by 50% pretty quickly and by 80% over the years, they suspended this is key. They suspended herbicide spring in District one Del norte humboldt Mendocino Lake and at the time part of Siskiyou County since been changed. This is not a part anymore. And so that went on from 1989 until 1997 when they decided they were going, even though they had released the E. I. R. Which was going to be what triggered the resumption of herbicide spraying and end of the suspension in Humboldt County They didn't try again until 1997. The E. I. R. Came out in 1993 and they met with immediate protests. There were grandparents club on the Highway Mendocino. There was a bicycle riders club on the highway in humboldt and they were blocking traffic and we had daily at the time we had a pretty robust meat. Yeah, so we had daily coverage of this for ages. And so Caltrans didn't panic. And so they offered that if we could get elected officials to ask them to not spray in their jurisdiction, they would they would suspend it. So we did that. Almost all the cities except for tuna asked Caltrans please keep spraying. And then ultimately the county unanimously approved that. So basically we've had 35 years. First the suspension from the promised lawsuit and then

MAYALL:

all These

CLARY:

26 years since the board soups asked them to back off. And and this has been in Mendocino as well. Del Norte has very little spring in Emily County also has greatly reduced. So District one, you know, we not only that the district one director was in a panic about what he was going to do without herbicides. So he set up a committee that any district can set up is run by the director and it's to interface with the public. I mean I think District one is the only district that has really interface with the public in any meaningful manner. And we have a district roadside vegetation management alternatives committee. Yes, for a long name D'Oeuvres Mac. And we met for 21 years and the first few years we met like every six weeks and they tried all these alternatives alternatives that the members brought to the meeting alternatives that Caltrans found out about there really shouldn't be a huge problem for other districts to adopt something that's been tried for 35 years in in our area. So that's that's where we are. Petey came back everybody flipped out because they were used to not having any spraying like that here.

WHEELER:

We're talking about statewide legislation that will reign in Caltrans' ability to spray herbicides along its roadways. So this this policy, this system that's been set up by by Caltrans, it exists in kind of the goodwill of Caltrans if I'm not mistaken. There's nothing by by law that requires Caltrans to not spray in Humboldt County or in any of the district one is that right?

CLARY:

That's correct because Humboldt County cannot tell anyone what they can do with herbicide spraying Willie Brown, the former powerful speaker, made sure that happened when Mendocino County voted for a referendum to end aerial spraying of forestry herbicides. That's many years ago. But Humboldt County can oppose herbicide spraying on the roadsides. They have posed herbicide spraying on the roadsides and by PG and PG and E. We actually got them to voluntarily give up 21 years ago. So that's why herbicide spraying was going to happen again. People like what here doesn't happen

WHEELER:

culturally it is prohibit. So we we have new legislation though, statewide legislation that may change this may change the rules about how Caltrans can use herbicides because it sounds like it came out of your district Megan. Perhaps you would like to introduce a B 99 give a shout out to to the assembly member who introduced it.

KAUN:

Sure. Yeah. So we started working with assembly member Damon Connolly who's with the 12th district, he has jurisdiction as part of marin and Sonoma County. So I started educating him last summer on the issues here and he really paid attention. He was a board of supervisor in marin and he had been a part of a lot of marin's really progressive rules about pesticide use and a big supporter of that. So he was was sworn in january 5th january 9th, he issued forth 80 99 which would which would require Caltrans to honor any county pesticide ban that had been put in place. So you know if the county had said, we do not want to have pesticides used on our roads of the border, supervisors agreed that that was a priority, then Caltrans would actually have to to honor that, which, which is huge. And they would have to come up with a plan to honor to honor that. And this, this is for non emergency use of herbicides. So just for routine spring. So, you know, potentially could impact, you know, right off the bat, a dozen counties in the state and it could lead to additional counties taking a stand on the issue

WHEELER:

Email our folks in San Mateo County excited about 80 99.

MAYALL:

Well this is all just first started, but certainly the people within my area that I've talked to them about their their desperate, we're desperate for some accountability and some leadership on this because we haven't seen it and Caltrans own policies of watershed protection there protect every drop saying, pay attention to the watersheds, protect the watersheds, their their own standards and and their plans in their words on their own website, there needs to be accountability. Are they serious about listening to the residents of California and which is, we are in these counties and to just move away from the toxic chemicals and prioritize mowing and clearing, which is most effective for all purposes. Safety, visibility and fire prevention because when cal fire tells all of us as residents that we have to clear our properties and we do it, we're clearing, we're not spraying and that's what we need from Caltrans and to focus on that and it can be done. So we're grateful. We we need this, we need leadership

WHEELER:

paddy, paddy Cleary.

CLARY:

I do have a concern about this a B 99 that it could reduce what we have in humboldt and Mendocino counties now because it has two big loopholes in it, which we have never worked out. You know, we've never had that imposed on us with Caltrans In these 35 years, these 3.5 decades, let's get it clear long time. And these two loopholes are one is for fire mitigation and the second is where it's just not feasible. This throws it right back into Caltrans court and gives them two big doors through which they can go ahead and do a lot of spraying and we're not seeing that here now. And so the That's a concern for us, for our two counties that have already experienced not having these loopholes. And so that's concerning in maybe 99. And we want to we want to see that amended in the bill in which we hope it eventually will assembly bills go through a lot of processes before they get out. And we're gonna be working to see those loopholes closed, even though we're thrilled to help other counties in the state, all of us should have a stronger bill than that. And I want to point out something about all these years that we haven't had herbicide spraying here, which is that Humboldt County has 2800 miles of county roads were like the fifth largest number of county roads in the state and we've been doing that without herbicides for years, Caltrans has about 408 miles of highway miles in Humboldt County and that puts us also high, there's other counties that have more probably for the same ones, oddly enough, places like Inyo, Eldora and Los Angeles, you expect Los Angeles, but we're still, we're high in the number of miles that Caltrans has to deal with in Humboldt County and we know a lot of those roads are very difficult. I mean 2 99 1 69 all the roads that are twisty and turny and rural and they still have a lot of traffic on them. We don't want to lose what we have. We want others to enjoy it as well. We think that the 35 years that we've had here are really a big plus for anybody that wants to look at what the alternatives are.

WHEELER:

So a couple of months ago, our Board of Supervisors said, hey, we want to come up with this better system to deal with pesticides. We're going to work on this thing. Patty is somebody who's been working on Pesticides since at least 1988 when you first started at cats just to clarify what that means. I was one year old when you started doing this work, which I don't mean to age you, but just to emphasize the depth and breadth of your experience here. How does this moment feel to you? Do you feel that this is, this is a time in which we can make progress on herbicides and pesticides use? How are you feeling at this time and how are you feeling from the inspiration from what Megan and patty may all are doing in their respective counties? What are you bringing back into the movement?

CLARY:

Well, I think that it's an exciting opportunity if we can get a statewide law that we can live with. That is really fantastic. It's going to be work as it goes through the Assembly. We're going to have to work on it and it'll go in To the Senate getting something that's going to be good for everybody through there. And then if we do actually get a bill that we like and is signed by the governor, then there's a whole new world of work that needs to be done to help people in other counties. There's 58 counties in the state. Actually, some of those counties already don't use roadside herbicides, but they've never passed a resolution. Places like modOC and Alpine and some of these busy little places, but they do have state highways there. And so, you know, it's going to be a matter of working on it over a period of time and I'm really happy to have Megan and and patty being so committed because I think we have a really wonderful team with their feet on the ground and ready to go out and do this, take this on.

WHEELER:

So I imagine a B- 99, it's not a definitive will pass because the state of California has a lot of nozzle heads as as we call them. There are a lot of pro spring interests, although the majority of folks don't want to be poisoned, There are some folks who have an economic interest in poisoning Megan who might come out against a B 99. What are we kind of anticipating as the reaction? The other side who might be opposed to this legislation,

KAUN:

Caltrans will be number one. They will try to kill it by saying it's too expensive. Fortunately we know that they can do it and we know that they can do it on budget potentially. Even they could save money if they were smart about it. Pollinator highways, which is something that we could talk about if we stopped spraying our state roads have been shown to reduce maintenance cost and increase crop yields because they lead to more pollination. So there's a whole realm of opportunities that will have if we stop using chemicals on the roads, Other groups that may come out in opposition, Of course our Farm bureau's anytime. We talk about limiting pesticide use, even though we're not touching farms, they might start getting getting wary about that. Those are the two main groups, of course, other small organizations that are funded by the chemical industry may come out with fake organizations to try to bring fake science into the discourse. So we'll be on top of that.

CLARY:

We'll just need to remind people that farmers did get a little bill passed that allows adjacent landowners to state highways to go through a process where they cannot have spraying done next to their land. And this is because farmers had experienced drift that harm their crops. So it's hard to say right now exactly what the world opposition is going to be because we do have various opportunities like that to remind people of the benefits to them.

WHEELER:

So if folks wanted to track this legislation and other issues regarding pesticides in the state of California, patty clary, where would you direct people to go?

CLARY:

Well, currently I would think that the best place for them to look is to Assemblyman Connolly. It's brand new bill is just out and we haven't really developed a landing site for information. But at any time anyone is the author of the bill, they're the ones who will have all the latest information, but also they can certainly can contact us and they can contact me specifically and I'll put them into the mailing list and they can contact me through my email address, which is patty at all to talk spelled A L t, the number two t o x dot org. And we'll put you on the mailing list with all of RPG any outspoken people and start getting the information out as we get it. And we'll be developing something. This bill was unanticipated, it's just happened and we're thrilled and we're going to get organized around it.

WHEELER:

A couple of other thoughts. Thank Assemblymember Connolly for putting out this bill. So if you have the time, get online shooting an email saying this is really fantastic. We love to see this. Thank you so much. That really means a lot to legislator and it will help stiffen their spine when ultimately things run into opposition from Caltrans and other nozzle heads. Also the folks who are listening here are most likely, although not definitely within Assembly member Woods district. So reach out to Assembly Member would let him know that this is really a big priority for you to that You want to see jurisdictions have local control over toxic exposure in their communities. Reach out to Assembly Member would can't hurt to reach out to Senator McGuire as well. So shoot them both an email saying, hey, Assemblymember Connolly has introduced this really cool thing. We like the concept of this. That can help a lot. I want to give another shout out to my wonderful guests today. We have Patty Clary, the Executive director for Californians for Alternative to toxics. You can find patty at all to talks dot org, is that right, Patty?

CLARY:

Yep.

WHEELER:

All right. Megan, where can folks find Sonoma Safe Ag Safe Schools?

KAUN:

We're online. Our website is Sonoma S A S s stands for safe safe schools dot org. So Sonoma sas dot org.

WHEELER:

All right. And Patty Mayall, where can folks find out information of protect our watershed San Mateo?

MAYALL:

Protect our watershed dot org? And you can put in San Mateo County just to make sure you don't end up in a protecting watersheds. But usually that takes you right to our site. You can also contact us through that. There's a contact page. Thank you.

WHEELER:

And you can find links to all these parties and to Assembly Bill 99 on the Lost coast outpost dot com, where we have our show notes. Thanks everyone.

CLARY:

Thank you, Tom.

WHEELER:

That was really super.

MAYALL:

Thank you.

WHEELER:

Thank you. And thank you for listening, join us again next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the North Coast of California.