PUBLIC HEARING ON PROPOSED REGULATIONS TO 

REDUCE NONFUMIGANT PESTICIDE EMISSIONS

IN THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY 

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

DEPARTMENT OF PESTICIDE REGULATIONS

TULARE COUNTY AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONER'S OFFICE

AUDITORIUM

4437 S LASPINA TULARE

CALIFORNIA 93274

WEDNESDAY, JUNE, 2012

6:25 P.M.

TIFFANY C. KRAFT, CSR

CERTIFIED SHORTHAND REPORTER

LICENSE NUMBER 12277

CALIFORNIA REPORTING, LLC

52 LONGWOOD DRIVE

SAN RAFAEL, CA 94901

(415) 457-4417
APPEARANCES

DEPARTMENT OF PESTICIDE REGULATION STAFF

Ms. Jodi L. Clary, Hearing Officer

Mr. Brian R. Leahy, Director

Mr. Chris Reardon, Chief Deputy Director

Mr. Randall Segawa, Environmental Program Manager

ALSO PRESENT

Ms. Teresa DeAnda, Californians for Pesticide Reform

Ms. Alyssa Nichols, California Citrus Mutual

Mr. Daniel Palla

Mr. Chris Valadez, California Grape and Tree Fruit League
INDEX

 PAGE

Public Comment 4

 

Adjournment 19 

Reporter's Certificate 20
PROCEEDINGS

HEARING OFFICER CLARY: Let's go on the record 

now. 

The rest of the evening is going to be recorded 

by a court reporter. And this is the formal part of the 

proposed rulemaking package that must be submitted to the 

Office of Administrative Law. 

Can you hear me okay back there? 

So I'm going to -- some of what I'm going to say 

repeats what Randy said and what Brian said, but just very 

briefly. And the reason for that is we have very specific 

requirements that we need to put on the record to satisfy 

the Administrative Procedures Act, and which has certain 

requirements for every regulation that is submitted by any 

State agency, at any time, or amendments of regulations. 

So for the record, my name is Jodi Clary. I'm 

Senior Staff Counsel for the Department of Pesticide 

Regulation. And today, the Director has asked me to act 

as the Hearing Officer in this regulation rulemaking 

package. 

And again, for the record, it is Wednesday, June 

6th, 2012. We are in the auditorium of the Tulare County 

Agricultural Commissioner's Office on 4437 South Laspina 

Street in Tulare, California. 

The hearing is being recorded by California 

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Reporting, reporter, Tiffany Kraft. And we did ask some 

Spanish translators to join us today from Carmezi 

(phonetic) translating. Their names are Gary Avila and 

Lucina Caden (phonetic). 

The Director of the Department of Pesticide 

Regulations has called this hearing for two reasons 

tonight. One reason is to receive public comments on a 

proposed rulemaking action. The hearing is a formal 

proceeding authorized under the California Administrative 

Procedures Act. 

This hearing also acts as a formal public hearing 

providing the public an opportunity to comment and obtain 

information on the proposed regulations that may become 

part of the SIP plan, SIP plan, that Randy was telling you 

about, amendment required by the U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency. 

DPR proposes to: 

Amend Section 6452, 6452.2 and 6864. 

Amend Section 6452.4 and renumber it to 6881. 

Renumber Section 6890 to 6864; 

And adopt Sections 6558, 6577, 6880, 6883, 6884 

and 6886 of Title III of the California Code of 

Regulations. 

The proposed action would require nonfumigant use 

prohibitions on certain products in the San Joaquin Valley 

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ozone non-attainment area when using products with certain 

agricultural uses containing certain active ingredients 

during the period May 1st through October 31st if the VOC 

emission limit is triggered. 

Also, when purchasing or using certain products 

containing the four active ingredients that have been 

discussed tonight, the proposed action would require 

written recommendation from a licensed pest control 

advisor and require pest control dealers to provide VOC 

information to the purchaser. 

These proposed regulations were officially 

noticed on April 20th, 2012. On that date, the Department 

began a 45-day public comment period. The written comment 

period will close tomorrow, Thursday, June 7th, 2012, at 

5:00 p.m. Oral comments will be accepted until the close 

of this hearing. 

For the record, the materials that serve as 

background for this hearing are made up of what's called a 

rulemaking file. The rulemaking file consists of the 

Notice of the Proposed Action, the Notice of Hearing and 

proposed text, the Initial Statement of Reasons, the 

Economic and Fiscal Impacts Statement, the documents 

referred to as "the documents relied upon," the written 

comments that have been received in regards to this 

action, and the transcript of this hearing. 

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While this is considered a formal hearing, people 

that testify will not be placed under oath. You're not 

going to be subject to examination or cross-examination. 

We have a list of some people that wish to 

testify. When I call your name, would you come up to the 

podium. I'm going to ask you to state your first and last 

name and spell them, please, for the record and for the 

benefit of the court reporter. 

The first name on the list that indicated she 

wishes to testimony is Alyssa Nichols. 

Good evening. 

MS. NICHOLS: My name is Alyssa Nichols. It's 

spelled A-l-y-s-s-a. Nichols, N-i-c-h-o-l-s. And I work 

for California Citrus Mutual. On behalf of CCM, I want to 

thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed 

SIP plan amendment. 

California Citrus Mutual is a voluntary trade 

association representing the interest of California citrus 

growers. Over 70 percent of California's $2 billion 

citrus industry is produced in the San Joaquin Valley 

nonattainment area. And, therefore, our industry is very 

much impacted by this amendment. 

As currently written, the amendment would require 

prohibitions of specified nonfumigant products when 

emission levels reach five percent or below the ozone SIP 

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benchmark of 18.1 tons per day average. This a subjective 

and arbitrary trigger that prematurely imposes unnecessary 

prohibitions when, in fact, the VOC emissions have not met 

or exceeded the benchmark goal established in the SIP. 

Restrictions should only be imposed if emission exceed 

18.1 tons per day average. We ask that all language 

referencing a trigger point below 18.1 be removed from the 

amendment. 

One of the nonfumigant active ingredients 

targeted in the amendment is Gibberellin, a plant growth 

regulator used by the citrus growers to improve fruit 

quality and extend the season. Gibberellin is applied 

consistently and to roughly the same amount of acreage 

every year. Therefore, in the event the total emissions 

exceed the benchmark, it is a virtual certainty the cause 

will not be related to Gibberellin use. 

According to the 2010 VOC Emissions Inventory 

Report, Gibb usage as approximately .7 tons per day from 

2007 to 2009 and actually decreased in 2010 when all other 

emission were up. Through the current reporting system, 

DPR receives detailed information on the materials used 

and the commodities on which they are applied. In the 

event that emission levels each 18.1 tons per day, DPR 

should use this data to determine which materials and 

commodities attribute to the emissions spike, rather than 

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imposing blanket restrictions on targeted materials and 

commodities. 

It is essential that citrus growers have the 

ability to use a liquid form of Gibberellin when 

absolutely necessary to obtain a desired result. We 

recognize Section 6884 does exempt Gibb products when 

applied in an application rate of 8 grams of active 

ingredients per acre or less. However, this rate is far 

too low to be of any benefit the citrus growers. Citrus 

growers rely upon Gibberellin for the ability to store 

fruit on the tree. Without Gibb, fruit quality would 

undoubtedly suffer, end of season would be reduced by up 

to three months. This is unacceptable in a fresh produce 

industry such as citrus. We recommend DPR remove the rate 

restrictions from the exemption for Gibberellin or that 

additional exemption be added that would allow the use of 

Gibberellin on citrus. 

Another concern I would touch briefly on is the 

matter in which DPR collects usage data, whether it 

accurately differentiates between the pounds of active 

ingredients applied in high VOC formulations versus low 

VOC formulations. It is imperative that this distinction 

should be made actively because of the negative 

consequences of growers of overstating VOC usage. DPR 

should absolutely implement reporting procedures that 

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accurately differentiate and track high and low VOC usage 

where the active ingredient is the same. 

Thank you. 

HEARING OFFICER CLARY: Chris -- it looks like 

Valadez. 

MR. VALADEZ: Yes. Thank you. Hi. Good early 

evening. Chris, C-h-r-i-s. Valadez, V-a-l-a-d-e-z. Here 

representing the California Grape and Tree Fruit League. 

We're a nonprofit public policy trade association which 

represents the fresh table grape industry, both growers 

and shippers alike, and also deciduous tree fruits. 

We are going to provide by close of tomorrow's 

5:00 p.m. deadline thorough comments in written form, but 

tonight, I wanted to focus on a couple of items to which 

Mr. Segawa's presentation brought up this evening, in 

addition to some of the exemption language that exist in 

the proposed form. 

The first item of concern for our industry I 

think most in agriculture in general would be that the 

current regulation does not account for or easily account 

for a "what if" scenario. That being, what if any of the 

listed crops, grapes included, pistachios or walnuts, or 

any of the four listed AIs. What if positioning changed? 

What if those AIs are no longer the predominant 

contributing AIs to pesticide VOC emissions as you're 

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currently discussing. 

Or crop usage, if conditions changed to which a 

crop with the specific use of one of the four listed 

materials, it may be reduced so your future pesticide use 

report would reflect a reduction. How is it that the 

current proposed regulation would allow the flexibility to 

account for fairness? That means if it's no longer part 

of the top four AI or no longer part of the top seven, how 

do you rectify that scenario by adjusting it within the 

current regulatory language? So I think that's one goal 

or concern with the current regulation the way it's 

presently constructed. 

A second item would be -- and there is at least 

in our mind there is no immediate solution -- but would be 

timing of the availability of data. Many growers use 

electronic means of reporting and realtime on their 

pesticide use application, whether various software 

systems. However, the way the analysis currently or -- 

the way the proposed regulation currently states, you have 

a regulation which would kick into effect should you reach 

a trigger point of 17.2 tons per day. That would stay 

into effect for a period of two years based on two-year 

old emissions data. 

So for -- let's say, for this year, if we were in 

effect for the 2012 season, that would not be based 

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obviously on real time what we're doing in 2012 or what 

was even done in 2011 as a more readily available use 

pattern from which to track. We're going back to 2010. 

Events happen. Things change. There are pest pressures. 

There are weather-related pressures, precipitation, for 

many materials will definitely dictate what is applied and 

when it is applied, at what use rates they're applied, all 

within the permitted label language applications. Yet, we 

don't seem to have a better way to more quickly identify 

what is being used within a shorter time frame that would 

do a couple things. 

One, allow DPR to assess data more quickly, to 

then develop and publish the annual emissions report in a 

more timely fashion. 

And then two, I think would provide you with the 

intelligence both you desire and I think we would see as 

being more equitable and fair for ascertaining what is a 

more current picture before we go forward and say here's a 

proposed regulation which is going to be in effect for a 

two-year period. And based on that time lag due to data 

collection, deficiencies as they presently exist. 

A third item would focus on as presently written 

in the regulation the proposed exemption for Gibberellin 

for eight grams or less. 

I'm inferring from the proposed regulation, the 

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current form, it's changed a couple times. But the 

previous form had a rate of five grams of AI per acre or 

less. That was the permitted amount under the previous 

exemption. Then DPR issued the proposed regulation, which 

then had a rate of eight grams, which is what we're 

currently seeing today. 

However, in the development of that eight grams 

of AI per acre, it seems that came out of recommendations 

from a U.C. survey that was the exemptions of San Joaquin 

Valley ozone nonattainment area use restriction survey 

which captured kind of two -- at least in table grapes -- 

two main utilities of Gibberellin applications: One being 

thinning and one being sizing. And it left out the 

stretch which is the pre-bloom applications. 

But looking at the thinning and the sizing, 

utilities of Gibberellins, it captured what I would 

contend is at the low end for liquid Gibberellins was at 

the low end of the use rate scale. And the recommendation 

that came out of the survey which is listed in the DPR 

regulatory language is .5 grams of AI per acre up to one 

for maybe thinning applications and up to 16 grams of 

AI -- 16 grams of AI per acre. And that was 

variety-specific, I believe, for ruby seedless, if I'm not 

mistaken. 

I infer based on where some of the previous 

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thought was for five grams now moving it up to eight. It 

was kind of maybe an exercise and taking a halfway point. 

Where, for thinning, you can go down as low as .5 grams of 

AI per acre, but give it flexibility northward. But for 

sizing, we don't see where there is really utility. You 

can get all of the sizing. You can take care of all your 

sizing needs by going up to 16 grams of AI per acre and 

you cut it halfway with eight grams. 

I don't know if that's true. That's kind of an 

easy inference based upon the survey, which then led to 

the eight grams being in the written regulation. Why 

that's concerning for us is we would contend in the 

thinning range that .5 up to 16 for many varieties and 

many applications -- when uses are variety-specific, 

cultural practices specific, that could work. 

But when you start talking about applications for 

sizing purposes and I think overall use of many 

farmers/growers Gibberellin programs, when you're talking 

about development of sugars, colors, maturation, overall 

size, when you're talking about your stretch rates before 

you get to thinning and sizing, you're talking about at an 

initial point effecting the architecture of the bunch so 

that you have adequate spacing, adequate air flow to 

reduce the incidences of fungal disease. 

So when you pick -- when you select a number of 

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eight grams of AI per acre, you really only capture just a 

limited scope of utility of Gibberellins. Get back to 

sizing, you look at the labeled rates, you're starting at 

20. You're starting at 20 grams of AI per acre up to I 

think it's slightly over 120 grams of AI per acre. And 

again, that's variety specific. You have a variety like 

Thompson seedless, which is by and large so prevalent and 

a prevalent table grape grown in our area, they require a 

pump spray. That's additional Gibberellin applications 

which farmers would have to employ, which I don't think 

was initially captured within, one, the survey which was 

conducted, which seems to focus on thinning and on your 

sizing; and two, kind of look into the broader universe of 

table grape varieties and needs. 

I know it attempted to look at capturing what are 

the needs for Ruby seedless what are the needs for Crimson 

seedless and then putting all the other table grape 

varieties in the other category. We recognize any time 

you do survey work, it's difficult. We do our own work. 

We know it's difficult. However, we think the regulation 

as currently written, it focused in a limited scope at 

least as it applies to table grapes, given what we've 

discussed with our table grape members and we see how the 

survey was constructed and how the information was used to 

influence the regulatory language. 

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So I think by and large -- also given the 

information provided in today's presentation and in 

previous presentations of where the 2010 emissions picture 

was previously and where it is today after a correction of 

emissions from Bifenthrin then and a reduction of 

emissions of over one ton per day, we think there may be 

some additional flexibility. We can't say how much. But 

we do believe there should be some additional flexibility 

for DPR to look at the current language and at least under 

the exemption portion take a look at areas given the seven 

crops and speaking for table grapes and table grapes alone 

this late afternoon/early evening, or you can add 

flexibility so you're not significantly hampering, in our 

case, cultural practices and needs table grape growers do 

need for use of Gibberellin. 

Bottom line for us, the scope of any regulation, 

the scope of this regulation, we've been working on 

tracking, monitoring, and commenting on VOC issues from 

the very beginning. You know, it should strive to be 

effective in reducing the risk of reaching that 17.2 ton 

per day trigger limit. We understand that. But it's also 

more important to focus on enacting a regulation which is 

absolutely and only absolutely necessary to remain below 

the trigger. I think any more than that is guesswork. 

It's more of an exercise of a broad application I think in 

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a very real impacts to trees, especially the table grape 

industry. 

Like I commented earlier, my formal written 

comments will be submitted by tomorrow's guideline. I 

thank you for the opportunity to comment. I especially 

thank you for traveling into the valley to receive 

comments. 

HEARING OFFICER CLARY: Teresa DeAnda. 

MS. DE ANDA: Hello. Thanks for coming to the 

valley. 

My name Teresa, T-e-r-e-s-a. DeAnda, 

D-e-A-n-d-a. And I work for Californians for Pesticide 

Reform. And I'm on other committees and wear other hats. 

I'm on the Cumulative Health Impact Project, CHIP, CVAQC, 

Central Valley Air Quality Coalition and I'm the Director 

for El Comité para el Bienestar. 

So just to start off, our organization and other 

organizations will be submitting a letter. And I didn't 

bring a hard copy, but it's probably there already or will 

get there by tomorrow. 

So to start, these regulations should be decided 

to reduce pesticide VOC emissions by 20 percent. 

Requiring only 12 percent emission reduction in the valley 

is an outrage. 

The need for reduction in pesticide VOC emissions 

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in the San Joaquin Valley is urgent because valley areas 

have heavily polluted non-attainment air and ozone 

standard here in the valley. This pollution effects the 

health of my family, friends, and neighbors personally. 

It makes asthma and other respiratory and heart conditions 

worse and increases hospital and emergency room visits, 

school and work absenteeism. And I could go on and on 

there about these things. But for the sake of time, I 

won't. 

The Department of Pesticide Regulation says it 

will conduct audits of pesticide dealers, pest control 

advisor, and grower records to enforce the regulation. 

With budget cuts, how can the Department possibly do 

enough dealers audits, let alone field inspections to 

check adequately for illegal uses? 

My one point is all pesticide products containing 

procurithas (phonetic) should be banned to reduce VOC 

emissions and risk to children's health. Procurithas was 

banned from household use over ten years ago because of 

risk to children. Yet, heavy use in agriculture was 

allowed to continue, while more and more studies have 

shown that exposure to pregnant women and children to this 

pesticide is extremely harmful. That's a slap in the face 

to us, because we live where it's sprayed a lot, and but 

yet it's bad for homes. So homes can't use it, but yet 

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it's used across the street or near the schools all 

surrounding us. 

And so the only choice to use nonfumigant 

pesticide VOC emission is to prohibit use of the most 

highly nonfumigant pesticide products in the San Joaquin 

Valley. 

And then I just wanted to say, I have a lot of 

respect for agriculture. My father was a farm labor 

contractor. He's a hard-working Filipino and first 

generation. And everybody in my town, which is Earlimart, 

bought their homes -- ones that have homes -- working in 

the fields and doing all this hard manual labor and 

working with farmers and for farmers. 

But somewhere, it got out of hand, all the 

pesticide use. And now it's just so polluted here. And 

I'm not saying it's only pesticide. I know it's not. I 

know it's the freeway 99, the oil industry. It's other 

things, also. But I think everybody needs to do their 

part to reduce the VOC emissions. And the part where I 

said first other areas are reducing by 20 percent, we're 

only reducing 12 percent emissions, I don't think that's 

fair either. 

So I just hope you read our letter carefully and 

take it into consideration. And thank you. 

HEARING OFFICER CLARY: That's everybody that is 

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signed up so far. 

Anybody else that would like to make a comment? 

MR. PALLA: I have just a question. 

HEARING OFFICER CLARY: Come up and give us your 

name, please. 

MR. PALLA: Daniel Palla. D-a-n-i-e-l. Palla is 

P-a-l-l-a. 

And my question is on the economic impact report 

that the EPA performed, can there be more numbers reduced 

on that? I mean, you guys say it's not significant. But 

yet, people are -- I believe the economic impact for the 

price difference I believe they said weren't significant. 

And is that correct? 

HEARING OFFICER CLARY: I don't know actually. 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAM MANAGER SEGAWA: Yeah. The 

rulemaking package includes several documents replied 

upon. And Cal/EPA's complete economic analysis is in 

there. And in large part, it relied on U.C.'s economic 

analysis, which also in there as well. 

MR. PALLA: Okay. In what way would this 

effect -- I understand it says some of the stuff in there. 

I didn't see that it addressed the issue of how much food 

is produced? Is there going to be less food produced 

because obviously the thresholds are changed. The price 

changes a little bit -- obviously, that does effect 

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everybody's bottom line in some way, shape, or form 

whether it's realized or not. 

And then also if that increased economic 

threshold on when I do spray or apply pesticides, that 

obviously decreases the amount of -- that increases the 

amount of pesticide I receive, therefore decreasing my 

yield, and therefore producing less food to feed the 

world. Is that true? Do you believe that to be true? 

MR. SEGAWA: If I understood your question 

correctly, if the economic analysis took into account 

production, frankly, I don't know. I didn't take a look 

at the economic analysis in detail myself, so I couldn't 

say. 

MR. PALLA: That's one of my concerns, as someone 

with morals that would like to feed people, clothe people, 

provide for our growing world, my main concern is that how 

is this going to affect our ability as farmers? With our 

main job of feeding people and clothing people, how is 

that going to effect that part of our job, which I don't 

think is addressed or appropriate. 

HEARING OFFICER CLARY: Thank you. Anybody else? 

This officially ends the comment period. If 

there are any changes sufficiently related to the proposed 

regulation, there will be an additional 15-day notice on 

the changes. 

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All comments relevant to the proposal will be 

responded to in writing in the Final Statement of Reasons. 

And that Final Statement of Reasons will be posted on the 

Department's website. 

I have it's 6:55. Comment period is closed and 

this hearing is adjourned. We're off the record. 

(Whereupon the Department of Pesticide Regulation 

public hearing adjourned at 6:55 p.m.)

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CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER

I, TIFFANY C. KRAFT, a Certified Shorthand 

Reporter of the State of California, and Registered 

Professional Reporter, do hereby certify:

That I am a disinterested person herein; that the 

foregoing hearing was reported in shorthand by me, 

Tiffany C. Kraft, a Certified Shorthand Reporter of the 

State of California, and thereafter transcribed into 

typewriting.

I further certify that I am not of counsel or 

attorney for any of the parties to said hearing nor in any 

way interested in the outcome of said hearing.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand 

this 8th day of June, 2012.

 

TIFFANY C. KRAFT, CSR, RPR

Certified Shorthand Reporter

License No. 12277 

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