Final Victory in CEQA Lawsuit Challenging Statewide Pest Management
In a significant victory for environmental health, the California Superior Court found that a broad pesticide spraying program was unlawful in May 2022, because it failed to adequately study and minimize public health threats from pesticides and inform the public.
The ruling is the result of a lawsuit brought by the City of Berkeley and 11 organizations, including EAC. As with much of our advocacy work, we don’t win overnight, but we do win! The appeals court sent the case back to the Superior Court to issue a consistent final decision.
The Court threw out a programmatic report that allowed California’s Department of Food and Agriculture (Department) to spray pesticides wherever and whenever it wanted. The Department was required to study and disclose the risks of more than 75 pesticides it proposed using indefinitely across California, but it didn’t conduct any analysis of the required impacts in specific locations.
The Department’s statewide pest management program used pesticides — on private residential property, public property, and agricultural and wild lands — known to cause cancer and birth defects and be highly toxic to bees, butterflies, fish, and birds. Now, people and species will be better protected.
We thank our supporters Tom and Barbara Gaman, Scoby Zook and Kris Brown, Chuck and Alice Eckart, and Russell and Margaret Ridge who made generous contributions to EAC in 2015 supporting our legal action to make this legal victory possible!
“The state can’t just give itself a blank check to spray people’s yards, exposing children and pets to a range of pesticides that can cause serious long-term problems for children, including cancer, asthma and IQ loss”
“...the court has concluded that the Department’s certification of the PEIR was fundamentally flawed and must be set aside...” ”
“The introduction of toxic pesticides into the environment threatens aquatic and terrestrial wildlife, human health, our local economy, and organic farms and gardens. We are ecstatic about the recent victory!”
background
In 2015, EAC along with several other environmental groups filed a lawsuit under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) against the Department, challenging the programmatic environmental impact report (PEIR) for pest management. The lawsuit was filed because of issues with the PEIR around lack of notice and public input, and the broad authority given to the Department to spray 79 pesticides (many of which are known to be carcinogenic and toxic). The public has a right to know. The PEIR failed to evaluate numerous health and environmental risks including cumulative impacts.
In October 2021, a long-fought victory was achieved in a pesticides related lawsuit that EAC was a plaintiff in along with the City of Berkeley and 10 other public-health, conservation and food-safety organizations.
“The court affirmed Californians have the right to know when dangerous pesticides are sprayed in their communities and what the risks are to people and to pollinators crucial to our food supply,” said Jonathan Evans, environmental health legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The ruling points to numerous instances where the department evaded its responsibility to analyze and disclose the health and environmental harms of the more than 75 pesticides that the agency proposed to use statewide into the indefinite future. The court decision highlighted that the proposal was made largely without public notice and without evaluating local impacts or allowing opportunity for affected communities to opt out.
Following a hearing in December of 2017, the court rejected California's blanket pesticide spraying approval in January 2018, ruling on behalf of EAC and the other petitioners. The ruling put a stop to the program until the state develops a program that provides adequate notice and protection for the public.
The suit was first filed in Sacramento County Superior Court in January 2015. In May of 2015, a preliminary injunction was filed to try to force the Department to comply with CEQA and publicly disclose and analyze any pesticide spraying it conducts that poses risks to people, the environment, etc. Briefing took place, and petitioners (EAC and other environmental groups) filed a reply brief in October of 2017. In sum, our reply brief asserted 5 main points, the majority of which the Court agreed with:
1) The PEIR’s tiering strategy failed to comply with CEQA and omitted site specific evaluation criteria;
2) the PEIR’s baseline was ambiguous and misleading;
3) The Department failed to notify and consult with other government agencies;
4) the PEIR failed to analyze the program’s biological, water quality, human health, and cumulative impacts; and
5) the PEIR improperly deferred and concealed mitigation.
EAC Role
EAC became involved in this lawsuit due to concerns about negative pesticide impacts on the land, waters, and biodiversity of West Marin and California. The introduction of toxic pesticides into the environment threatens aquatic and terrestrial wildlife, human health, our local economy, and organic farms and gardens.
EAC was one of many petitioners/plaintiffs and was represented by Sheppard, Mullin, Richter, & Hampton LLP in this matter. We thank our donors, legal representation, and co-petitioners for making this win possible!
UPDATES:
February 2018 - The court set aside the Departments's PEIR, prohibiting chemical activities by the Department under the PEIR unless and until the agency prepares an environmental analysis that complies with CEQA, or unless they have some other CEQA approval outside of the PEIR. Review the court's final ruling and injunction.
May 2018 - The latest development in our case challenging the Department’s statewide pest management program is a petition that the Department filed with the appeals court seeking to lift the lower court's injunction on chemical management activities under the PEIR. Review the Department/CDFA's filing and our response in opposition.
October 2021 - a long-fought victory was finally achieved in a pesticides related lawsuit that EAC was a plaintiff in along with the City of Berkeley and 10 other public-health, conservation and food-safety organizations. The ruling points to numerous instances where the department evaded its responsibility to analyze and disclose the health and environmental harms of the more than 75 pesticides that the agency proposed to use statewide into the indefinite future.
The court decision highlighted that the proposal was made largely without public notice and without evaluating local impacts or allowing opportunity for affected communities to opt out. the Sacramento Appeals Court criticized the California Department of Food and Agriculture for failing to assess and reduce the damage that pesticide spraying does to bees, other pollinators and waterbodies; for evading its responsibility to inform the public when the department decides to apply pesticides; and for failing to consider the risks of its spray program in different areas of California’s widely varying geography.
The court said that the California agency under-represented the harms of its pesticide program by hiding the full effects on water quality. The agency also understated both the amounts of pesticides used in the state, including other pesticide programs, and the cumulative danger of adding to the more than 150 million pounds of pesticides already being used in California each year.
Court Documents:
April - May 2018 - CDFA (Department)'s Appeal, Environmental Working Group (Respondents/Petitioners') Response
Press:
2022 SF Chronicle: Judge orders a stop to California pesticide spraying program
2018 Point Reyes Light: EAC and others win in suit against state over programmatic pest plan, LA Times, KQED
Other Resources/References:
“The state’s spraying of toxic chemicals in our neighborhoods, over our waterways, and on our organic farms without opportunity for affected communities to have a voice in or stop state pesticide treatments is an egregious violation of environmental protection laws....””
