This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
Amid growing awareness that so-called forever chemicals, or PFAS, can linger in landscapes and waterways for centuries, federal and state regulators have repeatedly insisted they’re working aggressively to protect us all from the cancer-linked poisons.
They are not.
Even as regulators and lawmakers tout their baby steps to limit forever chemicals in U.S. drinking water, they’re allowing a dramatic increase in the use of pesticides containing the chemicals across millions of acres of industrial agriculture. That often ends up in waterways and drinking water supplies, including in California.
PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of synthetic chemicals used since the 1950s to make consumer products resistant to water, grease and heat. Studies have linked PFAS to cancer, reproductive harm, endocrine disruption and other health effects.
An alarming 14% of all conventional pesticide active ingredients are now PFAS, according to a peer-reviewed study I co-authored with scientists from the Environmental Working Group and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. And it’s getting worse: The dangerous substances make up 30% of pesticide active ingredients approved just in the last 10 years.
Nowhere is the exploding use of PFAS pesticides more unsettling than in California, which produces more than three-quarters of U.S.-consumed fruits and nuts and nearly half its vegetables. In March, the U.S. Geological Survey reported widespread water contamination with PFAS pesticides in the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys, where most California fruit and vegetables are grown.
PFAS chemicals were found in nearly 40% of samples of nonorganic fruits and vegetables tested by state regulators in 2023, according to a new report by the Environmental Working Group. That analysis found 17 different PFAS pesticides on more than half of 78 types of nonorganic fruits and vegetables, including nectarines, peaches, plums, strawberries, blueberries, celery and green beans.
The proliferation of forever chemicals in Californians’ food and the continued approval of PFAS pesticides by state regulators leaves no doubt California lawmakers must pass Assembly Bill 1603.
The measure would require that products disclose if they contain PFAS, and it would prohibit any new PFAS pesticide approvals. It also would phase out the use of PFAS pesticides over the next 10 years.
The bill faces a do-or-die vote in the full California Assembly by May 29.
What heightens the need for action is the fact that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald Trump and California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation are going in the wrong direction on PFAS pesticides.
Since Trump took office, the EPA has approved two PFAS pesticides and proposed approving three more.
And recently, California’s pesticide office again approved the PFAS insecticide sulfoxaflor, even though it has been repeatedly rejected by state and federal courts because of its high toxicity to pollinators, such as honeybees.
The pesticide industry claims that many new pesticides are not PFAS because they contain only one, instead of two, fully fluorinated carbons. But that claim, which has been embraced by the EPA, disregards the widely accepted scientific definition, that any chemical with a single fully-fluorinated carbon is a PFAS.
The grim reality is that 23-35 million pounds of pesticide ingredients used annually in the United States are PFAS. California has registered 53 PFAS pesticides. And about 2.5 million pounds of those poisons are applied annually to California cropland.
