Grass-roots public health groups have opened a new front in their five-year battle against California over rules to curb smog caused by the use of fumigants on farmland.

In a lawsuit filed last week in Sacramento County Superior Court, groups from the Ventura and San Joaquin Air Basins charged that in adopting new regulations last month, the state failed to analyze reasonable alternatives or to minimize the impact of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from treating strawberries and other crops.

“Pesticides rank among the largest contributors to California’s notoriously smoggy air,” said Brent Newell, legal director of the San Francisco-based Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment. The center, which is funded by the American Bar Assn., the California Endowment and various foundations, brought the suit on behalf of the Ventura-based Community and Children’s Advocates Against Pesticide Use and three Central Valley groups, El Comite Para el Bienestar de Earlimart, Committee for a Better Arvin and the Assn. of Irritated Residents.

The state Department of Pesticide Regulation’s new rules “will reduce smog-causing VOC emissions from pesticides by only 12% from 1990 levels in the San Joaquin Valley, instead of the 20% regulators promised in a June 13, 1996, commitment” approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the center charged. 

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