California is phasing out use of a highly toxic herbicide almost two years after state lawmakers launched an investigation into its health risks and five months after a spill of the concentrated chemical closed a rural Siskiyou County town.
The California Department of Pesticide Regulation said that as of the first week of August, every pesticide manufacturing company that used paraquat in California had voluntarily canceled their state paraquat product registrations.
“For years, communities have fought to end the use of paraquat, a weedkiller associated with negative impacts to human health and wildlife,” said California Secretary for Environmental Protection Yana Garcia in the state’s announcement. “California will keep moving toward pest management practices that protect health and our ecosystems.”
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Members of the nonpartisan organization Environmental Working Group “applauded” the state’s move, said the nonprofit’s spokesperson Alex Formuzis in a statement. “The decision starts the phase-out of one of the most toxic weedkillers in use in California agriculture,” he said, and is “a major step toward protecting farmworkers, agricultural communities and the environment from a highly toxic herbicide linked to Parkinson’s disease, thyroid disease, childhood leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and birth defects.”
State: Last paraquat dealer canceled registration in August
In September 2024, state lawmakers passed legislation (AB 1963) that tasked the department of pesticide regulation to look into possible health and environmental risks from California’s already heavily regulated paraquat use.
Since then, the state required paraquat registration holders “to submit scientific data by June 5, 2026, to address newly identified gaps in (the pesticide regulation department’s) human health toxicology database, among other requirements,” the department said.
Instead of providing that data, those companies began voluntarily cancelling their California paraquat pesticide product registrations last April.
The last company canceled its registration on Aug. 6, the department said. However, “licensed dealers may continue to possess and sell pesticides that were voluntarily canceled for up to two years following the effective date of each product’s cancellation.”
The bill’s wording requires the pesticide regulation department to “complete a reevaluation of paraquat dichloride…and make the determination to retain, cancel, or suspend its registration or to place new appropriate restrictions” on its use” by Jan. 1, 2029.
Paraquat spill that shut down Dorris prompted outcry from environmentalists, health advocates
The state began reevaluating paraquat two years ago, but an incident last spring in the far Northern California town of Dorris —population roughly 800 — spurred outcry from health care and environmental lobbyists who wanted the herbicide out of California.
The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office and California Highway Patrol shut down Dorris on March 17 after a 140-gallon tank containing concentrated paraquat leaked roughly 50 gallons of the extremely toxic herbicide onto Highway 97 in town.
According to the California Office of Emergency Services’ report, Macy’s Flying Service was responsible for transporting the paraquat when the tank rolled off the truck bed and spilled the herbicide onto the pavement and shoulder of the road.
Residents spent the day under a shelter-in-place order, and the CHP closed a stretch of highway near the Oregon border while an emergency response team and Macy’s representatives cleaned up the spill, Director of Emergency Services Bryan Schenone told the Record Searchlight.
Highway 97 motorists driving near the spill were told to wash their cars immediately without touching the tires or any part of the car that might have come into contact with the paraquat.
No one became ill, county law enforcement said, but it was a close call that could have been much worse.
Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica on Record Searchlight Facebook groups Get Out! Nor Cal, Today in Shasta County and Shaping Redding’s Future. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: California phasing out this weedkiller after toxic spill in Dorris
Reporting by Jessica Skropanic, Redding Record Searchlight / Redding Record Searchlight
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By Jessica Skropanic, Redding Record Searchlight | USA TODAY Network
