pesticides – Monterey Bay Matters

– Salinas schools, children, and homes getting high, repeated exposure to methomyl, banned in over 50 countries for toxicity

Comments by Karen Cameron, concerned Salinas citizen, on August 11 to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors.

Salad bowl of the world, yet we’ve had no air monitor from CDPR [California Department of Pesticide Regulation] since 2017, so we don’t know what we’re breathing in terms of pesticides. It was interesting to read through the environmental justice element of the Monterey County General Plan, where CalEnviroScreen data was shared from Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment on pesticides accumulation in some of the disadvantaged areas. 99% accumulation in Boronda, Las Lomas, Moss Landing, Castroville. The list goes on. In Pajaro, where we have our closest air monitoring, it’s listed at 79 to 100% accumulation. That’s very concerning to me. We seem to live in a time when we’ve normalized this behavior. I flash back to 1962 where Rachel Carson published Silent Spring with many of these same concerns. My colleagues from Safe Ag Safe Schools and Future Leaders of Change are right now in Sacramento marking 30 years for California for pesticide reform. Just wanted to share with you that on a local level, I have a big concern I shared with the city council this week in Salinas. I met with the Monterey County Ag Commissioner by phone for over 20 minutes, displaying a concern that I have from spray days notification data that I have collected for two schools in Salinas that are near fields. University Park Elementary, I’ve noted 57 methomyl applications since May 10th. McKinnon Elementary, over 50. And to tell you the truth, I think I’ve missed a couple because it’s so hard to keep up with this. That is a minimal number I could document. Now the Ag Commissioner in our conversation not only confirmed that methomyl, these applications are all methomyl, is banned in over 50 countries for its toxicity, yet he is signing off on every application. And he admitted to me that this trend is going on for the next month at least. We share concerns that school is in session. I share concerns that I’ve had seasonal health concerns that seem to calendar in concern with this. So I’m asking all of you to speak out to the Ag Commissioner and please research methomyl. Thank you.

Video

Ms. Cameron advocates for transitioning to organics and a one mile buffer zone around schools. She is a member of Safe Ag Safe Schools and Californians for Pesticide Reform.

Additional comments to Salinas City Council, August 18, 2026
https://fb.watch/J7iXsqNRr_/?mibextid=wwXIfr
(In her remarks, Ms. Cameron meant to say a one mile buffer zone is necessary)

– Eight former CSUMB students or spouses report cancer diagnoses near Fort Ord’s toxic industrial zone

From Military Poisons
August 11, 2026
by Pat Elder

New cancer cases at Promontory Housing spark investigation into nearby military contamination.

Blood Cancer Cases

An individual referred to as Caleb diagnosed with lymphoma.
An additional student with a lymphoma diagnosis.
A former student who passed away from multiple myeloma at age 57
A student who was diagnosed with leukemia while residing in the area.
A second report of leukemia involving the son of a community member

Breast Cancer Cases

A local resident and former student who passed away from breast cancer at age 37.
A student diagnosed with breast cancer.

Ovarian Cancer

A former student diagnosed with ovarian cancer alongside multiple medical complications.
See Julie Akey’s database of more than 2,000 people who suffer with disease or are deceased and lived on the former Fort Ord or on lands there were later developed.

The Promontory Apartment student housing complex at the California State University, Monterey Bay was built adjacent to severely contaminated land.

Within roughly a third of a mile of today’s apartments stood a dangerous concentration of Army facilities that handled herbicides, chlorinated solvents, medical waste, petroleum products, pesticides, and electrical equipment.

Two students who lived at Promontory have been diagnosed with lymphoma, leading us to search for potential causes nearby.

In August 2015, California State University, Monterey Bay opened the Promontory Apartments. The complex consists of three four-story apartment buildings containing approximately 174 apartment units and 579 student beds, later expanded to approximately 789 beds. It was the university’s first new student housing project in more than a decade and today houses hundreds of upper-division students immediately adjacent to the former industrial core of Fort Ord.

They put it in a horrible location. Students and their parents are unaware that they are just footsteps from the potentially dangerous toxic epicenter of former Fort Ord.

– Monterey County: General Plan Environmental Justice update, comments due July 31

From County of Monterey:

The public review period for the Draft Environmental Justice Element has been extended through Friday, July 31, 2026.

The Environmental Justice Element is required by state law as included in the County of Monterey General Plan to identify disadvantaged communities within the unincorporated County area. Environmental justice goals, policies, and objectives to reduce unique or compounded health risks are required to include reduction of pollution exposure, improvement of air quality, the promotion of public facilities, food access, safe and sanitary homes, physical activity, civil engagement in the public decision making process, and prioritize improvements and programs that address the needs of disadvantaged communities.

Draft Environmental Justice Element:
https://montereyclimateaction.konveio.com/county-monterey-draft-environmental-justice-element

–

[The county has also prepared community guides based on some feedback from specific areas]

Community guides are available in English and Spanish.

Please submit your comments to the department at the following address:
County of Monterey Housing and Community Development Department
Attn: Edgar Sanchez, Project Planner (English/Español)
1441 Schilling Place, South 2nd Floor Salinas, California 93901
Or Via Email to: GeneralPlanUpdates@countyofmonterey.gov
For questions, please contact Edgar Sanchez by phone at (831)783-7508 (English/Español)

Use the above email address to be added to the distribution list. In the subject line, write: Environmental Justice Element

https://www.countyofmonterey.gov/government/departments-a-h/housing-community-development/planning-services/advance-planning/ordinances-plans-under-development/general-plan-elements-update-environmental-justice-element-ref220017-lrpwp-task-no-21-10

– June 5: EPA deadline to comment on Google plan to release 64 million bacteria-infected mosquitoes in California and Florida

Comment deadline: Friday, June 5
EPA Docket No. EPA-HQ-OPP-2025-3951

Experimental use permit for Google to release 64 million bacteria-infected mosquitoes in California and Florida

The EPA opened public comments May 6 but provided no public notice in Monterey County newspapers, despite the potentially serious health and environmental impacts.

The public comment must be extended for minimum30-45 days, after notice has first been posted in area newspapers by the EPA, paid for by Google.

This experiment could:

— Create more resistant, stronger mosquitoes
— Disrupt a vital food source for bats, birds, and fish which could cause devastating effects
— Cause illness and death to wildlife which consumed these mosquitoes
— Cause severe disruption and harm to the entire ecosystem
— Cause damage to agriculture
— Cause illness or death in humans bit by these mosquitoes

The docket even fails to state the locations where these engineered insects will be released.

The state of California and the US government has conducted many experiments on nature and humans, claiming that these would have no damaging effect. Sometimes these experiments have been secret and only discovered years later.

The EPA has come under intense criticism for its suppression of information and acting against the public interest in East Palestine, the Fukushima disaster, and most recently, at the Moss Landing Battery Storage fires, where they used inappropriate sampling methods which diluted toxins, with the results that they found no significant exposure [see Moss Landing Monterey County Board of Supervisors hearing 3/17/26 under the Energy/Utilities tab]

https://downloads.regulations.gov/EPA-HQ-OPP-2020-0028-0010/content.pdf
EPA Registration Decision for the New Active Ingredient
Wolbachia pipientis wAlbB strain in male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes

In this docket, the EPA only allowed a 30 day comment period.

Background information on this initiative:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/google-64-million-mosquitoes-florida-california/5928523
Google to Release 64 Million Bacteria-Infected Mosquitoes into Florida and California, by Nicolas Hulscher

https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2025-3951-0001
Google LLC Experiment Docket Page

https://downloads.regulations.gov/EPA-HQ-OPP-2025-3951-0001/content.pdf
Federal Register Notice

– Monterey County fails to protect the public from cancer-causing pesticides and banned fumigants – recent expert comments

More than a fifth of organophosphate use by pounds in California is concentrated in Monterey County

On May 12, 2026, members of the public and the coalition Safe Ag Safe Schools provided detailed information to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors about very high toxic pesticide use by the ag industry in Monterey County, school and neighborhood exposures, contamination of farmworkers, children, and the communities including Salinas, the cancer risk, and inaction by county Agriculture Commissioner Juan Hidalgo. This follows Safe Ag Safe Schools’s April 30 letter to Hidalgo about the organophosphate and fumigant threats (excerpts below).

Video of the hearing:
https://monterey.granicus.com/player/clip/6128?view_id=21&redirect=true
Public comments begin at 1:00:35, comments on pesticides begin at 1:07:22 (transcript of comments by Beverly Bean is below)