BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 1117
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 17, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY AND TOXIC MATERIALS
Luis Alejo, Chair
SB 1117 (Monning) - As Amended: June 4, 2014
SENATE VOTE : 33-0
SUBJECT : Pesticide Contamination Prevention Act.
SUMMARY : Requires the Department of Pesticide Regulation
(DPR), in consultation with a specified subcommittee, to develop
peer-reviewed methods for determining how pesticides are
included on the Groundwater Protection List (List), among other
reforms. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires DPR to determine, to the extent possible, the
toxicological significance of the pesticides listed on the
List.
2)Requires the director of DPR (director) to regulate each
active ingredient, other specific ingredient, or degradation
product of a pesticide on the List that has the potential to
pollute groundwater.
3)Requires the director, in consultation with a specified
subcommittee, to create a peer reviewed method to determine
the potential of a pesticide to pollute groundwater using
specific numerical values.
4)States that the director may revise the peer review method,
subject to peer review.
5)States that the peer review shall be conducted using an
existing peer review process.
6)Deletes the duplicative requirement that dealers of pesticides
shall make quarterly reports to the director of all sales of
pesticides on the List.
7)Requires DPR to monitor for each active ingredient, other
specified ingredient, or degradation product of a pesticide on
the List.
8)Requires DPR to continuously review new science and data that
SB 1117
Page 2
could impact the validity of a finding that a pesticide has
not polluted and does not threaten to pollute the state's
groundwater.
9)Requires the director to either mitigate the threat presented
by pollution or subject the pesticide to further review if the
department determines that there is no new science or data
that could impact the validity of a finding.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes the Pesticide Contamination Prevention Act (Act)
to prevent pesticide pollution of the groundwater aquifers of
this state that may be used for drinking water supplies (Food
and Agricultural Code § 13141 et seq.).
2)Requires a person who has registered a pesticide in California
for agricultural uses to submit information for each active
ingredient in each pesticide registered to the director (Food
and Agricultural Code § 13143).
3)Defines "degradation product" as a substance resulting from
the transformation of a pesticide by physiological or
biochemical means.
4)Defines "pollution" as the introduction into the groundwaters
of the state of an active ingredient, other specified product,
or degradation product of an active ingredient of a pesticide
above a level, with an adequate margin of safety, that does
not cause adverse health effects.
5)Requires DPR to establish specific numerical values for water
solubility, soil adsorbtion, soil metabolism, and field
dissipation, and requires the department to revise those
values as needed to protect groundwater (Food and Agricultural
Code § 13144).
6)Requires the director to post information on DPR's website for
each pesticide registered for agricultural use (Food and
Agricultural Code § 13144).
7)Establishes a subcommittee of the director's pesticide
registration and evaluation committee, consisting of one
member each representing the director, the State Department of
Health Services, and the State Water Resources Control Board,
SB 1117
Page 3
to hold hearings to review information submitted by pesticide
registrants to make findings (Food and Agricultural Code §
13150).
8)Describes the process for which the California Environmental
Protection Agency shall conduct an external scientific peer
review for any rule proposed for adoption by any board,
department, or office within the agency (Health and Safety
Code § 57004).
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown.
COMMENTS :
Need for the bill : According to the author, SB 1117 allows the
California DPR to better ensure that harmful pesticides stay out
of California's groundwater by enabling DPR to update the
statistical method used to identify potential groundwater
pollutants and to mitigate or cancel the use of a pesticide if
its breakdown product is found to pollute groundwater.
According to the DPR, "The Pesticide Contamination Prevention
Act, passed in 1984, is the cornerstone of California's
pesticide groundwater protection program, requiring DPR to
collect and analyze data on all pesticides registered for
agricultural use in California and to identify and monitor
potential groundwater contaminants. The law also calls on DPR to
cancel or mitigate the use of a pesticide once it is found to
pollute groundwater as the result of legal agricultural use.
However, when the law was passed 30 years ago, it specified the
scientific method DPR must use to determine which pesticides may
move to groundwater. Since that time, new methods have been
developed that can better predict a pesticide's mobility. Also,
at the time of passage of the Act, the technology did not exist
to detect a pesticide's breakdown, or degradation, product.
Therefore, under the Act, DPR does not have authority to
mitigate or cancel a pesticide if only its breakdown product,
and not the pesticide itself, is found to pollute.
SB 1117 addresses these two issues by allowing DPR to develop a
peer-reviewed method that reflects the best available science to
determine which pesticides have the potential to move to
groundwater, thus allowing DPR to better focus time and
resources on monitoring for those pesticides which actually pose
SB 1117
Page 4
the greatest risk. Also, the bill requires DPR to review and
potentially cancel or modify the use of a pesticide if that
pesticide's breakdown products are found in groundwater."
Pesticide Contamination Prevention Act : DPR began addressing
pesticide contamination of ground water in the early 1980's
after the discovery of contamination from the legal application
of the fumigant dibromochloropropane (DBCP). Reports of
additional pesticides in ground water resulted in the passage of
the Act in 1985 (AB 2021, [Connelly], Chapter 1298, Statutes of
1985).
The Act requires DPR to maintain a list of pesticides that have
the potential to pollute groundwater called the Ground Water
Protection List. The Act established a set of data requirements
for identifying and tracking potential and actual ground water
contaminants. As required by the Act, registrants of
agricultural use must provide DPR with chemistry and other
environmental data for the active ingredients in their pesticide
products. DPR establishes threshold values, or special numeric
values, in regulation to distinguish leaching pesticides from
non-leaching pesticides. These values were established for water
solubility, soil adsorption, hydrolysis half-life, aerobic soil
metabolism half-life, and anaerobic soil metabolism half-life.
DPR's special numeric values are equal to or more stringent than
the values used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Pesticides that exceed the special numeric values and have
specified labeled uses will be placed on the Ground Water
Protection List (3CCR Section 6800[b]). DPR is required to
sample for pesticides on this list to determine if they are
present in ground water due to their legal agricultural uses.
DPR's Ground Water Protection List is divided into two sublists.
Sublist (a) includes seven agricultural herbicides - atrazine,
bentazon, bromacil, diuron, norflurazon, prometon, and simazine
- that are regulated as ground water contaminants. Sublist (b)
includes 101 pesticides that have not yet been detected in
ground water but have the potential to become contaminants based
on their mobility, persistence, and legal uses.
Importance of protecting California's groundwater : According to
the Department of Water Resources, California's groundwater
provides approximately 30 to 46 percent of the State's total
water supply, depending on wet or dry years. Some communities
in California are 100 percent reliant upon groundwater for urban
SB 1117
Page 5
and agricultural use. Since 1990, DPR's Environmental
Monitoring Branch has sampled more than 1,700 unique wells for
91 pesticides and pesticide breakdown products as part of
Groundwater Protection List monitoring.
Need for updating the Act : SB 1117 would provide DPR
flexibility to revise the methodology to determine which
pesticides to put on the List to account for scientific
advances, layered with a peer review requirement. Modern
statistical methods, such as multivariate analysis, will produce
a more accurate prediction of a pesticide's potential to move to
groundwater. DPR is concerned that if a legislative change is
not made, some pesticides will remain on the List that are
unlikely to pollute groundwater, decreasing DPR's ability to
focus resources on pesticides of greater concern.
In addition, problems associated with degradation products were
not fully realized or understood in the mid-1980's when the Act
was passed, and have become more evident with new pesticides
whose chemistry is very different than the pesticides that were
predominant in the 1980s. At the time the Act was written, it
was technically impossible to detect the difference between a
parent product and a degradation product. Therefore, current
statute only allows a pesticide to be put on the List if the
pesticide is detected, not if its degradation product is
detected. Advances in technologies, such as mass spectrometer
technology, now allow scientists to "see" degradation products
where before they could not distinguish between a parent and a
breakdown product. These technologies are available and have
been used for some time.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support :
California Department of Pesticide Regulation (sponsor)
American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, District
IX
California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
Californians for Pesticide Reform
Clean Water Action
Community Water Center
Pesticide Action Network
Sierra Club California
SB 1117
Page 6
Opposition :
None received.
Analysis Prepared by : Paige Brokaw / E.S. & T.M. / (916)
319-3965