Bill Text: HI SR117 | 2018 | Regular Session | Introduced

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Bill Title: Requesting The Department Of Agriculture And Department Of Health To Conduct A Joint Study Of The Short-term And Long-term Effects Of Chlorpyrifos On Farmworkers.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 12-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2018-04-04 - The committee on CPH deferred the measure. [SR117 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2018-SR117-Introduced.html

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THE SENATE	S.R. NO.	117
TWENTY-NINTH LEGISLATURE, 2018
STATE OF HAWAII

SENATE RESOLUTION

 

 

REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE and department of health to CONDUCT A joint STUDY OF THE SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF CHLORPYRIFOS ON FARMWORKERS.

 

 

 

     WHEREAS, in November 2016, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a revised human health risk assessment for chlorpyrifos, a chemical pesticide, that confirmed that there are no safe uses of chlorpyrifos; and

 

     WHEREAS, the EPA found that:

 

(1)  All food and drinking water exposures to chlorpyrifos exceed safe levels;

 

(2)  Chlorpyrifos pesticide drift reaches unsafe levels at three hundred feet from a treated field's edge;

 

(3)  Chlorpyrifos is found at unsafe levels in the air at schools, homes, and communities in agricultural areas;

 

(4)  All workers who mix and apply chlorpyrifos are exposed to unsafe levels of the pesticide even with maximum personal protective equipment and engineering controls in place;

 

(5)  Field workers are allowed to re-enter fields within one to five days after pesticide spraying, but unsafe exposures continue on average for eighteen days after applications; and

 

(6)  Chlorpyrifos is acutely toxic and associated with neurodevelopmental damage to children; and

 

     WHEREAS, children, farm workers, and residents in agricultural communities are uniquely vulnerable to chlorpyrifos; and

WHEREAS, on November 3, 2016, the EPA issued a groundbreaking report, "Chlorpyrifos Revised Human Health Risk Assessment," laying out the evidence that the pesticide can cause intelligence deficits and attention, memory, and motor problems in children; and

 

     WHEREAS, on December 15, 2017, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment added chlorpyrifos to the list of chemicals known to the State of California to cause reproductive and developmental toxicity, according to experts on California's Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee, commonly known as Proposition 65; and

 

WHEREAS, on December 15, 2018, all California businesses with ten or more employees will be required to provide a clear and reasonable warning before knowingly exposing anyone to chlorpyrifos above a certain level determined by California's Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986; and

 

     WHEREAS, according to the January 14, 2017, article by Sharon Lerner in The Intercept, "In 2014, the first and most comprehensive look at the environmental causes of autism and developmental delay, known as the CHARGE study, found that the nearby application of agricultural pesticides greatly increases the risk of autism. Women who lived less than a mile from fields where chlorpyrifos was sprayed during their second trimesters of pregnancy… had their chances of giving birth to an autistic child more than triple"; and

 

     WHEREAS, chlorpyrifos is among the pesticides which have shown to be potent teratogens which cause long lasting permanent brain injury to fetuses, making pregnant farmworkers particularly vulnerable to the effects of the pesticide; now, therefore,

 

     BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-ninth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2018, that the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health are requested to jointly conduct a study of the short-term and long-term effects of chlorpyrifos on farmworkers, with special and focused attention on the work environment and control of the environment for pregnant or possibly pregnant farmworkers, including consideration of:

 

(1)  Information provided directly to the Department of Agriculture from its consultants and experts in the development and implementation of any chlorpyrifos farmworker studies;

 

     (2)  The raw data used in the requested studies;

 

(3)  The availability of appropriate medical services for exposed workers;

 

(4)  The number of farmworkers who were known to be pregnant while employed as farmworkers and the record of the levels of exposure for the pregnant farm worker and any children;

 

(5)  Recommendations as to whether other state agencies should participate in this study and whether a new principal state department should be established with subject matter jurisdiction over environmental issues; and

 

(6)  Any other information relevant to the subject of the requested study; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health are requested to submit a report of the joint study, including findings, recommendations, and proposed legislation, no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the Regular Session of 2019; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the Governor, the Chairperson of the Board of Agriculture, and Director of Health.

 

 

 

OFFERED BY:

_____________________________

Report Title: 

Chlorpyrifos; Effects; Farm Workers