(A backgrounder… – promoted by David Dayen)
As David Dayen noted on the frontpage, Hannah-Beth Jackson has a new ad on the air discussing her role in protecting schoolchildren from toxic pesticides; I live in downtown Ventura and have seen the aid on my TV several times already. It’s an excellent piece of political communication, showing her bipartisan credentials in a race where both candidates are desperately vying for the middle ground, and illustrating the contrast between her concern for everyday families and Tony Strickland’s evident lack thereof.
But the ad, good as it is, doesn’t tell the whole story. For a little background, let’s go way back in the time machine to the year 2000, when a group of children were blithely making their way onto school grounds for a day of classes at Mound Elementary School in Ventura, naively under the assumption that they could trust the air they breathe. Because surely there must have been a law preventing toxic chemicals from being spewed into the air right next to a school, right? Boy, were they wrong:
Ventura, CA – As children were arriving to Mound Elementary School early this morning, a commonly used insecticide was applied to adjacent fields. The chemical, Lorsban, drifted over the children and towards the school as they arrived for their classes. Chlorpyrifos, the chemical name for Lorsban, is known to affect the nervous system by inhibiting an enzyme that is important to the transmission of nerve impulses. The immediate affects of exposure include dizziness, headaches, nausea and other symptoms commonly associated with the common flu.
At this time, two children from Mound are confirmed as being sent home with symptoms of exposure to this pesticide. In addition, some members of the staff have complained of headaches throughout the day, while five students from Balboa Elementary (a neighboring school) were confirmed as being sent home with symptoms of exposure.
“It is alarming to think, and now witness firsthand, that toxic chemicals can be applied next to a school when children are present.” said Richard Kirby, principal of Mound Elementary. “This incident highlights the need for extraordinary precaution when using dangerous pesticides around schools.”
Members of Community and Children’s Advocates Against Pesticide Poisoning (CCAAPP) were alerted to this morning’s incident when a school official at Mound noticed the application taking place and saw the chemical wafting into the air. School officials immediately contacted CCAAPP, who in turn called the County Agricultural Commissioner.
“CCAAPP has been working in the community to prevent this type of incident from taking place,” said Lynda Uvari, member of CCAAPP and parent of a Mound student. “Unfortunately, these incidents continue to occur with no end in sight.”
No end in sight. One parent of a Mound Elementary student recalls the incident in a passionate anti-Strickland piece from two days ago:
IT WAS A TYPICAL frantic morning at my house. My daughter, always a sleepyhead, was running late once again. We grabbed her backpack and dashed out the door to our car for the ride to Mound Elementary School in Ventura where she was a fifth grader.
Pulling up to the school we found our car enveloped by a thick fog which I had assumed was weather related. My daughter got out in the middle of it and waved goodbye. I drove home, pulled in the garage and noticed something very odd about my vehicle: it was completely covered in a sticky film.
Hours later I had a sick child holding a note from her principal.
What I had mistaken for fog was actually a cloud of Lorsban, a powerful pesticide which had been banned by the EPA for use in homes because of its neurological effects on children. The citrus operation next to the school had used a speed sprayer during school hours and sent a cloud over the campus. Dozens of children and adults were sickened that day. Testing showed it was all over playground equipment, outdoor eating areas and inside classrooms.
To our horror we discovered there was little we could do to prevent it from happening again to our children or anyone else’s. We needed help.
The farmer spraying the noxious chemical had not technically run afoul of the law, since the neurotoxin was not at that time on the “restricted” list of pesticides. Thus, even lawsuits against the farmer in question (which were eventually successful) would have done and did do nothing to prevent further instances of toxic pesticides being sprayed next to schools during the time at which students would be in or near the school.
Something had to be done. Fortunately, the parents of Mound Elementary students had an advocate in then-Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, who immediately got to work on no-nonsense legislation correcting this unacceptable situation.
But it wasn’t that easy. Despite having a Democratic governor and a Democratic legislature, the bill took a full two years to be considered and voted on. At times, the bill seemed to be on life support, and was rescued from near death only by Hannah-Beth’s ability to marshal a broad coalition of support that wouldn’t let it go under:
“It was a team effort,” Jackson said of the two-year push to get her bill signed into law. “We all came together to do what was best for our children.”
Jackson announced the governor’s signature during a news conference at Mound Elementary School in east Ventura, where a pesticide drift occurred in the fall of 2000.
The incident prompted Jackson’s legislative effort, an endeavor she said appeared to be on life support at times, but was ultimately held together by a broad coalition of farming and environmental interests.
It took a heroic effort on Hannah-Beth’s part to make this no-brainer legislation a reality. Tony Strickland, meanwhile, voted against the bill. Yes, against the bill preventing toxic chemicals from being sprayed next to school grounds. Sure, we all know that Strickland is a fraud, describing himself as a strong environmentalist while receiving a zero percent lifetime rating from the California League of Conservation Voters and voting 119 times out of 121 against environmental regulations during his six years in the Assembly. We all know that Strickland is running a greenwashing campaign, posing as Vice-President of front company “Greenwave Solutions”, a company that apparently has no website despite being Strickland’s claim to environmentalist fame and justification for his preposterous ballot designation “Alternative Energy Executive“–despite not having put up even the basic front money his conservative friends did to create the facade:
Stricklands’s ballot designation is “Alternative Energy Executive”. Here’s what the Ventura County Star had to say about that: Strickland, “who has spent his entire adult life either working in the legislature or running for political office, has decided to present himself to voters this year wearing the mantle of a newfound vocation: ‘Alternative Energy Executive.'” To do so, he formed a new wave energy company with four political friends, but didn’t even put up the $5,000 the others had pledged to start the company”….
This putative Alternative Energy Executive voted against every alternative energy bill that came his way. He even voted against requirements for renewable energy generation (SB 1078-Byron Sher) that would have benefitted his own company.
But protecting schoolchildren from toxic chemicals isn’t an environmental issue. It’s a human issue. It’s an issue of basic decency. Hannah-Beth Jackson used her credibility as not just an environmental advocate, but a decent human being to bring together farming and environmental interests to get this legislation passed, in spite of the almost unfathomable reticence of the Sacramento establishment.
Tony Strickland has no decency. He voted against the bill apparently for no other reason than to oppose any and all laws that might constrain the “freedom” of certain farmers to poison children. This “Renewable Energy Executive” voted not just against an environmental law: he voted against a basic law-and-order regulation designed to prevent the poisoning of children at school.
But what else should we expect from the Grand Old Party of Child Molesters?