communities

A highly toxic pesticide that was banned in California more than two decades ago is still widely used across the state, potentially endangering communities near farm fields and bustling shipyards, according to a new study.

For much of the 20th century, methyl bromide, an odorless and colorless fumigant, had been touted as a miracle product for its effectiveness in killing pests, both on farms and in the shipping containers that conveyed produce across the world. But research later determined that the neurotoxic gas also can cause serious health issues in humans and contributed to the depletion of the ozone, ultimately leading to its ban under the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty, in 2005.

However, researchers from UCLA and UC Irvine recently found that methyl bromide remains in use in 36 of 58 California counties, according to data collected by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation over the last decade. From 2016 to 2023, more than 12 million pounds of the pesticide were applied in these counties, according to those data. And more than 200 fumigation facilities had active permits to emit methyl bromide statewide during that eight-year span.

How is this possible?

Well, the international ban, it turns out, included broad exemptions.

The counties with the highest methyl bromide use — Siskiyou and San Joaquin — were made up of mostly rural communities that were using it for exempted agricultural purposes, such as soil fumigation for specialty crops without feasible alternatives or in greenhouse nurseries.

Los Angeles County ranked fifth, with 725,000 pounds of methyl bromide used. That was mostly due to it’s ongoing use to sterilize container cargo moving through the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles — another exemption to the Montreal Protocol.

As a consequence, communities near the ports — which already bear the brunt of diesel and air pollution — have been exposed to another toxic pollutant.

Because the pesticide’s use is exempted, the risks are unaccounted for in CalEnviroScreen, the tool the state uses to evaluate a community’s exposure to several types of pollution.

“These communities, like West Long Beach and Wilmington, they were already then designated as a disadvantaged community by the state of California,” said Yoshira Ornelas Van Horne, the study’s co-author and an assistant professor of environmental science at UCLA. “So I think this just underscores that there’s potentially even more environmental burdens that weren’t even being accounted for, unfortunately.”

From January 2023 to April 2024, an air monitoring station just north of Long Beach’s Hudson Elementary School, which is downwind of two fumigation sites that handle the imported goods, found that the average levels of methyl bromide were 2.1 parts per billion — twice as high as the state’s threshold exposure for long-term health risks. In early 2024, hourly concentrations surpassed 960 parts per billion, just shy of the state’s short-term exposure benchmark.

Since then, the Los Angeles County agricultural commissioner has been collaborating with the fumigation facilities on ideas to reduce risk from the pesticide, including installing higher smoke stacks to disperse emissions and prohibiting fumigation during school hours.

And on Jan. 29, the South Coast Air Quality Management District will convene a public meeting to discuss how methyl bromide and other fumigants might be regulated in the future.

Theral Golden, a longtime resident of West Long Beach, said he plans to attend the meeting and will call for an outright ban of methyl bromide unless fumigation facilities can demonstrate that they can contain the harmful emissions.

“The building should be airtight,” Golden said. “It should not escape into the atmosphere at all. It may cost a lot of money. But that’s the cost of doing business. It’s costing us our lives.”

More recent air news

A deal to shut down Washington state’s last coal plant has been thrown into turmoil after the Trump administration ordered it to stay open for 90 additional days, according to New York Times climate reporter Claire Brown. The move is part of a broader effort by the Department of Energy to keep multiple aging coal plants operating nationwide.

A surprisingly small group of companies is driving most of the world’s carbon emissions, climate journalist Dana Drugmand writes in Inside Climate News. A new analysis finds that just 32 oil, gas, coal and cement producers were responsible for more than half of global fossil CO₂ emissions in 2024, with many of them actually increasing output while lobbying against climate action.

Air pollution isn’t just bad for our health, it’s bad for the economy. Shoppers Stop, a popular department store in India, pointed to poor air quality as a factor behind flat sales and falling earnings in late 2025, according to Lou Del Bello, Bloomberg’s energy and commodities editor.

A few last things in climate news

One year after the deadly Eaton fire, survivors are pushing back against California laws that shield electric utilities from paying the full cost of wildfires sparked by their equipment, Los Angeles Times investigative reporter Melody Petersen writes.

The world is dangerously overdrafting its freshwater, Los Angeles Times environmental reporter Ian James writes, as U.N. scientists warn that humanity has entered an era of “global water bankruptcy.” The report finds that rivers are running dry, lakes and wetlands are disappearing and groundwater is being pumped faster than it can be replenished — putting billions of people and much of global food production at risk.

Back in my home state, Detroit’s auto show is looking a lot less electric these days, Associated Press climate reporter Alexa St. John writes. The shift follows President Trump’s rollback of electric-vehicle incentives and fuel economy rules, moves that have already cost U.S. automakers billions, slowed EV sales growth, and, industry experts warn, could leave them falling behind as China and Europe race ahead on EVs.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

For more air quality news, follow Tony Briscoe on X and Linkedin.