It's Time To Stop the Spray

California Crop Fields Have Been Showered with Millions of Pounds of PFAS Pesticides, While EPA Keeps Approving New Ones.

Photo by Ricardo Resende on Unsplash

Every single year, California farmers dump 2.5 million pounds of PFAS-containing pesticides onto the very fields that grow the fruits and vegetables we eat, according to a new analysis and interactive map from the Environmental Working Group.

Let me tell you why this matters so much.

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) are a group of more than 15,000 human-made chemicals dubbed as “forever chemicals.”

We know these chemicals are dangerous. We know they cause cancer, reproductive harm, developmental problems in kids, high cholesterol, and weakened immune systems.

We know they never break down—not in a hundred years, not in a thousand years. They sit there in the soil, seep into the groundwater, and build up in our bodies. About 99 percent of Americans already have PFAS in their blood. Newborn babies are born with these chemicals already inside them.

Want to know what part of California is getting hit hardest? Fresno County. An agricultural heartland. The place that feeds not just California, but the entire nation.

Between 2018 and 2023, Fresno alone got doused with 2.1 million pounds of these toxic pesticides. Kern County took 1.6 million pounds. San Joaquin got nearly a million pounds. We’re talking about the San Joaquin Valley—one of the most productive agricultural regions on Earth—being turned into a toxic waste dump.

“Every pound of forever chemicals used on farmland presents a risk of contamination of our food, our water and soil,” Jared Hayes, EWG senior policy analyst and co-author of the report said in a statement. “It doesn’t make sense when plenty of non-PFAS pesticides are readily available.”

That’s right. Non-PFAS pesticides exist, and they work just fine. So why are we still poisoning our land and our people with these toxic chemicals?

In the new report, EWG reviewed 66 PFAS registered as active pesticide ingredients permitted in the U.S. for use to kill fungi, insects, or weeds. EWG found that 52 of those PFAS were used in 58 California counties from 2018 to 2023.

PFAS can also be found in pesticides as inert, or inactive, ingredients, which means they don’t address pests directly but can enhance how well a pesticide works. Manufacturers aren’t required to disclose individual inert PFAS in their products, so it’s hard to know the extent to which they play a role in the effects of pesticides that are sprayed.

The EPA’s Dangerous Double-Talk

Now, the EPA wants you to believe everything’s just fine. In a November 2025 press release, they rolled out their standard playbook of bureaucratic spin and technical jargon designed to confuse you into compliance. They claim these single fluorinated compounds aren’t “real” PFAS because they only have one fluorinated carbon instead of two. They say there are “no human health risks of concern when used according to label.”

Let me translate that for you: The EPA is playing word games with chemistry definitions while California farmers spray millions of pounds of fluorinated chemicals onto our food supply.

They’re hiding behind the phrase “when used according to label” as if agricultural workers always follow every precaution perfectly, as if chemicals never drift, and as if nothing ever goes wrong.

The EPA brags that these pesticides are “safer than alternatives,” and that they’ve been approved by administrations on both sides of the aisle. You know what? That’s not the reassurance they think it is. It just states the obvious. Both parties have been looking the other way while chemical companies profit from poisoning us.

And then, they have the audacity to say that if you’re still concerned, you can just buy organic. As if every family in Fresno, where the median household income is barely above $50,000, can afford to shop at Whole Foods. As if the farmworkers getting directly exposed to these chemicals have that luxury.

EPA’s Reckless Rush to Approve More PFAS

But wait—it gets worse. While the EPA was busy writing reassuring press releases, the current administration was quietly fast-tracking approval for even more PFAS pesticides. In 2025 alone, they approved five new ones, which includes isocycloseram, a forever chemical approved for use on golf courses, lawns, and food crops including oranges, tomatoes, almonds, peas, and oats.

Let that sink in. They approved a chemical that breaks down into 40 smaller PFAS compounds, some even more persistent than the original. It’s a compound that causes reduced testicle size, lower sperm counts, and liver toxicity in studies.

And here’s the truly criminal part—the EPA found that children could be at risk from dietary exposure but chose not to implement the child-safety buffer that’s standard for other pesticides.

They knew the risks, and they approved it anyway.

“For all of the rhetoric about caring about children’s health and well-being, this administration is quick to throw them under the bus whenever it suits their polluting benefactors,” said Nathan Donley from the Center for Biological Diversity in a statement.

A 2024 report from researchers at the Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Working Group, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility found that forever chemicals are increasingly being added to U.S. pesticide products, contaminating waterways and posing potential threats to human health.

Maine is the first U.S. state to ban intentionally added PFAS in pesticides, but that ban doesn’t take effect until 2030. That’s five more years of exposure with contamination building up. And California, despite being the biggest user of these toxic pesticides, hasn’t moved to regulate them at all.

Killing the Bees That Feed Us

It’s not just our kids who are at risk. Isocycloseram is devastatingly toxic to bees and pollinators, according to the EPA’s own assessment. They found that bees collecting nectar and pollen near treated fields could be exposed to 1,500 times the lethal dose of this pesticide.

And that really matters because one out of every three bites of food you eat comes from plants pollinated by bees. Almost all the nutrient-dense foods we need—fruits, vegetables, nuts—require pollinators. We’re approving chemicals that could wipe them out while contaminating the very crops they help produce. It’s insanity.

Who’s Really Running the EPA?

Want to know why this is happening? Look at who’s running the pesticide office under Trump: Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva, both former lobbyists for the American Chemistry Council, and Kyle Kunkler, formerly with the pro-pesticide American Soybean Association. The foxes aren’t just guarding the henhouse; they’re running it.

These people decide whether forever chemicals are safe for your children to eat. These are the people creating new webpages to assure you of their “robust review procedures” while fast-tracking approvals for chemicals that persist forever, harm reproduction, damage livers, and kill the pollinators we depend on for food.

The EPA even published a “Make America Healthy Again” strategy report that, after pressure from the pesticide industry, shifted from highlighting pesticide harms to convincing the public of how thorough their approval process is. It’s not about protecting health. It’s about protecting industry profits and providing cover for dangerous decisions.

You can read more about the EPA’s revolving door here.

What We Can Do Right Now

The scientists and advocates are telling consumers not to stop eating fruits and vegetables, as the health benefits still outweigh the risks. But that shouldn’t be the standard we accept. We shouldn’t have to choose between nutrition and poison.

Here’s what you can do:

Wash your produce thoroughly. Not a light rinse—really scrub it. Check out this Guide to Washing Produce for tips.

Buy organic when you can. PFAS pesticides can’t legally be used on organic crops.

Filter your water. Not all filters remove PFAS, so do your research.

Demand action. Call your representatives. Make noise. Tell California lawmakers that the people of Fresno and the Central Valley deserve better than being America’s toxic dumping ground.

Time to Stop Playing Games

The EPA can issue all the press releases they want, full of technical language and reassurances. Chemical companies can keep selling their products. But the facts don’t lie. These chemicals cause cancer and harm children’s development. They never go away. Safer alternatives are available, and we need to use them.

This issue isn’t complicated. It’s about whether we prioritize corporate profits over human health. Do we have the political will to protect the families who grow our food or sacrifice them for convenience and cheap produce?

The people of California, especially those in Fresno, Kern, San Joaquin, and across the Central Valley, deserve clean water, safe soil, and a future that isn’t poisoned by chemicals that will outlast their grandchildren’s grandchildren.

It’s time to stop the spray. We can demand better and fight like our lives depend on it—because they do.

---

Keep the conversation going in the comments below. What steps are you taking to avoid pesticide and PFAS exposure?