Human cost of pesticides should be considered
The Pajaro Valley Unified School District from 2017-2023 had a total of 14,486,224 pounds of pesticides applied in its boundaries—more than any other school district on the California coast or Salinas Valley.
During the same 7-year period, PVUSD had 152,651 pounds of organophosphates applied here. By the 2024-25 school year, PVUSD 15.61% of students in PVUSD qualified for special education—higher than the county or state averages. There may be a correlation here.
In cost/benefit analyses of organophosphate use, benefits to farmers are emphasized, while the losses of human learning and earning potential are rarely factored in. A largely ignored study, “Trends in Neurodevelopmental Disability Burden due to Early Life Chemical Exposure in the USA from 2001 to 2016,” by Abigail Gaylord et al. (2-
15-2020), calculated the potential economic losses that accompany collective and cumulative IQ losses in our country over a 15-year span, due to OP exposures in children.
The study quantified cases of Intellectual Disability, defined as IQ less than 70, and estimated the lifetime economic cost of each IQ point loss as $22,268 in 2018 dollars. Each case of Intellectual Disability was valued at a loss of $1,272,470 of potential lifetime productivity.
Overall, this study found that 26.66 million IQ points were lost due to OP exposures 2001-2016, with an estimated cost of over $594 billion. This is roughly equivalent to the total value of US crop and livestock production in 2025—an eye-opening comparison.
Big Ag and Big Chem playbooks often promote conventional chemical farming as essential to putting cheap “quality” food on the table, but OP use and its negative impacts on children’s learning and earning potential is but one example of the hidden costs of pesticide use.
Big Ag and Big Chem have been using the same “doubt, delay, & denial” tactics that Big Oil successfully used for decades to counter research showing that global warming would result from burning fossil fuels. Someday these multinational corporations will be held accountable and liable for their negative impacts on children’s learning and economic potential. The horse is out of the barn, the chickens are coming home to roost, and soon it may be time to pay the piper.
Woody Rehanek
Watsonville
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New housing requires careful consideration
Affordable housing is important, but taxpayers deserve an honest discussion about who pays the bills. California’s Property Tax Welfare Exemption under Revenue and Taxation Code Section 214 allows qualifying nonprofit organizations that provide low-income rental housing to pay little or no property taxes.
The City of Santa Cruz is planning for 3,736 new housing units by 2031, including hundreds of affordable units. Every new development increases demand for police and fire protection, roads, water and sewer systems, parks, libraries, and other public infrastructure.
When tax-exempt housing contributes little or nothing in property taxes, those costs don’t disappear. They are shifted to homeowners and businesses through higher taxes, fees, special assessments, or reduced public services. Santa Cruz already struggles with aging infrastructure, deteriorating roads, and rising public safety costs.
Affordable housing should also be fiscally responsible. Before approving additional tax-exempt developments, city leaders should require a comprehensive fiscal impact analysis to determine how infrastructure and service costs will be funded. Growth should benefit the entire community—not leave existing taxpayers responsible for an ever-increasing share of the bill.
Mike Lelieur
Santa Cruz
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PVFT Is misleading, the public and their members
They are negotiating for smaller class sizes and no cap on benefits. They already have class size reduction due to decreased enrollment of more than 20%. How much more do they need?
No cap on benefits misses the point that benefits have risen over 120% in the past 14 years and will double in the next seven. 14 years ago, benefits were 20% of wages. In three years, they will be greater than 91%, crowding out wage increases in bankrupt in the district. This will lead the state to take over the district, negating all union contracts, and dismissing the superintendent and the school board. Is this what PVFT wants? I do not think so.
One way to do this is to negotiate the total compensation rather than wages and benefits. Separately choices could be given to teachers to take either higher wages and less benefits or the reverse let the teachers decide individually their choice.
Bill Beecher
Aptos
