Requirements for pharmacy technicians vary by state, but most require certification, registration or licensure. Earning your certification from the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB) provides a valuable, industry-recognized credential that meets most states’ requirements.

Three Additional Fellows Maintained Certification

MOORESTOWN, N.J., Feb. 1, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Knowles Teacher Initiative today announced that four of its Fellows achieved National Board Certification, the highest certification available for K–12 educators, in the 2021–2022 cycle.

National Board Certification was designed to develop, retain and recognize accomplished teachers and to generate ongoing improvement in schools nationwide. Using the National Board Standards and the Five Core Propositions as a foundation, National Board Certification identifies teachers who meet those standards through completion of a performance-based, peer-reviewed series of assessment components. Specifically, candidates are required to complete four components. They must demonstrate content knowledge on a computer-based assessment. Additionally, they must submit classroom-based portfolios containing evidence of differentiation in instruction, their teaching practice and learning environment, and their ability to act as an effective and reflective practitioner.

The following Knowles Fellows achieved National Board Certification:

Additionally, three Knowles Fellows maintained their certification:

Jeff Rozelle, Knowles President and CEO, stated, "Achieving National Board Certification is no small feat. I'm thrilled to extend congratulations to all of the teachers who met the high standards established by NBPTS to achieve or maintain certification. Their commitment to student learning and the teaching profession is truly commendable."

The Knowles Teaching Fellows Program is a five-year program that provides early-career, high school mathematics and science teachers with access to invaluable resources that help them transform into great teachers who make a difference in the lives of students in their classroom, their school and beyond. After completing the five-year program, Teaching Fellows become Senior Fellows who are able to participate in Knowles leadership opportunities throughout the duration of their career. As part of the wide array of benefits available to Fellows, Knowles awards grant funds to pay for expenses related to National Board Certification.

Story continues

Nationally, more than 130,000 teachers have achieved National Board Certification, including 52 Knowles Fellows.

About the Knowles Teacher Initiative

The Knowles Teacher Initiative, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit formerly known as the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation (KSTF), was established by Janet H. and C. Harry Knowles in 1999 to increase the number of high-quality high school science and mathematics teachers in the United States. Through the Teaching Fellows Program, Senior Fellows Program and the Knowles Academy, the Knowles Teacher Initiative seeks to support a national network of mathematics and science teachers who are collaborative, innovative leaders improving education for all students in the United States. For more information, visit www.knowlesteachers.org.

Media Contact
Ebony Freeman                                                                                                                    
Knowles Teacher Initiative                                  
856.608.3237                                                                                                                  
352952@email4pr.com          

View original content to obtain multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/four-knowles-fellows-achieve-national-board-certification-301734728.html

SOURCE Knowles Teacher Initiative

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB) is kicking off 2023 with new opportunities for Certified Pharmacy Technicians (CPhTs) to demonstrate their knowledge and earn advanced and specialty certificates. PTCB is relaunching OnVUE, an online proctored testing platform, allowing PTCB CPhTs to earn advanced credentials more conveniently.

PTCB is relaunching OnVUE, allowing PTCB CPhTs to earn advanced credentials more conveniently.

"Following an evaluation period of our initial launch in 2020, we are excited to move forward with this expanded testing option for our certificants," said Khunteang Pa, Senior Director of Certification Operations. "Relaunching online proctored delivery of PTCB's Assessment-Based Certificate Exams empowers pharmacy technicians to pursue career advancement with more flexibility."

Administered on a secure platform using artificial intelligence combined with live virtual proctor supervision and monitoring, online exams are the same as those administered at a test center. To take their test online, candidates need a computer with a webcam, a reliable internet connection, and a quiet space where they can spend a few uninterrupted hours. In-person testing is still available at Pearson VUE testing centers for all PTCB exams.

PTCB offers a growing suite of advanced and specialty credentials for pharmacy technicians to invest in their careers as their responsibilities expand. With almost 60 percent of PTCB-certified technicians considering the profession their long-term career, technicians must have the opportunity to grow and demonstrate their knowledge and skills. Certified pharmacy technicians reported higher wages than non-certified technicians, according to the 2022 PTCB Workforce Survey, which received responses from over 20,000 technicians.

PTCB currently offers ten Assessment-Based Certificate Programs–such as Regulatory Compliance, Point-of-Care Testing, and Supply Chain and Inventory Management–that open doors for technicians to demonstrate their knowledge, receive recognition, and grow in their careers. For a complete list and more information, please visit ptcb.org/credentials/.

Story continues

About PTCB

The Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB) is the nation's first, most trusted, and only nonprofit pharmacy technician credentialing organization. Founded on the guiding principle that pharmacy technicians play a critical role in advancing medication and patient safety, PTCB has established the universal standard of excellence for those supporting patient care teams by offering the industry's most-recognized credentials, including the PTCB certification for Certified Pharmacy Technicians (CPhT).

View original content to obtain multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pharmacy-technician-certification-board-relaunches-online-testing-delivery-for-certified-pharmacy-technicians-301730477.html

SOURCE Pharmacy Technician Certification Board (PTCB)

By Todd Shea
2023 President
Santa Barbara Association of Realtors

Congratulations! I could not be happier by these rock stars that surround me for 2023 as our Board of Directors. Members of the Board of Directors are volunteers from the Association and are elected to two-year terms, with Officers elected yearly. Every year, a call for candidates goes out to all Association members. A Nominating Committee is appointed by the President (with Board approval) to review the candidates, conduct interviews, and submit their recommendations to the Board. The SBAOR staff supports our board of directors and committees. More to come about our amazing staff in the future.

Thank you to these Real Estate all-stars who deliver their time above and beyond the regular duties of a REALTOR®. Our Board deals with new legislation from the California Association of REALTORS® and National Association of REALTORS® to working with our local elected officials, from housing updates in this constantly changing profession to deliver back impact donations of time and money. Our Board also approves efforts from our many committees, which do a lot of the heavy lifting and put on our Association events, both fun and educational. The Board of Directors meets monthly to ensure our members are supported and our community of clients is the focus. Santa Barbara Realtors and residents, you are in great hands.

Todd Shea is the 2023 president of the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors (SBAOR). He is a California licensed real estate agent with the Zia Group powered by eXp Realty here in Santa Barbara. He has served on and chaired several committees within the SBAOR and served on its board of directors. Todd can be reached at 805.453.7730 and todd@ziagroup.com or message and follow @toddshearealtor on Instagram. 

The late longtime public education advocate Hazel Pappas was present yet again, this time in memory only, at the Board of Education this week — as current New Haven educators invoked the impact she had on countless local students, parents, teachers, and school staff who were able to meet her face to face at in-person meetings.

Ashley Stockton, a sixth-grade English teacher at Wexler-Grant School, spoke up about Pappas’s impact on school board meetings more broadly, and on her own career as a New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) teacher in particular, during Monday’s latest full Board of Education meeting, which was held entirely online via Zoom.

Stockton’s testimony came amidst the ongoing citywide debate about whether or not New Haven’s school board should return to in-person meetings, stay remote on Zoom in the way that it has since the start of the pandemic nearly three years ago, or find some kind of hybrid in-person/remote option.

During the public participation section of Monday’s online meeting, Stockton recalled the passing last month of Pappas, whom she met for the first time at a Board of Education meeting in-person nearly 12 years ago. 

“Over the years I had the pleasure of talking to Mrs. Pappas before and after board meetings. Through our neighborly conversations I learned she had a grandson at the school where I taught and we enjoyed this connection,” Stockton said. ​“I would not have known Mrs. Pappas if we had been denied the opportunity to attend these public meetings. Thankfully past leaders did not prohibit us from meeting publicly, getting to know one another, and building community.” 

“By refusing to hold in person public meetings,” Stockton continued, ​“the current leadership is denying citizens the opportunity to gather and fully participate.”

She noted that the school board has disabled the Zoom function that allows viewers to see the number of participants. She also shared that during the board’s Jan. 9 meeting, she suddenly lost internet connection in her home, which meant she could not watch live on Zoom or YouTube as the online meeting was held. 

“Meeting remotely assumes that all members of the public have access to consistently working technology,” Stockton said. 

During her testimony Monday night, Stockton also criticized statements Mayor Justin Elicker and Board of Education President Yesenia Rivera have made in support of keeping board meetings remote — that is, that holding the meetings online boosts citizen attendance. 

“President Rivera and Mayor Elicker have said that remote meetings have resulted in increased attendance yet no comparative data has been provided to support these claims,” she said. ​“At a 2019 event with city teachers, then mayoral candidate Elicker stated, ​‘The Mayor has a lot of power over this system.’ If elected mayor, he said he would ​‘encourage meaningful parent involvement with the school board so parents don’t have to rely on Facebook live videos posted by parent education activists in order to know what is being said and decided upon at a Board of Ed meeting.’ ”

She also quoted a part of Elicker’s response in this Independent story about Democratic mayoral challenger Shafiq Abdussabur’s call for resuming in-person ed board meetings, in which the mayor spoke about how ​“in-person communication is always helpful and important” and how he has made himself available as mayor for in-person meetups in other contexts. (Fellow Democratic mayoral challenger Tom Goldenberg has also called for the school board to return in-person.) 

“So which is it? Should the public have to rely on videos of meetings or not?” Stockton asked on Monday. ​“Personally I want to attend the public meetings in the city where I live and pay taxes, not have a beer with the mayor in order to engage civically.” 

In the conclusion to her remarks Monday, Stockton shared her concerns about the possible implications of keeping school board meetings remote, including when it comes time to select a new schools superintendent. She warned the exclusion of the public during the process and general meetings ​“will most likely create unnecessary obstacles for our new superintendent.”

“Due to the isolated remote functioning of this Board it is inevitable that there will be mistrust. How can there not be? Members of this Board will not even sit in the same room with engaged members of the public,” Stockton said. ​“Please don’t be surprised if down the line that the new superintendent chosen by you finds some self-facing issues with parents, students, and employees that could’ve been prevented had this board welcomed members of the community you represent into the room where decisions about our children and schools are being made. It’s not too late to change course.”

ESUMS teacher Kirsten Hopes-McFadden also testified Monday regarding remote meetings. She offered another possible option to getting board meetings to return in person. 

First, she paid her respects to Pappas, who she worked with at the start of her teaching career at Clemente School. Pappas also knew Hopes-McFadden’s mother from attending past Board of Ed meetings. 

“She was wonderful. I loved seeing her at every Board meeting and I do regret that in the past couple of years we were not able to see her because the board meetings were remote,” Hopes-McFadden said. 

Hopes-McFadden, who is also an attorney, said she did research on why the board is still allowed to host its full board meetings online rather than in-person. She cited a state law passed that allows public agencies like the Board of Education to operate completely remote or hybrid until April 30, 2022. She also noted that last year Gov. Ned Lamont signed an amended version of the law, House Bill 5269, which which removed the April 30, 2022 ​“sunset date” and that allows public agencies to continue to hold remote-only or hybrid meetings. (Click here to read the write-up referred to by Hopes-McFadden Monday.)

“If you’re upset about this and because the Board of Education is not listening to us, we might need to contact our state legislature and Governor Ned Lamont and have them repeal House Bill 5269,” she said. 

Board of Education member Darnell Goldson said on Monday that he had known Pappas since he was a ​“young tyke running around Newhallville with a runny nose and ripped up sneakers” and even then she was always involved in the schools he said.

Goldson implored his fellow board members to take up the public’s demands for in-person or hybrid meetings. ​“We should have a public-facing meeting,” he said. 

He also shared that 15 minutes into Monday’s meeting, its participants included 22 panelists and 36 attendees. ​“And the reason why the public’s not attending anymore is because they can’t actually sit and talk to each other and organize and discuss amongst themselves as well as us these issues around these Board of Ed issues,” he said. 

Board Secretary Ed Joyner added to Monday’s conversation that we are not in a ​“post-Covid period.” 

Joyner and Supt. Iline Tracey also shared mutual respect for Pappas and described her as an inspiration for their own decades of work in public education in New Haven. 

I hope there are lots of people that are outraged about the tactics of our governor concerning Reedy Creek. I didn’t agree with Disney on the “don’t say gay” bill; however, they had the right to their freedom of free speech. Now the governor is appointing his people to be on the Reedy Creek board. So does that mean every time the governor disagrees with Disney he can mess with them? Should he have that much power? Why are we at the point where we think it is OK for elected officials to have the power to go after people they disagree with? The board on Reedy Creek should be independent and impartial, not beholden to the governor.

Carol Anderson Orlando

Advertisement

There was a time that I gave the far right and far left the benefit of the doubt. The left didn’t intend harm, but consistently failed to imagine the unintended consequences of their policies. The right didn’t intend harm, but saw their policy goals as more important than any unintended harm. But now the right (no longer just the far right) is relentlessly addressing problems that don’t exist like voter fraud, critical race theory, drag shows, treating gender dysphoria, diversity training, woke corporations, woke investing, unacceptable literature, and unacceptable history all purportedly ripping through the fabric of society.

But none of that is so. Addressing phantom problems with laws and policy that have demonstrable harmful effects on some people makes it clear; harm is the whole point.

Advertisement

Jeff Henderson Belle Isle

Just as sure as death and taxes, the far left-leaning Orlando Sentinel can be counted on to have a hit piece on our governor on at least its front page and many times on subsequent pages almost every day. Apparently the Sentinel never got the memo that Gov. Ron DeSantis won the last election with more votes than any candidate in Florida’s history.

If the Sentinel was actually interested in printing balanced coverage, they would look no further than the person inhabiting the people’s White House.

They could start with the fact that Joe Biden entered office inheriting a 1.4% inflation rate only to see it spike to 7%. Gas averaged $2.39 a gallon when he took office and recently spiked at $5 a gallon in many states.

And he displayed to the entire world, including America’s enemies, a lack of decisiveness on China and a balloon which could have had severe ramifications for our country’s air defenses.

But the Sentinel wants Floridians to remember DeSantis is a threat to democracy.

Richard Pluth Casselberry

If the United States is going to be the world leader, as it purports, now is the time to send advanced arms to Ukraine. Our excuse for being slow is that we’ve had to train the Ukrainians in the use of the weapons we’ve promised. Fair enough, but send the weapons and do the training in Ukraine. Our action will show the other world leaders that the time to act is now. Instead of standing around enjoying their photo ops with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, send the weapons! The Ukrainians need our help to retain their freedom and tomorrow may be too late.

Advertisement

Alan Price Winter Park

Copyright 2023 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The birds were the first to go, an unusual number of them lying lifeless in a field at Sally Paulson’s North Shore ranch. Then there was the owl that stood in a pool of water for days as if it had been burned. The owl died too. 

After that, a horse nicknamed Blankie died suddenly. Within weeks, Blankie’s pasture-mate Ida experienced what Paulson said looked like a seizure before the horse ran through a hot fence and into a grove of trees where she dropped dead. Ten days after that, another horse, Jazz, died.

“At that point, I’m like, what’s going on?” Paulson said in an interview. 

Paulson believes the animals’ deaths were caused by pesticides sprayed on the neighboring Kuilima Lands operated by the Turtle Bay Resort, although there’s no proof of a link.

“Can I definitively say that my horses were directly killed from this? No, I cannot,” Paulson said. “As a person involved in farming my entire life – I’ve grown up on farms here and in Oregon and been involved with horses for 30 years – does my gut and observations say they’ve been affected? Absolutely.” 

In a statement, Turtle Bay confirmed it uses herbicides on the land adjacent to Paulson’s Pahipahi’alua Walking Horse Ranch and said it is investigating the case.

Many concerns have been raised about the possible impacts of pesticide exposure in communities on the island. However, pesticide users weren’t required to tell the public about the chemicals being sprayed until a new law was passed in 2018 and Hawaii started collecting reports on restricted pesticide usage the following year.

Usage Revealed

Pursuant to the new law, the state releases summary information showing total chemical usage by island, per year. But from those reports, residents can’t see how much of each chemical is being used in which locations, and individual reports can only be accessed via public records requests, which can be a lengthy process. 

Environmental advocacy groups stepped in, with the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action commissioning the nonprofit Center for Food Safety to analyze reports submitted to the Department of Agriculture, matching specific chemicals and their amounts to particular properties.

The information also has gotten the attention of Hawaii Rep. Amy Perruso, who sponsored legislation this year to increase pesticide reporting requirements and limit pesticide usage near residential areas.

The reports show over 215,000 pounds of restricted use pesticides were released across central Oahu and the North Shore in 2019, according to the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action. Affected areas include Wahiawa, Whitmore Village, Haleiwa, Waialua and the Turtle Bay Resort. Some pesticide-impacted areas sit within a mile of homes and schools.

Pesticide users sprayed 23 different kinds of pesticides in those areas that year, including 13 that are banned in other countries, 12 known to disrupt human hormones and four known carcinogens, according to the findings by the nonprofit environmental justice group.

The data released by the state contains no information about possible health effects. However, a dozen of the chemicals used are toxic to bees, and four have a tendency to drift, HAPA said. 

“It is concerning that we see this level of application in such close proximity to these communities and also to the coastline,” Fern Anuenue Holland, a Kauai-based community organizer for HAPA and an environmental scientist, said at a latest public meeting.

An additional worry is that when multiple pesticides are sprayed, they combine into chemical mixtures whose environmental and health impacts are unknown, Holland said. 

Overall, the data illustrates that more needs to be done to address pesticides’ threats to public health, Holland said. HAPA and other advocates are calling for more detailed and frequent reporting requirements, buffer zones around schools and residences and the inclusion of additional chemicals on the list of pesticides that require disclosure. 

HAPA spent several years obtaining the data from the state, working with the Center for Food Safety to crunch the numbers and mapping it to make it easily understandable to residents, Holland said. 

The group shared some of its findings for the first time with the Wahiawa and Whitmore Village communities earlier this month. HAPA’s executive director, Anne Frederick, said public meetings will be scheduled in other areas as more information is obtained.

The groups are now in the process of obtaining and analyzing the pesticide disclosure data for 2020 and 2021, and they’ll tackle 2022 when those reports come out, Holland said. 

“We felt after all these years of struggle to get access to information, it was really important for us to be able to go to the communities who are living beside the heaviest usage and to share whatever information we can glean from some kind of poorly reported data, to be totally honest,” she said.  

The room was packed with some 40 residents, several with stories about what they suspect are pesticides’ impacts on their community. 

Mitchell Ayau, a resident of Whitmore Village, said he works at Waialua High School, which is near an old Pioneer company seed factory. 

“I’ve never worked in any place that I’ve seen so many dead birds,” he said. 

Katie Metzger, a beekeeper with Hanai Hives in Waialua, said she lost thousands of bees when her neighbor started using neonicotinoids, an insecticide that is known to kill pollinators. After she spoke to the neighbor, she said the woman agreed to stop using it.  

Mililani Mauka Neighborhood Board member Theresa Kuehu criticized agricultural corporations that spray pesticides in the course of researching genetically modified food. Monsanto, for instance, was fined $12 million in 2021 for 30 environmental violations related to illegal pesticide use. 

“We’ve been blind so long because we’ve been told we can’t fight that fight because we don’t have money,” she said. “We’re not blind anymore, and we’re not afraid.” 

Defending Pesticide Use 

At the meeting, Holland shared that the Dole Plantation reported using a fumigant called 1,3-D (otherwise known as 1,3-Dichloropropene) 425 times in 2019, according to HAPA’s data. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers 1,3-D to be a possible carcinogen, and it is banned in Europe because of its risks to humans, animals and groundwater. The chemical is known to drift. 

William Goldfield, director of corporate communications for Dole, said the company uses Telone, a brand name of 1,3-D, “selectively” to control roundworms. The product is injected into the soil 20 inches below the surface before a new crop is planted, which happens on a three-year cycle, he said. There is “no drift or airborne distribution,” he said. 

“Without such controls, pineapple farming in Hawaii would not be possible,” he said in a statement. “Because we are constantly planting some section of the farm throughout the year there would be some application year-round.” 

However, he added: “Dole has actively been reducing application rates and total usage of this product year over year.”

Farmers and agricultural interests have defended their use of pesticides in Hawaii, and several opposed the new pesticide disclosure requirement that began in 2019.

“Monsanto and other farmers in Hawaii need to be able to control pests in their crops,” Monsanto representative Dan Clegg wrote in 2018 testimony opposing disclosure. 

“Insects, weeds, and diseases can have a devastating effect on crop yield and quality, and farmers need to have a variety of tools available to help control them,” he added.

‘We Follow The Lead Of The U.S. EPA’

Others said existing pesticide regulations provide adequate protection for people and the environment and that disclosure would expose pesticide users to liability. Even the creation of pesticide buffer zones, such as those that prohibit spraying around schools or homes, would hinder farmers’ abilities to use their land to feed residents, farmer Larry Jefts wrote in 2018. 

“This is highly ironic when the State of Hawaii is concerned about increasing its ability to grow food to feed its 1.7 million people,” he wrote in testimony opposing the new law. Jefts did not respond to a request for comment this week. 

Joshua Silva, who works with farmers as an agent with the University of Hawaii’s Cooperative Extension Service, said farmers will generally avoid harsh pesticides if they can. But natural alternatives aren’t always as effective. 

“Sometimes that biofumigation is helpful but not as helpful as that (restricted use pesticide) fumigant,” he said. “It can be more time-consuming and added costs.”

“Dole rigorously follows all EPA label requirements for use and our applicators and supervisors undergo annual training regarding its application,” Goldfield said. 

Greg Takeshima, acting manager of the Hawaii Department of Agriculture’s pesticides branch, echoed that view. If Hawaii’s 1,400 certified applicators of restricted use pesticides are following the rules on the label and in state and federal laws, the government considers that acceptable, he said.

“We follow the lead of the U.S. EPA,” he said.

Asked why the public should trust pesticide labels’ safety standards given those factors, Takeshima said “I don’t have a great answer for you for that one.”

A Fight For Transparency 

Holland has been advocating for pesticide reforms for about a decade, starting on the island where she was born and raised, Kauai. When she came back from college, she said she started growing concerned about pesticides. 

Within a one-year period, she said three of her friends gave birth to babies with a birth defect called gastroschisis that causes the baby’s intestines to grow outside of the body. The condition is rare but is growing in frequency. Researchers have suspected pesticides play a role in that increase but haven’t proven a link. 

A 2017 analysis by Hawaii doctors found that the majority of gastroschisis patients in Hawaii were from areas where restricted use pesticides were used. Correlation does not necessarily point to causation. Still, Holland said the issue made her want to learn more. 

She joined forces with other environmental advocates to pass a law at the Kauai County Council in 2013. It required major users of restricted use pesticides to report the type, quantity and location of its chemical spraying. It also required disclosures regarding genetically modified crops and instituted buffer zones to protect schools, parks, hospitals and homes from pesticides. 

Thousands of residents demonstrated in the street in favor of its passage, which was achieved over the objections of the mayor. But the victory was short-lived. The law was overturned in 2016 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with seed companies Monsanto, Syngenta and others. The court ruled that counties don’t have the authority to regulate agriculture.  

So, the advocates went to the state. 

In 2018, the Hawaii Legislature unanimously passed Act 45, creating the reporting requirement that made the Center for Food Safety’s pesticide analysis possible.

With the law’s passage, Hawaii also became the first state in the nation to ban chlorpyrifos, an insecticide linked to developmental delays in children and other health impacts. The chemical has since been banned by the EPA. 

In addition, the law created a 100-foot buffer zone around schools to prohibit the spraying of pesticides, but only during school hours.

The new reporting requirement was a major win for environmental advocates who lobbied hard for transparency around pesticide use. But then they realized the data was hard to obtain and practically indecipherable to the average person.  

Pursuant to the new law, the state releases summary information showing total chemical usage by island, per year. But from those reports, residents can’t see how much of each chemical is being used in which locations, and individual reports can only be accessed via public records requests, which can be a lengthy process. 

This is by design. Takeshima said the state wants farmers to feel “comfortable.”

“People take a negative connotation to pesticide use,” he said. “We don’t want people taking that type of information and kind of attacking the people who are applying it legally and appropriately.”

Even when the advocates filed public records requests and received the individual reports, they were hard to make sense of, according to Holland. 

The amounts of pesticides released were listed in vastly different units of measure, making it difficult to compare. For instance, the 2021 summary includes totals measured in gallons, pounds and tons of fruits. The formatting was inconsistent, and some tax map key numbers were missing. Plus, many of the disclosures were handwritten in “chicken scratch,” Holland said. 

In the end, the Center for Food Safety did its best to transcribe the information, analyze it and plot it on a map, Holland said. It may be imperfect, she said, but it’s the best information available. 

“This took us years of trying to get this in a format where we could actually transcribe it to you in a way that makes sense because it just wasn’t provided in that way,” Holland said at the Wahiawa meeting. 

Even with HAPA’s analysis, the data is limited. The state law only requires the reporting of restricted use pesticides. 

Those require a special certification to purchase and use because in the absence of restrictions, they may cause “unreasonable adverse effects to the environment and injury to applicators or bystanders,” according to the EPA.

That classification doesn’t include general use pesticides like the glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup. Some general use pesticides are associated with health risks and banned in other countries but are still widely available to U.S. consumers.

Hawaii’s reporting requirements don’t cover neonicotinoids, the insecticide known to kill bees.

In addition, certain research companies, including Monsanto, have permission from the federal government to use pesticides in amounts greater than otherwise allowed on the product label, and they don’t have to report those amounts, Holland said. 

“Experimental field trials are exempt from reporting,” she said. “So we actually don’t know if this is even close to the whole picture of what’s happening on those parcels.”

New Proposals Target Pesticides 

Armed with the newly analyzed information, pesticide opponents are pushing for more pesticide restrictions and transparency at the Legislature this year. Perruso, who represents Wahiawa and Whitmore Village, has introduced a suite of bills.

House Bill 253 would require users of restricted use pesticides to report their usage monthly instead of annually, and would require more detailed information. It would require the Department of Agriculture to develop an online tool to make the data accessible to residents. 

“In the future, hopefully, you can see what was applied maybe even last week, or last month,” Holland said. 

Under HB 254, the Department of Agriculture would be required to use consistent units of measurement in its public summaries of restricted pesticide usage and would also created a half-mile buffer zone around schools and public parks. 

Two proposals, HB 251 and HB 252, would add neonicotinoids and malathion to the list of restricted use pesticides. Malathion is commonly used to control mosquitoes and fruit flies and can affect the human nervous system and organ function, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The chemical sickened children and adults after a spill near a Pearl City school more than a decade ago. 

Another measure, HB 692, would increase civil and criminal penalties for operators who fail to report their restricted pesticide usage. 

The Department of Agriculture hasn’t yet taken a stance on these bills, Takeshima said. But he indicated this issue requires a balancing act.

“I have two children. So, I understand where they’re coming from,” Takeshima said. “But also, we have to do our jobs to maintain food security.”

At the public meeting, Perruso urged residents to email their legislators to express support for the legislation, and several indicated they would.

“Until we as a community decide we’re over it,” Kahaluu farmer Daniel Anthony said, “it will continue to happen.”

Civil Beat’s health coverage is supported by the Atherton Family Foundation, Swayne Family Fund of Hawaii Community Foundation, and the Cooke Foundation.