The new rule will affect pesticide use in the 14 California counties where rice is grown. Nearly all of California’s 550,000 acres of rice production takes place in the Sacramento Valley, which is home to threatened and endangered Chinook and coho salmon and to steelhead trout.
Thiobencarb is used in the spring when rice is starting to grow, a time of year “that’s also peak migration for Sacramento fall Chinook,” explains Joel Kawhara who fishes commercially for salmon off the Washington and Oregon coasts. This means it would be present in the water when young, just-hatched fish are beginning their trip to the ocean. At this stage of life, salmon are particularly vulnerable to environmental stress and to what Kawahara calls “sublethal effects” that can have a big impact on their survival.
“Wild seafood is our last really authentic food,” said Jeremy Brown, a commercial fisherman based in Bellingham, Washington. But, he added, they are also “in the line of fire” from pesticide use. The ESA listings are designed to protect the most vulnerable fish, or “weakest stocks,” added Brown. But the health of those fish and their habitat affects what he and other fisherman can catch up and down the Pacific Coast.
Whether it’s from rice growing in California or industry in Washington state, keeping pollutants out of the water is an essential part of protecting one of the last foods that is not produced industrially, said Brown. “And more and more, we’re learning that this is the kind food we should be eating.”
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