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Despite scientific evidence of the likely links between certain childhood diseases and exposure to pesticides California's road agencies make little effort to avoid applying herbicides where children walk or congregate to meet school buses.
The chances that children may be exposed to to the harmful chemicals applied by these agencies are enormous. Of 15,000 miles of highway maintained by Caltrans, almost two-thirds are sprinkled with school bus stops. Many more bus stops are located along the 64,000 miles of roads maintained by county agencies.
Making matters worse, chemical weed control for both Caltrans and county roads is concentrated in the months from October through April, while children are attending school.
The road agencies claim they try to avoid spraying where signs indicate bus stops or in known areas of heavy foot traffic. Caltrans even acknowledged its obligation to protect children in its 1992 Environmental Impact Statement on roadside vegetation control, when it pledged to "not apply chemicals within 100 feet of school bus stops identified by public school districts" and to develop guidelines to "modify or exclude use of chemicals on roadsides where children walk to school."
No Fuss About Bus
However, few, if any, of the roadside agencies actively pursue information about the location of school bus stops or areas where children walk so that applicators will know where to avoid using herbicides.
 Most Caltrans district offices have gathered little information about where children catch school buses. A representative of District 2 in Northeastern California said staffers "don't go out of our way" to inform schools about spraying. District 7 personnel pointed out that it's up to schools in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties to request that stops not be sprayed, and a manager at District 10 in Northern San Joaquin Valley conceded there was no list or map of bus stops because schools hadn't responded to a Caltrans memo requesting the identification of these locations.
Similarly, a survey of county road agencies showed that not one could provide a list of school bus stop locations. Orange County had not identified where children congregate but instructed drivers to leave an unsprayed zone of just ten feet before and after any stops they "might know about." Others such as Ventura, Fresno, Mariposa, Solano, Siskiyou, Tehema, Amador, Riverside, and Santa Clara counties did not keep lists and several noted that schools had not requested modification of spraying for these areas.
In the apparent absence of agency concern, schools and parents should be vigilant about risks their students may encounter. But it's difficult for an untrained person to recognize the effects of herbicides, which eventually leave only bare ground and dried vegetation as evidence that spraying occurred. Yet most of the government agencies that apply chemicals on roadsides are only willing to modify their usage if locations of bus stops are brought to their attention.
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