Active Ingredient: Carbaryl*
Formulation: Sevin (5-80% active ingredient)
Type: Carbamate insecticide
Health Effects: moderately to very toxic to humans; nerve toxin and suspected endocrine disrupter; direct contact with skin or eyes with moderate levels of this pesticide can cause burns; inhalation or ingestion of very large amounts can be toxic to nervous or respiratory systems, resulting in nausea, stomach cramps, diarrhea and excessive salivation; other symptoms at high dose include sweating, blurring of vision, loss of coordination and convulsions.
Ecological Effects: highly toxic to crustaceans and insects; moderately toxic to fish, zooplankton and earthworms; kills beneficial insects such as bees, as well as pests.

Active Ingredient: Chlorpyrifos*
Formulation: Lorsban (30-50% active ingredient)
Type: Organophosphate insecticide
Health Effects: moderately toxic to humans; nerve toxin; acute exposure can cause numbness, tingling, incoordination, headache, dizziness, tremor, nausea, abdominal cramps, sweating, blurred vision, difficulty breathing and slow heartbeat; high doses may result in unconsciousness, incontinence, convulsions or death.
Ecological Effects: general agricultural uses pose a serious hazard to wildlife and honeybees; very highly toxic to crustaceans, zooplankton and insects; highly toxic to fish and moderately toxic to amphibians. Often found (along with diazinon) in water and sediments of California rivers at concentrations toxic to zooplankton, the small organisms fish eat, in violation of the Clean Water Act.

Active Ingredient: Cyfluthrin
Formulation: Baythroid (25% active ingredient)
Type: Pyrethroid insecticide
Health Effects: low toxicity in humans; skin and eye irritant, nerve toxin, suspected endocrine disrupter; acute exposures can cause stinging skin, tremors, convulsions, decreased blood pressure and labored breathing; chronic exposure has resulted in weight loss, kidney inflammation, vomiting and diarrhea in laboratory animals.
Ecological Effects: very highly toxic to insects, fish and zooplankton; kills bees and other beneficial insects as well as pests.

Active Ingredient: Imidacloprid
Formulation: Admire (21.4% active ingredient)
Type: Chloro-nicotinyl insecticide
Used for control of sucking insects; highly toxic to bees when applied to plant leaves.
Health Effects: moderately toxic to humans; potential groundwater contaminant; considered safer than other nerve toxins like organophosphates because it blocks a neuronal pathway (nicotinergic) that is more abundant in insects than mammals; also applied at lower rates than older pesticides. Ecological Effects: Highly toxic to aquatic invertebrates; toxic to birds.

*California Bad Actor Pesticide. Pesticide Action Network North America uses this term to designate the most toxic pesticides that:
1) are registered for use in California and
2) are either acute poisons, known or probable carcinogens, neurotoxins, reproductive or developmental toxicants, or are known to have contaminated California groundwater.

Information Sources: PAN Pesticide Database, Pesticide Action Network, San Francisco, CA, http://www.pesticideinfo.org; Extension Toxicology Network Pesticide Information Profiles, http://ace.ace.orst.edu/info/ extoxnet/ghindex.html.

Chronology of Pesticide Applications (as of 7/27/00)
Riverside County