Ojai, California may not be the obvious location for a real-life horror film, but the secret reality is the community has been living a nightmare and no one is hearing their screams.
The documentary Regenerate Ojai, narrated by actor Laura Dern, busts down the door that’s been hiding the environmental health threat facing the community in Ventura County, California.
Regenerate Ojai filmmakers Josh and Rebecca Tickell reveal that over five million pounds of pesticides are used per year in Ventura County. That is the highest per acre and per capita in the entire state. The community has the most kids exposed to the worst chemicals of any county in California.
The pastoral setting, home to celebrities, farmers, and families, lends itself to keeping the community in this hamster wheel of hope and despair because behind the rolling green landscape and orange groves lurks a killer that has been slowly poisoning residents for years.
Ventura County is also known for having some of the highest cancer rates, which include thyroid and breast. The Tickells have had their own experience dealing with health issues, plus their friend and neighbor, actor Diane Ladd faces permanent respiratory issues and watched her dog have multiple seizures due to local spraying.
Rebecca Tickell recalls her first encounter with toxic spraying
Rebecca recalled being exposed to the toxic chemicals while taking her daughter to summer camp.
“We experienced it ourselves one morning when I took our daughter to a nature-based summer camp that was at a local park,” Rebecca told Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “And there were all these children running around the playground. They go and they splash in this stream, this is the watershed for the Ojai Valley. And there were all of these men walking around with these backpack sprayers on and you could smell it in the air.”
“It immediately caused my eyes to start watering. I knew that this was not safe, whatever it was,” she added. “So we went over and asked, like, what’s going on? And they’re like, ‘Oh, we’re spraying Roundup.’ And they were spraying it right next to the water,” she recalled. “They were spraying it all around the park. There were no signs posted. And having been doing this long enough, I knew that glyphosate is a toxic carcinogen.”
“So I got upset and I was like, ‘How come there are no signs posted? How come you’re doing this? How come you’re spraying the river bottom?’ And the woman on the phone, when we finally got to the person who was in charge of overseeing it, said that it was safe for my daughter to sit in the water that had just been sprayed.”
The ‘Regenerate Ojai’ filmmakers have been called ‘hysterics’ and ‘terrorists’
The lipservice Rebecca received was part of the ongoing narrative the community was gaslit into believing. Meanwhile, pesticide spraying continues on an ongoing basis, aerosolized into the atmosphere and over homes and residential communities.
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So why hasn’t this practice changed, considering it is poisoning the community? It all comes down to money. The community supports a $2 to $3 billion agriculture economy that holds onto the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality.
When the Tickells initially sounded the alarm about overspray, they were attacked. A farmer was “very upset with us and has taken that out in various ways,” Josh shared. This included leaving a “giant chunk of asphalt in our mailbox and trespassing onto our property,” Rebecca added.
The couple has been called hysterical. “They’ve called us terrorists and then they go, ‘There’s no science.’ But you say, ‘No, you have to come test.’ The science proves that every time,” Josh asserted. “So the denial is strong because it’s a tradition. And it’s big money and no one wants to admit that they’re hurting other people because then the liability starts coming the other way. We had a city council member tell us, ‘We talked to the farmers and they don’t want a text notification system that would allow citizens to know when they’re spraying because if that happened, the farmers might be liable.’”
The Tickells say there is a better way
Regenerate Ojai filmmakers hope that residents will at least be given an opportunity to protect themselves from this deadly practice. “The residents of Ojai have been asking for notification prior to the application of pesticides. Governor Newsom heard our concerns and ‘strongly encourages’ growers to notify residents prior to spraying these neurotoxins,” according to the Regenrate Ojai site.
In a perfect world, Josh views this as an opportunity to teach farmers about sustainable farming and how to farm without harm.
“The irony of all of this is we’re pro-farmer, Rebecca and I, and the whole Regenerate Ojai movement. We’re pro-profit, we want these guys to make money,” Josh said. “We run a business and we put a lot of money into this community. And we’re even pro-capitalism. Like we want people to be able to sell food and feed people and have a good living from that. And there is a way to do that. For Ventura County and for Ojai, for all of California, for all of America, for that matter.”
“But it involves a change,” he admitted. “And change can be scary even if there’s more money on the other side of that and there is more money to be made, farmers can be more profitable. Being regenerative, which just means putting soil care first. That makes your trees healthy. That means they’re going to resist pests. That reduces the amount of money you’re spending on these toxic chemicals. That helps everyone, that helps your pocket, and helps toxicity. So we put that forward. A lot of new farmers, young farmers, are taking that up in the county and in the city.”
Watch Regenerate Ojai and learn more about how to help the movement.
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