I am a mother whose heart has been broken.

I reside in the west Kauai town of Kekaha, with my two daughters. Seven years ago, I had the opportunity to build my own home in Kekaha, an opportunity that many young families cannot afford in Hawaii these days. Kekaha is a rural community, consisting of many first- and second-generation plantation workers, fishermen, and hunters.

At first, I saw this transition as a blessing, an opportunity to raise my children in a safe, community-minded environment, close to white sand beaches and Kokee State Park.

I did not know at the time that in a matter of three years my home would be surrounded by research fields where the largest chemical corporations in the world develop pesticide-tolerant GM (genetically modified) seeds.

So you can imagine my heartbreak and outrage recently when the House Agriculture Committee, chaired by Clift Tsuji, effectively killed House Bill 2564, which would have created a pilot program for pesticide buffer zones around five schools in Hawaii.

I live in Hawaiian homesteads, among one of the largest pure Native Hawaiian, native-speaking populations in Hawaii today. We are surrounded by and exposed to “restricted use” pesticides.

After seven years of residing next to a GM test site, I now suffer from adult asthma, and my daughters suffer from headaches, bloody noses and respiratory infections. Recently, I received results from hair samples taken from both my daughters that show they have been exposed to 36 different pesticides, including the neurotoxin Chlorpyrifos, which the EPA may ban.

My neighbors and I have supported laws that would create buffer zones around our kids’ schools and our homes. We’ve asked our county and state governments to make these corporate giants disclose what they are spraying and when.

Yet these corporations keep fighting us.  They try to confuse the issues and fight a PR war: They insist they are “good neighbors,” yet they fight our right to know what’s being sprayed near our children. They minimize the voice of the local community by having their lobbyists insist that only “outsiders” care about these issues in Hawaii.

They say we are “anti-farming.” No, we support farmers who grow food for our islands. We know that the “right to farm” is very different from the “right to spray” on research fields.

They say we are “anti-science.” No, we trust the many studies that link pesticide exposure with harm to the developing brains of children. We trust the the American Academy of Pediatrics when they recommend buffer zones around schools.

These corporations (and our government officials) say our health concerns are only anecdotal and cannot be the basis for any government action. Yet, by blocking our right to know what is being sprayed, they are preventing us from gathering the very facts that could turn our anecdotal evidence into studies about the impacts of pesticides in our communities.

I afraid for my children, and so are many parents in Hawaii. When the smoke of communications strategies and PR tactics clears, the issue is quite simple: This is about the health and the future of our keiki and the aina which sustains us.