April 24, 2008
Light Brown Apple Moth Spray Off
Today a major setback struck the final solution, if you will, against the light brown apple moth. Superior Court Judge Paul Burdick ruled that "aerial pesticide sprays must halt over Santa Cruz County until agricultural officials do a full environmental review of their anti-pest program." Even California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, after chitchating with lawmakers and environmentalists, put his foot down, saying that "the state would suspend all aerial sprays across the state until Aug. 17."
Meanwhile, Santa Cruz County spokeswoman Dinah Phillips actually thinks today's ruling will stop aerial spraying for at least a year. Cool.
According to CBS 5, "hundreds of people complained of feeling sick when planes applied the first round of spray along the central coast last fall." (To be fair, people in Santa Cruz also fake aneurysms if you're wearing a drop of cologne, so...take that with a healthy grain of rock salt.) Anyway, the U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture says that they may go ahead with the areal assault, ruling be damned, since "the moth threatens to destroy millions of dollars' worth of valuable crops."
Photo by Jim Herd.
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Way to sell your kid...
Heck I ' bug bomb ' my place once a month just in case of Bed Bugs, and we have those back again because of them taking certain pesticides off the market..... no spray and moths or spray and have no moths.
I thought that they were spraying a pheramone--that's unlikely to harm that child. Using an environmental law to stop activities that really aren't harmful just gives conservatives more justification to oppose environmental regulation and the precautionary principle.
Thanks for reminding me that they are using a pheramone... just remembered seeing that on the news.
Don't spray me bro!
Thank f*****g god. And who the hell are the spray-lovers posting comments? You're concerned about selling out a kid by having her hold a sign, but not about the unknown effects of the spray? And that's great if you mainline bugspray every other day, just keep it the hell off of me.
The contents of the spray, pheromone (check you spelling) or otherwise, are not completely available to the public. At an April city council meeting in the city of Alameda California, Councilmember Frank Matarresse asked CDFA Secretary Kawamura, "If this were sprayed on an open field, would farmworkers be allowed to be in the field while you are spraying?" Secretary Kawamura responded with "No."
I would use Agent Orange, but I know nor care about agriculture or people I haven't met.
The problem is it's not just a pheromone. Checkmate, the product they sprayed over Monterey and Santa Cruz counties had additional ingredients with lists of health effects. Add to that the tiny plastic microcapsules they'll be using to apply the product -- which remain in the air for 30 days and are of a size that can be inhaled. Go to any of these informational meetings around town and you'll be stunned by what's not being publicly divulged about the program.
You should never unleash me, FizzandPop. You have no idea what could happen. NO IDEA.
Agreed, stop the spray, I have a sixteen-month-old and we live two blocks from Golden Gate Park, know this is an area that will get especially doused. As said, these are plastic capsules that will linger in the air for at least a month, I have a friend who lives in Monterey County and after the spray her two-year-old's eyes were puffy for days, she had a hacking cough. People, this is the real deal. What to do? Go to: playnotspray.org and be sure to sign the petition.
Umm... Kurish? I'm sorry dear, but I missed where I indicated my stance on spraying. Frankly, I haven't thought much about it. It just struck me as shameful for a parent to shove their kid out there like that.
This is the town that takes seriously the morons who argue that wifi signals are a form of dangerous radiation. I'm sorry, but turning everything into the equivalent of Three Mile Island has reduced my confidence in environmental claims of activists here.
The carefully hand-painted sign held by the kid for the photo op immediately turned me off to this cause.
I don't know, I find this kid wth the sign far less offensive than the small kids I've seen picketing for the anti-choice cause, posters of mutilated feti a-waving in the breeze.
At least this is something that directly affects her.
Besides, you're never too young the importance of fighting the system. The spraying got stopped didn't it? Important lesson for a kid to learn, that sometimes the little people can make a difference.