State stops aerial pesticide
spraying
over neighborhoods
A victory for thousands
of residents in California. The
CDFA announced they will no longer
aerial spray urban areas with pesticide
to combat LBAM. However, the struggle
is not over. If the CDFA has its
way, planes will spray the pesticide
CheckMate LBAM-F over "agricultural
or undeveloped areas only" (areas
not accessible by roads). All ground
applications will go on as planned
but will now include an aerial release
of sterile moths. Our work continues,
buoyed by this tremendous victory!
- 6/19/08
Light
Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) 101 May, 2008
A comprehensive and accurate overview
of the Light Brown Apple Moth. Prepared
by Jeff Rosendale, co-author of
the
recently released New Zealand Report
on IPM Management of LBAM.
---------------------------
Thank you to Patrick
Wilkinson for creating this
informative
video and for doing so with much
needed humor!
Economic
Impacts and Solutions Clearing the Air
in the CDFA, USDA Pesticide Spray
Program On Nine Northern California
Counties.
A Research Summary by the
CASS Economics Action Team
The ruling by Judge Paul Burdick
was a good ruling based on sound
reasoning and law. Anytime a judge
rules in our favor we have something
to celebrate. The thing to keep
in mind is that this only applies
to Santa Cruz County, and for how
long, we don't know. The judge does
not have jurisdiction in other counties,
so each county can still be sprayed.
We do know that at some point the
EIR will be done, even if not honestly,
and we will be right back where
we started.
The City and County of Santa Cruz
filed this suit, and passed the
resolutions to stop the spray in
response to the huge and collective
community outcry - which is where
CASS came in. CASS, which was formed
in the early stages of this CDFA
program, resolved to organize a
grass roots campaign to halt this
program permanently. We started
by forming action teams where individuals
with particular skills and passions
could put their resources together
to make change. We came up with
12 different areas that we believed
were necessary to focus on to stop
this thing. (legislative, economic,
media, outreach, etc.) We enrolled
local government in taking legal
action, but we knew from the start
that this suit, if successful, would
only be temporary because of the
cause of action the City and County
of Santa Cruz chose.
CASS is dedicated to stopping
the State of California's residential
use of pesticides in an attempt
to eradicate the Light Brown Apple
Moth (LBAM). CASS opposes this program
for the following reasons:
1. The program developed by the
state has not been shown to be safe
for application to residential populations.
2. The pesticide solution contains
synthetic chemical pheromones as
active ingredients and numerous
potentially toxic compounds as so-called
"inactive" compounds.
3. The aerial spraying portion of
the program will occur 3-4 days
every month for up to 10 years exposing
children, pregnant women, nursing
mothers, and the elderly to continued
exposure to unknown concentrations
of these potential toxins for extremely
long periods of time.
4. The toxicity of this pesticide
solution to the environment has
not been fully ascertained and many
of the ingredients are recognized
human, environmental, ecological,
and aquatic toxins.
5. The economic justification used
by the State of California was based
on a completely theorized worse
case scenario of LBAM infestation
with no basis of substantiation
whatsoever.
6. The program includes pesticide
treatment of residential yards,
parks, and residential streets with
highly toxic pyrethroids.
