Judge halts aerial spraying against moth in Santa Cruz County
source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/24/BA6210BB2O.DTL&type=printable
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- leahl
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(04-24) 13:05 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A judge today ordered aerial spraying in Santa Cruz County against the light brown apple moth be halted until the state conducts a comprehensive environmental review of the impacts.
It was not immediately clear how Burdick's ruling would affect plans to spray in the Bay Area or in Monterey. Environmentalists have filed a similar suit in Monterey County Superior Court.
Critics of the spraying have voiced strong opposition to the aerial spraying plan after hundreds of residents in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties reported respiratory problems last autumn that they contend were linked to the first round of spraying against the light brown apple moth.
A 32-page report that state health officials released earlier this month said they were unable to determine a link between the spraying and respiratory problems, saying the complaints were not detailed enough or consistent.
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csislin
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Hey Leah,
I wanted to share an e-mail here that I wrote to a list recently.
Some people have been saying to me, didn't they stop the spray? The recent court victory in Santa Cruz and the Governator's "suspension" of the spray are indeed good news, but they're not the end of the story.
The recent suspension of the moth spraying only really affects Santa Cruz/ Monterey -- Bay Area spraying was scheduled to begin in August, all along. Although of course it is a fabulous reprieve for the SC/ Monterey folks, my impression is that this is Schwarzenneger doing good PR for himself, after a judge ordered CDFA to follow basic environmental laws before spraying in Santa Cruz/ Monterey again (instead of just relying on their emergency exemption from last year and spraying again this June without any environmental review).
I think there are going to be a number of ways that the interested parties will continue to take actions that may appear to the public to be solving whatever problems the spraying would cause. I.e., USDA is about to do a battery of toxicity tests on the spray; I would imagine they're going to declare that it's not a health risk, with the hope that people will feel assuaged. But the health tests they are doing are about short-term, acute toxicity, not long-term, endocrine disruption/ carcinogenicity, which are the more insidious and serious risks involved here (say the many doctors and toxicologists I've heard who have weighed in on this issue).
There are much larger policy issues at stake here, about how we as a polity decide to take care of our health, our food supply and our children, that will not be addressed within the short-term adversarial situation that we're now engaged in. But the fight is still on, so please keep an eye out for misinformation/ spin, and hang in there with it.Love,
Caitlin - 4 years ago
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csislin
