A.G. Kawamura, Food and Agriculture Secretary

A.G. Kawamura, Food and Agriculture Secretary

Kawamura donated $21,200 to Arnold. He is a past chairman of the
Western Growers Association, which has been a vocal opponent of
legislation protecting farmworkers and the environment enacted over
the past several years.

The Food and Agriculture Department is responsible for environmental,
public safety and other regulations governing agricultural interests.
Kawamura's appointment is incongruous - it places a man who ran an
anti-regulation organization in charge of development and
implementation of regulatory safeguards. Farmworkers, and the
environment in farming communities, are bound to suffer when
agribusiness interests take the forefront at the department.

Among the legislation opposed by the Western Growers was last year's
SB 700, which required farmers to obtain pollution permits for
certain diesel powered field machinery. Previously, agricultural
interests were exempt from the emission rules that require permits
for other industries and Central Valley air quality was greatly
compromised as a result.

Agricultural interests gave Arnold's campaign committees more than
half a million dollars.

SantaCruzSentinel.com - Sentinel

SantaCruzSentinel.com - Sentinel:
Some residents told the Sentinel they planned to leave town while the state sprayed while others have unsuccessfully tried to stop it by filing lawsuits.

Even local nursery operators like Josh Fodor, who potentially stand to benefit from the spraying, are struggling with the logic behind the state's efforts to spray. 'I just wish people would come out and say it, that this moth isn't really causing any problems but it's all a matter of protecting California and international trade,' said Fodor, the owner of Central Coast Wilds Nursery in Santa Cruz. 'Because so far this moth hasn't caused the slightest bit of damage anywhere.

MontereyHerald.com : - Scientist says moth can't be eradicated

MontereyHerald.com : - Scientist says moth can't be eradicated:

By JULIA REYNOLDS, Herald Staff Writer

A key scientist in the decades-old fight against the Mediterranean fruit fly says eradicating the light brown apple moth from California is impossible. And, he says, the most devastating economic consequences are likely to come more from trade embargoes than crop damage. 'This thing is so widespread that there is no way that they're going to eradicate it,' said James Carey, a professor of entomology at the University of California-Davis known for his research on the medfly, which in the 1980s threatened California's citrus industry.

Now he questions claims by the state Department of Food and Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the pest can be eradicated by disrupting its mating cycle with aerially-applied pheromones.

"The CDFA and USDA really need to do a major stock-taking," Carey said. "You have to come to grips with reality."

An Agriculture Department technical advisory panel that convened in May in San Jose disagreed, concluding that the moth was "eradicable."

In a statement, state Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura said Tuesday that "pheromone mating disruption is a proven insect control technique," which, he said, was recommended by the panel as the primary tool to eradicate the moth.

Carey said the moth has spread to too many counties for aerial spraying to work and, like cancer cells in the body, can continue to grow undetected.

MontereyHerald.com : - A few areas got extra spray

MontereyHerald.com : - A few areas got extra spray:
A few areas got extra spray Pilot error at edges of zone
By DANIEL LOPEZ Herald Staff Writer Article Last Updated: 11/05/2007 08:17:57 AM PST Related Articles

Pilot error, state officials said Friday, caused some areas of the Peninsula to be oversprayed when synthetic pheromones were applied in September and October to combat the light brown apple moth.

CDFA > Public Affairs > Press Release

CDFA > Public Affairs > Press Release: "SACRAMENTO, Thursday, November 01, 2007 – The Santa Cruz Superior Court today denied a request to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against next week’s aerial pheromone treatment of the Santa Cruz area to combat the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) infestation. The request had been filed by Santa Cruz County. Treatment will proceed as scheduled, November 4-9."

City, county team up to fight spraying - By TOM RAGAN - SENTINEL STAFF WRITER - October 31, 2007

City, county team up to fight spraying - By TOM RAGAN - SENTINEL STAFF WRITER - October 31, 2007: "SANTA CRUZ — The Santa Cruz City Council voted unanimously in closed session Tuesday to 'seek consolidation' and join Santa Cruz County in suing the state over the aerial spraying of the light brown apple moth. The county suit, filed Tuesday, asks Santa Cruz Superior Court to consider a temporary restraining order today to stop spraying. The spraying is scheduled to begin in parts of Santa Cruz County on Sunday despite the protest of many in the region. Links to the Sentinel's coverage of the moth spraying debate. Both governments now contend that the state has failed to conduct an environmental assessment of the pesticide, CheckMate LBAM-F, whose long-term health effects have never been studied and which has never been sprayed in an urban setting on such a large scale."

EPA: Federal Register: Lepidopteran Pheromones: Tolerance Exemption

EPA: Federal Register: Lepidopteran Pheromones: Tolerance Exemption: "SUMMARY: This document establishes an exemption from the requirement of a food tolerance for residues of certain Lepidopteran pheromones resulting from the use of these substances independent of formulation, mode of application or physical form or shape with an annual application limitation of 150 grams active ingredient per acre (gm AI/ acre) for pest control in or on all raw agricultural commodities. This exemption pertains only to the pheromone active ingredient. Any encapsulating material needs to be a cleared inert for pesticidal uses on food crops. EPA is establishing this regulation on its own initiative."

Urgent: What you Need to Know about Published Checkmate Ingredient

From stopoverheadspraying@yahoogroups.com:

2-hydroxy-4-n-octyloxybenzophenone is a part of a
class of substances called Xenochemicals. Men and
women secrete estrogen from their glands, such as from
their adrenal glands, liver and for women, ovaries.
After the gland secretes the hormone, which is an
extremely miniscule amount of a biological chemical,
the hormone travels through the bloodstream and looks
for a receptor to receive the hormone. Once it finds a
receptor, they bind together, and the chemical
reaction is complete.

What is of deep concern, is that
2-hydroxy-4-n-octyloxybenzophenone binds to estrogen
receptors not just in animals, but in humans. In other
words, it signals people's bodies to take a specific
biological action.

"Rapidly increasing scientific evidence suggests that
many of these chemicals, structures of which cross a
wide range, can interfere with normal, hormonally
regulated biological processes to adversely affect
development and/or reproductive function in wildlife,
experimental animals, and humans (see Colborn et al.,
1993; Danzo, 1998; Daston et al., 1997; Kavlock et
al., 1996; Sonnenschein and Soto, 1998; Toppari et
al., 1996 for recent reviews)."
http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/54/1/138

Furthermore, many women who are in the spray zone in
Monterey County, have immediately experience severe
symptoms related to their reproductive health, which
likely correspond to ingestion of
2-hydroxy-4-n-octyloxybenzophenone. These symptoms
include: extremely swollen and tender breasts,
exacerbated PMS symptoms, extreme mood swings, hot
flashes, sweating, spotting and delayed periods. This
even happened to women who were not directly sprayed,
but who entered the spray area several days after the
spray.

Since a hormone is such a miniscule substance, it is
likely and probable, that even inhaling one
microcapsule, or inhaling some of the time release
biochemical from one capsule (there are 28 delivered
per square foot) would contain enough
2-hydroxy-4-n-octyloxybenzophenone to substantially
alter the hormonal balance of men, women, children,
and animals.

In plain English, it is undeniable that
2-hydroxy-4-n-octyloxybenzophenone will effect human
health.
There is established science to show that
2-hydroxy-4-n-octyloxybenzophenone is not safe.

How is it that the CDFA, and EPA can claim Checkmate
is safe, with this known hormonal ingredient?

The question then is:
Why does a formula supposedly designed to suppress
moth mating habits contain a hormone that influences
human female reproductive health?

Finally, who is protecting our children, and pregnant
women from the possibly severe and dangerous side
affects that a minute amount of such a synthetic
hormone could have on their body?

People's Inquiry into the impacts and effects of aerial spraying pesticide over Auckland,NZ. - Aerial Sprays Force Woman into Exile

People's Inquiry into the impacts and effects of aerial spraying pesticide over Auckland,NZ. - Aerial Sprays Force Woman into Exile: "April 2006: “AERIAL SPRAYS FORCE WOMAN INTO EXILE” by Jennifer Mourin, PANAP, Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific. Sally Lewis has become fairly famous in New Zealand. But it’s not because she created film magic by telling stories of brave hobbits, rings and saving ‘middle earth’, nor is it due to winning a surprise gold medal for squash at the Commonwealth games. No, Sally Lewis is well known and almost “infamous” with the media in her homeland because she is an angry woman, who will not let what happened to her, happen to any more people as a result of the aerial spraying the authorities conducted around West Auckland. She is also heartbroken because the life threatening health effects of the sprays are forcing her to leave her country in order to save her life.
..."
Not about LBAM or CheckMate but nevertheless worth a read

Santa Cruz votes to fight state's moth spraying in court - By TOM RAGAN - SENTINEL STAFF WRITER - October 24, 2007

Santa Cruz votes to fight state's moth spraying in court - By TOM RAGAN - SENTINEL STAFF WRITER - October 24, 2007: "In a split vote Tuesday, the Santa Cruz City Council decided to challenge the state's aerial spraying of the light brown apple on the basis the state failed to conduct an environmental review on the impact the pesticide will have on the people and the environment under the California Environmental Quality Act. With City Council members Cynthia Mathews and Lynn Robinson dissenting, Mayor Emily Reilly and councilmen Ed Porter, Tony Madrigal and Ryan Coonerty voted to hire Sacramento environmental attorney Jim Moose to lead the city's fight against the state, said Assistant City Attorney Tony Condotti after the closed session. Moose has worked with the city in the past, most recently in trying to stop UC Santa Cruz from expanding, Condotti said. The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday also condemned the state's plan to spray in urban settings until a full environmental assessment was completed. But the supervisors stopped short of pursuing the matter legally, a disappointment to the some on the City Council who hoped to file a lawsuit jointly, Reilly said."

Notice of Light Brown Apple Moth Program activities

The California Department of Food and Agriculture anticipates that the aerial treatment in the Monterey peninsula area on Wednesday October 24th will proceed as follows:

From 8 to 9 p.m. portions of the communities of Marina, Seaside, and Sand City located in zones CAM204, CAM205, and CAM206 will be treated.

From 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. portions of the communities of Monterey, Pacific Grove, Del Rey Oaks, and Carmel located in zones CAM201, CAM202, and CAM203 will be treated. Due to air traffic concerns, these zones will not be treated before 9 p.m.

If you would like to see a map of the anticipated treatment areas, please click on the following link.

Light Brown Apple Moth Treatment Map

Please be advised that changes in the weather may delay or alter treatment plans. A summary of each night's treatment will be e-mailed to subscribers by 8 a.m. the following morning.

Possible description of the delivery mechanism of the CheckMate spray

research: "Polymer Microcapsules Background One of many fascinating applications of polymer microcapsules is in the area of crop protection. For example, insect pheromones are becoming viable as a biorational alternative to conventional hard pesticides. Specifically, sex-attractant pheromones can reduce insect populations by disrupting their mating process. To this end, small amounts of species-specific pheromone are dispersed during the mating season, raising the background level of pheromone to the point where it hides the pheromone plume released by his female mate."

Collecting samples of the spray raining down on us

This is a link to a California Department of Pesticide Regulation document (PDF file) detailing how to collect pesticide application samples.

You can find the link in context on page
http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/emon/pubs/sopfield.htm
which also has a number of other collection methods.

I carried out a simplified version of this during the first round of spraying:

1. Tape or glue together two layers of cardboard roughly a foot square

2. Fashion some way of placing this board in a location with ideally a 45 degree view of the sky in all directions (no vertical obstacles nearby). I used more duct tape looped to produce double sided stickyness and placed it on an outdoor table.

3. On the night of spraying affix a sheet of paper towel to the cardboard with push-pins.

4. Next morning fold the paper towel without touching it (use the push-pins to lift it) and place between a folded sheet of alufoil.

5. Seal inside a large ziploc bag and mark date and place of collection, and place in freezer.

I have yet to figure out where to send it for analysis, but will work on that.
My idea with this was to both document coverage of areas that are supposed to be sprayed and those that are not, which is why one of our collection sites was in the Monterey Marina.

Stop the Spray!

Stop the Spray!:
Website of "STOP THE SPRAY" who is organizing a petition drive to stop the spraying.

MontereyHerald.com : - Spray ingredients released

MontereyHerald.com : - Spray ingredients released:
Just in case this article disappears here is the list:

"According to the Department of Food and Agriculture, the ingredients of Checkmate LBAM-F are:
Water
(E)-11-Tetradecen-1-yl Acetate
(E,E) -9,11 Tetradecadien-1-yl Acetate
Crosslinked polyurea polymer (this is where the PPI is hiding ;-)
Butylated Hydroxytoluene
Polyvinyl Alcohol
Tricaprylyl Methyl Ammonium Chloride
Sodium Phosphate
Ammonium Phosphate
1,2-benzisothiozoli-3-one
2-hydroxy-4-n-octyloxybenzophenone"

MontereyHerald.com : - Spray ingredients released

MontereyHerald.com : - Spray ingredients released: So anybody know what a "Crosslinked polyurea polymer" is?

MontereyHerald.com : - JUDGE OKS MOTH SPRAY RESUMPTION

MontereyHerald.com : - JUDGE OKS MOTH SPRAY RESUMPTION:

A Monterey County judge today lifted an order blocking the aerial spraying of a controversial material to combat the light brown apple moth.

Judge Robert O' Farrell had earlier blocked the state's schedule for a second round of spraying of the synthetic pheromone on much of the Monterey Peninsula.

He lifted that order today, saying he was satisfied that a potentially hazardous chemical known as PPI isn't in the material the state Department of Food and Agriculture plans to continue applying in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.

The judge also said he was satisfied with steps set up by state officials to investigate any medical complaints that may arise.

A spokesman for the state agricultural department said a revised spraying schedule would be released later today.

An attorney for Helping Our Peninsula's Environment said he would discuss the possibility of quickly appealing the ruling with the Peninsula-based environmental group. The group contended the state should do a full environmental impact report on the moth eradication program.

MontereyHerald.com : - Confusion over moth-mix ingredients

MontereyHerald.com : - Confusion over moth-mix ingredients: "Two California courts dealt serious blows to pesticide manufacturer Suterra LLC this week in its battle to keep the names of once-top-secret ingredients from seeing the light of day."

Assemblymember John Laird - 27th Assembly District

Assemblymember John Laird - 27th Assembly District: Moth information including links to correspondence with CDFA

MontereyHerald.com : - Spray ingredient called 'perfectly safe'

MontereyHerald.com : - Spray ingredient called 'perfectly safe': "Testing completed Thursday shows that a moth pesticide the state hopes to spray over the Central Coast contains no ingredients other than the active pheromone and one 'perfectly safe' food additive, a state attorney told a Monterey judge. The attorney for the group that sued to stop the spraying said the ingredient was identified as butylated hydroxytoluene, or BHT. The additive is a common anti-oxidant used in food products to stop fat from going rancid. Earlier this month, Judge Robert O'Farrell issued a temporary injunction against the spraying because of concern that the pheromone contained a hazardous agent known as PPI. Suterra LLC, maker of CheckMate LBAM-F, later said PPI was a 'starter agent' in the pheromone but was destroyed in the manufacturing process."

Flying Right At the Issue : Monterey County Weekly Newspaper

Flying Right At the Issue : Monterey County Weekly Newspaper: "At odds over the question of trade secrets versus the public’s right to know, a biopesticide manufacturer and the Monterey County Weekly have sued each other."

State warns feds will step in if moth spraying doesn't occur - By TOM RAGAN - SENTINEL STAFF WRITER - October 17, 2007

State warns feds will step in if moth spraying doesn't occur - By TOM RAGAN - SENTINEL STAFF WRITER - October 17, 2007: "Dozens of residents overwhelmingly spoke out Tuesday against the aerial spraying for the light brown apple moth in early November, claiming the pesticide has not been proven to be safe and saying they weren't buying the state's contention that the situation was an emergency."

Judge poised to lift moth spraying ban - By TOM RAGAN - SENTINEL STAFF WRITER - October 19, 2007

Judge poised to lift moth spraying ban - By TOM RAGAN - SENTINEL STAFF WRITER - October 19, 2007: "Judge Robert A. O'Farrell, who is expected to issue a written ruling in the next few days, also said Helping Our Peninsula's Environment, a Carmel environmental group, did not successfully prove the pesticide was responsible for sickening 100 residents in Monterey County. HOPE won its Oct. 10 motion for a temporary restraining order to stop the spraying."