overview
Last fall, the State of California sprayed pesticides over Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties to control the potentially invasive Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM).
In the following weeks, over 600 people reported adverse health effects, ranging from breathing problems to rashes.
Since then, tens of thousands of Californians have called on Governor Schwarzenegger to investigate the health complaints and place a moratorium on future aerial pesticide spraying.
June 19, 2008: State Stops Aerial Spray, Continues With Controversial Toxic Ground & Air Measures.
Stop the Spray groups are alive and well, and continue to oppose untested, unsafe, unnecessary chemicals being used in our communities, public and agricultural lands.
Please stay tuned for updates and calls to action as the summer proceeds…
Attend our meetings to meet the team, get info or take action! We meet on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month.
Stop the Spray SF Meetings
WHEN:
6:00 - 7:30 pm
Wednesday, August 13th
Wednesday, August 27th
Wednesday, September 10th
WHERE:
776 Haight Street at Scott (Sophia Healing Center).
FEATURED VIDEO OF THE WEEK
"A Skirmish Won, the Campaign Goes On"
Business executive Foster Gamble, a co-founder of CASSonline.org, gives his analysis of the CDFA’s decision not to aerial spray toxic pesticides over California urban areas. While celebrating the significant victory for grassroots organizing it represents, he goes on to examine what it really means for the CDFA and for the Stop the Spray movement. He shares his research on the various agendas driving pesticide and agriculture policy, looks at who benefits and who loses and what steps the movement needs to take to confront this larger picture.
FEATURED ACTION OF THE WEEK
TAKE BACK LOCAL CONTROL OF PESTICIDES!
A very important bill, AB 977
Authored by Assemblymember Fiona Ma, is being heard in a Senate committee this Wednesday, August 6th, in Sacramento.
This bill strips away the State's right to pre-empt any local ordinances regulating pesticide use, returning control of pesticides to cities and counties. Several of us from various Stop the Spray groups will be attending the committee hearing, where the bill is likely to pass. It faces its biggest hurdle thereafter when it is sent to the Senate Agriculture Committee for approval.
FEATURED ACTION OF THE WEEK
Your Comments are Needed in the LBAM EIR Process
CA Dept of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) has published a Notice of Preparation (NOP) for the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on the LBAM program: your comments are needed for this process, see suggested bullet points at end of this message.
Highlights of the CDFA Notice of Preparation (NOP) :
- the LBAM program is now expanded to cover almost all of the state; in other words, CDFA is trying to get advance ok to treat in almost any part of CA for LBAM although treatments are currently planned for only 12 counties
- as previously announced, treatments that may be carried out in urban areas include: release of sterile moths, pheromone twist ties hung in trees, ground sprays of Bt and spinosad, application of the pesticide permethrin to telephone poles and trees, and release of large numbers of parasitic wasps. Information about each of these treatments below at the end of this message. NOTE that property owners have the right to refuse any of these treatments on their private property.
You can download the NOP at the CDFA LBAM web page
Under "Hot Topics", click on the Environmental Impact Report Notice of Preparation link