Jun 19, 2008 7:46 pm US/Pacific 
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State Drops Plan For Bay Area Moth Spraying
SACRAMENTO (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ―
State and federal officials Thursday abruptly suspended California's
aerial spraying program to combat the crop-eating light brown apple moth in
the Bay Area and other urban locations, after months of protests, lawsuits and
media scrutiny over its unclear impacts on the environment and human
health.
CBS 5 Investigates had previously reported that the pheromone
pesticide spraying program may not work and that the moth is not a threat
to crops.
State Secretary of Food and Agriculture A.G. Kawamura,
apparently in reaction to the growing public pressure, announced that all
plans to send up planes to spray pheromones to fight the moth in densely
populated urban areas throughout the state were canceled.
"I
know there's concern out there and we want to be able to address that," Kawamura
told reporters Thursday afternoon. "Our focus is to use the technology that has
moved progressively forward."
Instead of spraying, U.S. Department
of Agriculture spokesman Larry Hawkins
said scientists would release sterile moths in 2009 to
target the invasive pest, keeping it from reproducing by rendering its eggs
useless.
In a letter to agriculture officials, California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger said the effort to develop a mass sterile insect colony was
a "worthy accomplishment."
Breeding the sterile moths will cost about $37
million annually, just half the cost of the aerial sprays, said John Connell,
the state agency's director of plant health test prevention
services.
Aerial spraying would still be used in rural agricultural
areas that are inaccessible by road. Also, sticky traps and twist ties
containing the pheromone would continue to be installed on plants and
fences in residential neighborhoods or near fields, Hawkins
noted.
Kawamura said sterile moths have been a part of the state's plans
for more than a year, and that new science - not environmental concerns -
prompted the change in direction.
But politicians from Monterey to
Sonoma, as well as a broad coalition of anti-spray activists, swiftly claimed
the decision as their own, hard-won triumph.
"Ever since this thing came
out I always thought it was a public disaster," said U.S. Rep. Sam Farr,
D-Calif. "The spraying started and people just went nuts. It became the
lightening rod for protests and that put the whole program at risk."
About 600 people complained of feeling sick when planes applied the
first round of spraying of the pheromone pesticide Checkmate in Monterey
and Santa Cruz counties last fall.
The two counties and an environmental
group sued the state, raising concerns about the pesticide's effects on human
and ecological health. They contended Kawamura broke state law by
authorizing the aerial campaign without the benefit of environmental
review.
The state had claimed it was an emergency, arguing that the moth
was a threat to California agriculture and that it had to be eradicated
immediately, so there was no time to conduct environmental impact
tests.
In addition, state environmental health experts said the illnesses
reported after the first round of spraying couldn't conclusively be linked to
efforts to eradicate the dime-sized Australian pest.
But in recent
months, judges in Santa Cruz and Monterey halted plans to respray those counties
pending results of environmental impact reports. Meantime, when state officials
announced a plan to start spraying in August over 7 million Bay
Area residents — the reaction was outrage.
Over the past eight weeks,
concerned citizens, lawmakers and experts voiced loud opposition, filing
petitions and lawsuits.
On Thursday, groups representing hundreds of
residents across Northern California said the decision was proof their protests
had worked.
"Wahoo! This is a landmark victory for the public," said
David Dilworth, executive director of the Carmel-based Helping Our Peninsula's
Environment. "People had to spend thousands and thousands of hours of high level
work to get a bureaucracy to do the obviously moral choice."
The insect,
which federal officials said threatens more than 2,000 varieties of California
plants and crops, was first spotted in the state in March 2007 and has infested
10 counties stretching from north of San Francisco to Santa Barbara.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The
Associated Press and Bay City News contributed to this report.)
