Sierra Club Supports Aerial Spraying of Humans, Wildlife and Environment
Thursday 27 Mar 2008 | LBAM Spray Bay Area
Sierra Club: Traitors to Human and Environmental Health
In a disturbing and disappointing turn of events, the Sierra Club has betrayed the people and wildlife of California by changing their once-decent position on aerial spraying. You can read the whole sickening letter from David Perry here. Here is the epistle’s most horrific paragraph:
(The Sierra Club) Does not oppose the policy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to utilize nontoxic integrated pest management methods including aerial application of microencapsulate pheromones in an effort to eradicate LBAM from the United States. It is an essential part of the program in highly infested areas of significant size.
It might as well have been written by CDFA’s Kawamura…putting ‘nontoxic’ and pheromones in the same sentence when every independent doctor and scientist who has spoken against the spraying has talked themselves hoarse now explaining that the ingredients in the odious spray are SYNTHETIC and HIGHLY TOXIC to humans and animals.
What a bunch of cowards the Sierra Club people are. Clearly, someone has told them they will be benefited in some unspeakable way by checking their ethics at the door and saying it’s okay to spray 7 million human beings and the state’s precious wildlife with:
- Particulate plastic that lodges deeply in the lungs, forever!
- Carcinogens
- Mutagens
- Synthetic Chemicals
The Sierra Club absolutely knows that they are aping their CDFA cronies in applying the innocuous sounding word ‘pheromone’ to what is, in fact, a witch’s brew of grossly harmful substances. They know this. But, they have just told me, and you, that they don’t care that we will all be sprayed with this.
Boycott the Sierra Club for Supporting Crimes Against Humanity
Call them at: 1 415-977-5500
Tell them how outraged you are over them chickening out and failing the people of California
Revoke your membership if you have one and tell them why.
It is completely embarrassing to see the Sierra Club going along with the myth that the Light Brown Apple Moth will harm our state and that it must be eradicated when every non-party scientist who has researched this has long since proved that the moth is NO threat to our food, trees or plants of any kind. The Sierra Club looks like a bunch of clowns for claiming that aerial spraying of 7 million people is an essential part of eradicating infested areas. Infested! Just listen to the fear-mongering language they’ve chosen to adopt. The Sierra Club is a disgrace.
Perhaps most repugnant of all is the way in which David Perry signs his letter with the slogan:
Explore, Enjoy and Protect the Planet
I’d like to suggest a new slogan for the Sierra Club:
Exploit, Destroy and Sicken the Planet
I am completely outraged over the turncoat, cowardly actions of the Sierra Club and hope you will join us in letting them know just how unacceptable their phony-science position is. And, when you’re in the back of an ambulance, rushing your 5 year old son to the ER because he can’t breathe after being force-fed particulate plastic, please remember to send a thank you note to the Sierra Club for saying it’s perfectly fine that this should happen.
Thursday 27 Mar 2008 | admin | LBAM Spray Bay Area |
Thank you for printing this story. I am not a current S.C. member but I have been and I’ve worked on a few campaigns with them. Too bad I have to fight them now. And fight I will. I hope all who read this will join me.
This is completely outrageous that they are buying the lies of CDFA and USDA. The campaigns I worked with S. Club (S. may not stand for Sierra now) were forestry campaigns. Is this what they’re trying to save by spraying; forests?
CDFA has said this moth (a leaf roller) will attack redwoods, monterey pines, etc. These trees don’t have leaves! Good luck rolling a needle!
Speaking of needles, how big a brain can a pinhead hold? Apparently pretty small. Then why not follow their hearts?
I urge anyone who wants to follow this issue to visit the following sites: http://www.lbamspray.com and http://www.cassonline.org.
Please help us stop this toxic assault.
Thank you,
Ray
Dear Ray,
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment, and for advocating, as do we, visiting lbamspray.com and cassonline.org daily to keep tabs on what is happening. We are also blogging about this here nearly every day.
Your point about the evergreen needles is especially important and is one we keep publishing. Leaf roller moths live on leaves…not needles, and as the Harder and Carey reports show, the light brown apple moth will be kept in check by natural predators so long as we don’t kill all those natural predators off with pesticides (birds, bats, beetles, earwigs, etc.)
It is such a disheartening thing to realize that an organization you have supported does not support human life or environmental health and I want to take a moment to thank you for deciding, regretfully, that you can’t support the Sierra Club because of their cowardly and unintelligent position on the aerial spraying of California.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment. Please, visit again.
Sierra Club California’s email to me from
Bill Magavern Director (My email response follows)
Sierra Club California supports a precautionary moratorium on the aerial spraying designed to eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth. The moratorium is necessary to allow for the assessment of control strategies that can effectively manage the pest to acceptable thresholds without compromising human and environmental health. We call for the use of control strategies that avoid public exposure to pesticides that cause cancer, birth defects, mutations, or reproductive effects, or alter the immune system or behavior of non-target organisms. These strategies may include the use of nontoxic integrated pest management methods, including aerial application of pheromones in highly infested areas of significant size. We call for the public disclosure of any and all ingredients to be sprayed and the informed consent of the residents affected by the spraying. Sierra Club California supports the following measures pending in the State Legislature:
SCR 87 (Migden), which calls for a moratorium on the spraying until it can be proven safe and effective.
AB 2760 (Leno), which would require the completion of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) before aerial application of pesticides in urban areas for LBAM eradication. The EIR is the state tool for undertaking an alternatives assessment of impacts on human and environmental health.
AB 2763 (Laird), which would require advance planning for the control of invasive species in a scientifically methodical and publicly transparent manner.
AB 2765 (Huffman), which would require disclosure of pesticide ingredients, examination of alternatives to aerial spraying, and a public hearing to consider all alternatives before eradication projects in urban areas could begin.
ACR 117 (Laird), which would require independent scientific review of the health and scientific questions about the LBAM spraying program.
Bill Magavern
Director
Sierra Club California
Bill Magavern email: Bill.Magavern@sierraclub.org
My Email Response:
As a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, I do not support the aerial application of microencapsulate pheromones in an effort to eradicate the light brown apple moth. I plan to move out of the LBAM eradication areas. The microencapsulates cause breathing difficulties and can get lodged deep into one’s lungs. The American Lung Association is against any and all microencapsulate pheromones, toxic pesticides, and any and all toxic chemicals aerial and ground sprayed to eradicate any type of insects.
My daughter, who has asthma and allergies, attends the University of California Santa Cruz. Last week, she met with her physician and he told her to not return to Santa Cruz once the LBAM spraying begins since it would make her asthma conditions worsen. She now has to return home with the hope of not being sprayed where we live and apply to other colleges outside the LBAM eradication areas.
Hopefully, the Sierra Club of California and the national Sierra club will publicly oppose the policy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California Department of Food and Agriculture in utilizing aerial application of microencapsulate pheromones in a effort to eradicate LBAM and support integrated pest management methods that do not utilize toxic chemicals on humans and the environment.
The Sierra Club’s wishy washy resolution just keeps changing the wording a little here and there, but in essence it’s never taken a strong stand on this issue.
For a remarkable showing of backbone, the employees of the East Bay Regional Park District, AFSCME Local 2428, take the lead for labor in opposition of the USDA/CDFA LBAM pesticide program!
Take this to your unions, co-ops, collectives, your fellow workers, students, and activists, and especially so-called environmentalists like the Sierra Club who try to please both sides of a battle, and show ‘em how it should be done:
Date: April 10, 2008
To: Distribution
Re: AFSCME Local 2428 Resolution Opposing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s (CDFA) Pesticide Program to Attempt to Eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth:
WHEREAS, this union of park workers is pledged to conserve the land, the air, the water, and the life that resides there for the present sustenance of the people and use by future generations; and
WHEREAS, the Union/Management Ecology Committee is working in a cooperative manner to implement the District’s goal of reducing the use of chemicals on District property; and
WHEREAS, each of the methods planned by the USDA and CDFA’s pesticide program to attempt to eradicate the light brown apple moth, whether by aerial spraying, ground spraying, twist ties, permethrins on trees and utility poles, chemical traps, or other related methods have known and unknown negative health and environmental impacts associated with them; and
WHEREAS, science has shown that chemicals in the environment pose significant health risks to the public and the ecosystem; and
WHEREAS, scientists have reported that the light brown apple moth has not caused any substantial crop damage and is more successfully controlled without the use of chemicals, by encouraging natural predators and healthy soils to prevent the spread of damaging infestations; and
WHEREAS, Local 2428 is concerned about the health and safety of park workers and park users, especially the most vulnerable populations of young, old, or the infirm who may be exposed while working or visiting in District parklands to unnecessary and untested levels of known carcinogenic and mutagenic chemicals.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, Local 2428 strongly opposes this eradication plan and demands that the USDA downgrade the pest classification of the light brown apple moth to reflect the lack of risk it poses; and
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, Local 2428 will work with communities across the state, the nation, and the globe to seek alternatives to chemical pest management by creating healthy habitat, including, but not limited to, the use of bio-intensive gardening to attract natural predators and soil microbes, and the addition of organic compost to add nitrogen and minerals to the soil in order to support the plants’ own immunity against “pests.”