This is so unacceptable that any government would turn its own citizens into refugees, fleeing for their health, their lives, being chased across the state by airplanes raining poison on us all.

Your story makes me so angry and so determined that we must stop the CDFA in their immoral, terrifying plan. This should never have happened to your family in the first place, and it’s completely outrageous that it would happen again.

The bottom line is that, all across California, we are fighting for our lives, and though everyone I have spoken to is committed to doing this without violence, we do need a real plan to ensure that we are protected from this aggressive action of CDFAs. Perhaps it will be the city mayors that use their power to authorize the police to defend us from an aerial assault. We are in desperate need of protection from CDFA, and I really hope we get it so that your family is not assaulted a second time.

Thank you for sharing your story, Christine. I sincerely pray that a time of peace is coming to your family soon. I hope you’ll comment here at Vegan Reader again.

Mim

My family and I were living in the Santa Cruz area during the spray last fall. I came down with a strange respiratory illness that wouldn’t heal through usual means (acupuncture, herbs). I had sneezing, and constant intense itching in my eyes and nose. I could tell that it was not a normal sort of allergic reaction. As soon as we moved away to Marin in January, I was fine.

Now we are being threatened with the same garbage here, and I have to say that I understand wanting to shoot planes out of the sky!
We just moved our entire lives and those of our children.The thought of having to leave Marin really infuriates me! Here’s the kicker, my husband works for the STATE and there is no way they will grant him a transfer because of the spray!

Hope to see you all at the march tomorrow!

Christine

Your daughter’s doctor is, of course, quite right. I am so sorry that her college education has been so disrupted by this. Unbelievable! The consequences this has had for countless people in their daily lives are totaling up into the millions, I am sure, and it grieves me to think that your child’s education has become a casualty of the spraying.

Here is the trouble. As you’ve said, the USDA is now planning to look for this moth across the US. I’ve been afraid of this…afraid that aerial spraying in California was the beginning of a national spraying campaign. Not only does it make it nearly impossible to pick any place in the US to live where we would be safe from spraying, but it also makes it even more vital that we stop the spraying here - tell the government they are not permitted to spray human beings. Our country needs to stop right now on this horribly wrong path we’ve started down.

I really appreciate your clearheaded assessment of the financial motive behind the endangerment of human lives and the more people realize this, the more outrage there will be. I send very best wishes to you and your daughter for a time of peace to come back to your family.

Mim

I live in Fremont and my daughter is attending UC Santa Cruz. Here physician has already told her to leave Santa Cruz because of the lbam spraying. She has asthma and allergies and this will make it her medical conditions worse once the spraying begins. Luckily, last fall, UC Santa Cruz’s upper campus, where she lives and attends classes, was not sprayed. So, she will be coming home right before the spraying begins and needing to attend college elsewhere. The City of Fremont is not currently scheduled to be sprayed.

Spraying pesticides over urban areas when there has been no scientific evidence to support or deny the potential short and/or long term human and environmental consequences breaks all moral, ethical, and legal boundaries to say the least. Our most vulnerable populations, which includes, pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants, children, elderly, medically vulnerable populations and the risk these pesticides could potentially have on them, as well as, even healthy people and our environment is a major concern. Over the decades, there have been so many scientific studies that demonstrates that pesticides do effect our health and environment both short and long term.

The United States Department of Agriculture just announced today that they will be looking for the light brown apple moth in every state and in Puerto Rico. This should have been determined before Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties were sprayed along with the health and environmental risk assessments to the pesticide chemicals being utilized.

The real problem is a trade issue. California’s light brown apple moth quarantined areas make it difficult for farmers and nurseries to trade outside the quarantined areas, which includes other states, Mexico, and Canada, which is where the true economic loss is to the agriculture businesses. The moth has caused no plant damage and is considered a minor pest in other countries.

This is all about agriculture’s profits over the safety of humans and the environment, which needs to change through legislation, lawsuits, and opposition.

Please continue to write and telephone California Governor “Terminator” and Senator Barbara Boxer who chairs the Environmental Quality Committee. Unfortunately, Senator Feinstein is on the Agriculture Committee.

Santa Rosa, at the moment, might not be the worst choice, but I would avoid any place in the Sonoma Valley (Kenwood, Glen Ellen, Sonoma, etc.) because spraying is a norm there due to the rampant alcohol industry which has pretty much wrecked that whole beautiful region.

The tough thing about this is that even some miles away…say in Santa Rosa…you have to deal with the fact that pesticide, sprayed on the ground or aerially, drifts. I recently read a study that says 50 miles of drift isn’t abnormal, so that means when Marin County is sprayed, if it isn’t stopped, Sonoma County will get it, too.

We need to stop the aerial spraying, and then we really need to take on the Conventional food industry as a whole. Because of modern growing practices, there is no state in the U.S. you can move to in order to be free of pesticides. The U.S. is responsible for a whopping 20% of the world’s pesticide use and it has ruined our soils and contaminated our water. If we want to save our lands for the use of future generations, and protect the human gene pool, we must go back to the wisdom of the ages of growing food in such a way that natural balances create a health agricultural environment.

The earlier civilizations of both North and South America sustained huge populations with completely organic farming. Biodiversity, not poison, is the key.

I am so sorry to hear for the extreme changes you’re having to make in your life, and I feel the anguish of having to leave your loved ones behind to protect yourself. This is a terrible price to pay for the profits of CDFA and Stuart Resnick of Suterra LLC. I wish you strength in this battle, and an eventual time of peace in your life, Donna.

Mim