Imagine a spray plane pilot, flying at night.

Imagine a spray plane pilot, flying at night over San Francisco.

Imagine a spray plane pilot on drugs, flying at night over San Francisco.

Imagine a spray plane pilot on drugs, flying at night over San Francisco at 500 feet amidst 800 foot tall skyscrapers.

It’s not a safe picture. But, I have yet to hear a single government official address the fact that they intend to make 450 low flights over the San Francisco city skyline over the next decade, and that the pilots will be flying in a cloud of mind-altering substances.

The TransAmerica building is 853 feet high - the third highest building in California - and it is just one of some 43 skyscrapers that stand 400 feet and above in the city skyline.

“In November, they sprayed us in Santa Cruz with really low flying planes.”

“The planes have been flying low almost continuously since 8pm.”

“An untested pesticide was aerially sprayed on approximately 100,000 citizens on the Monterey peninsula from airplanes flying below 500 feet.”

“A very low flying plane did about six passes over my house.”

These are quotes from Central Coast residents who repeatedly remarked on the frighteningly low altitude of the spray planes.

We have been told by CDFA that their pesticide pilots fly at an altitude of between 500-800 feet. Is this above the ground, or above the height of the tallest building? If above the ground, we have every chance of one of the drugged pilots crashing into the TransAmerica building on one of the hundreds of flights. If it’s above the height of the tallest building, does this mean that the pesticide planes will be flying at 1300-1600 feet in the air? If so, what exactly does that do to the measurement of the miles and miles of pesticide drift that will emanate from the pesticide planes?

No one is answering these questions. Per usual, CDFA’s do-first, think-later policy is shining through here.

And no one, not one government official, is addressing the fact that the pilots will be operating complex machinery under the influence of drugs over or amongst crowded urban landscapes of skyscrapers.

California Codes Health and Safety Code Section 24170-24179.5
109925 - Definition of a Drug:
Any article other than food that is used or intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of human beings or any other animal.

As the pesticide, CheckMate, was designed to alter the function of the Light Brown Apple Moth, the California Health and Safety Code classifies it as a drug.

Additionally, human subjects forcefully exposed to this drug on the Central Coast in 2007 experienced the following neurological and physical side effects:

Involuntary muscular movements and twitches
Jittery, nervous feelings
Racing and irregular heartbeats
Burning, itching eyes
Difficulty breathing
Vomiting
Light-headedness, faintness
Tremors
Exhaustion
Dizziness

In other words, there is every chance that exhausted, dizzy, jittery pilots who are feeling like they are going to faint, and attempting to fly with blurry, burning eyes while they experience involuntary muscular twitches will be flying amongst and above San Francisco’s skyscrapers, night after night, month after month, year after year. It is easy to see that this is a catastrophe waiting to happen. It only takes one pilot on drugs making one mistake to maim and kill thousands of residents in an area as populous as the city.

So, those are the tough questions for our state and federal government. Why are you intending to let pilots under the influence of drugs fly low over urban areas, risking millions of human lives? Please, don’t tell us it’s because of the doings of some moth.

And now, we have to ask the tough question of the city governments of places like San Francisco and Oakland with their numerous tall buildings. These governments have come out in absolute opposition to the actions of CDFA and the USDA, but are continuing to receive the stone-faced response that the planes will start flying in August.

What preparations are being made to respond to the very real potential of drugged government pilots crashing into our cities? Has an emergency task force been created to deal with such a disaster? Just weeks ago, the SF Chronicle documented the dire problems afflicting the city’s 9-1-1 call center. Dangerous understaffing has resulted in 439 people dying since 2004 while waiting for 9-1-1 help to arrive.

Is San Francisco making any type of emergency preparations at all for the potential airplane crashes and epidemic pesticide poisoning?

Though we are hoping and working to stop the spray, we are in danger of being lulled by our own sense of disbelief - the illusion that aerial spraying just couldn’t happen here, the illusion that spray planes couldn’t hit our cities, the illusion that somehow everything will be okay.

I urge Bay Area residents and local governments to realize that the spraying really did happen in the Central Coast, despite tremendous opposition. There is every chance it will happen here, and we are now talking about a couple of weeks between you reading this sentence and the first plane taking off.

Justice would be House Speaker Pelosi cornering Ag Secretary Kawamura and demanding to know how he thinks he can get away with sending pilots on drugs into San Francisco. I would like to hear Pelosi ask exactly how Kawamura proposes that the city wash off the TransAmerica building after each spray, as has been suggested by the CDFA as part of their endless stream of utter nonsense. I would like to hear House Speaker Pelosi take apart every unrealistic, dangerous, and false statement that has been made to the people of California by CDFA and demand to know why they thought they could get away with actions like these in the 21st century.

But, I can’t count on Pelosi. San Francisco can’t count on her or anyone else in the government to behave in a realistic manner or protect us from this imminent aerial bombardment. So what, San Francisco, are we going to do to protect ourselves? These are questions no one wants to hear, but we have only days left in which to answer them.

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Update from reader, Diane:

What Bob Dowell said in that presentation is that the city of San Francisco has 3 specific logistic issues when it comes to spraying - none of which they have even addressed or worked out yet:

1. The tall buildings downtown
2. The almost constant fog and wind
3. The fact that we are surrounded by water on 3 sides

That is all he basically said. I was floored because what that tells us is they have no idea how they are going to execute the aerial spraying while accommodating those issues. One could speculate that they could simply fly the planes at a higher altitude downtown, and that they will likely just disregard the water, and if some spray gets in the water they obviously don’t care. But the fog/wind thing is a big issue… what it will mean for residents is that the spray will be scheduled, then it will be canceled, and it will go on indefinitely like that… keeping everyone in flux all the time.

He did say that they would have to give 2 weeks notice of any rescheduling of the spray, but as we have all heard, that’s not how things went down in Santa Cruz - and people were sprayed basically without notice there because they canceled 3 days in a row and then sprayed on the 4th day when everyone thought it was canceled. In all honesty, I really don’t see how they can execute this plan given the sheer logistics of having to work around water, wind, fog and tall buildings… and do it REPEATEDLY for years… it doesn’t make any sense at all. But that’s just my personal take on it.

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