Dear Audubon Members,

I’m a wild bird illustrator and the author of my county’s birding blog - Birding Sonoma County. I am writing to you today to urge you to investigate a devastating threat to California’s already-reduced wild bird populations.

In the fall of 2007, the California Department of Food and Agriculture aerially sprayed the Central Coast with a substance called Checkmate, classified by the EPA as a pesticide, as part of their statewide Light Brown Apple Moth Program. The substance is made up of 3 main components: a synthetic moth pheromone mimic, a host of so-called ‘inert’ ingredients which are documented mutagens, carcinogens and endocrine disrupters, and the delivery system which is made up of microscopic plastic spheres, 1/2 of which are smaller than the designation PM10. PM10 is the term used by the American Lung Association to describe particulate matter of a size small enough to be inhaled into the deep lung. Once inhaled, PM10 causes chronic disease and death.

Following the 2007 aerial spraying, residents, farmers, scientists and media reported the following damages to wild birds, wildlife and pets:

1) More than 650 dead sea birds washed up on the beaches of Monterey and Santa Cruz. The Bay, rivers and other watershed bodies, as well as the birds, were covered with a thick, yellow foam, which when examined under a microscope proved to contain the particulate microcapsules. Simultaneously, the Central Coast experienced a red tide the like of which had never been seen before in history. Red tides happen on the Central Coast in the spring, but this was in the fall and appeared directly following the spray. There is a theory that a surfactant in the spray washed the natural oils from the seabirds’ plumage and caused them to drown. Or, they may have died from PM10 inhalation. Whatever the case may be, hundreds died and among them was the federally protected endangered Brown Pelican - a bird which is only now beginning to make a comeback from near-extinction caused by the spraying of DDT.

2) The Central Coast is an area rich in wild bird habitat and residents greatly enjoy the diverse populations of migratory and year-round birds in their gardens. Following the spraying, residents reported that they awoke to a world without birdsong, that birds had vanished from their gardens and that seed and nectar feeders went unvisited for weeks. This absence of wild birds was noticed throughout the aerial spray zone and went on for several weeks following the spraying.

3) In addition to the deaths of wild birds, cats, dogs, rabbits and fish in landscaping ponds died following the spraying. Furthermore, Central Coast gardeners and beekeepers reported massive confusion in their honey bee colonies. The bees were discovered struggling on the ground, confused and unable to fly. Beekeepers reported a dieoff of their swarms.

I urge your Audubon Society to verify the accuracy of what I am relating by reading the following official reports:

Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) Eradication Program: Post Spray Effects on Animals and Pets
http://lbamspray.com/Reports/SprayEffectsAnimalsPets.pdf

Potential Effects on Pollinators and Implications for California Agriculture
http://lbamspray.com/Reports/Bees.pdf

Here is a video regarding the bird dieoff:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=c5NMhVwWe3I

In addition to the aerial spraying, it is the intention of CDFA to use ground measures including toxic twist ties and permethrin coated telephone poles. Trees and telephone poles are the nesting and roosting habitats of so many of our wild birds. You may find additional information regarding the toxicity of the twist ties here:

here

here

As you may have heard by now, Checkmate caused hundreds of families to fall ill in the Central Coast, but others have taken on the task of documenting this information. I am writing to you because I know you share my terrible concern over our vanishing wild bird populations and that Audubon so strongly supports protection of bird habitat and health.

What happened in the Central Coast is a red flag for all of California as CDFA’s list of target areas now comprises 11 counties and keeps growing. If CDFA and the USDA had paid attention to the first die offs caused by DDT in the 20th century, the devastation to hundreds of bird species would not have happened. Only now have populations like the Western Bluebird and the Brown Pelican begun to show signs of recovery.

Now CDFA and the USDA have created a new threat to our wild birds - and to us. Per usual, they have gone on the record proclaiming the safety of their latest pesticide of choice, but my hope is that Audubon members have already learned the lesson of pesticide danger too well to be fooled by any assurance about any new pesticides. It is also worth noting here that CDFA has refused to acknowledge the damage that has already been done by Checkmate - just as they did for years with DDT.

I urge your group to get educated about this #1 threat to California’s wild birds and environment. In addition to being vigorously opposed by city councils, town mayors, supervisors, representatives and senators, the aerial spraying and ground measures have caused other groups to draft resolutions opposing the spray. For example, the East Bay Parks Association has just published a resolution against spraying their parks. Lawsuits and bills are being put into action, and the media is beginning to show signs of brilliant investigation of this issue. They have, in fact, caught CDFA Secretary, A.G. Kawamura, making deceptive statements to the public on film.

Unfortunately, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a very improper allegiance both to Kawamura and to the pesticide manufacturer - he has received hundreds of thousands in political donations from both parties and has stated that he feels obliged to them. Rather than being one with the people of California whom he was elected to serve, he is referring to himself as one with CDFA.

Lastly, CDFA has just been convicted by a Santa Cruz Superior Court for violating the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by creating a false state of emergency in order to receive millions in funding from the Federal Government. In so doing, they were able to bypass all the safeguards of testing that are in place to protect humans, wildlife and environment. The judge found them guilty of illegal activity in declaring their phony ‘emergency’. So, we are dealing with lawbreakers when we are dealing with Kawamura and CDFA and everything they say is suspect.

Audubon’s action could be vital here in protecting our already-diminished wild bird populations from a second DDT disaster. The aerial spraying will be starting this summer across California and it will be happening up to 5 nights a month, 9 months a year for up to 10 or more years, resulting in chronic pesticide exposure for all of us. There is nothing more important your members could be doing right now in California than mobilizing against this spray, getting the ear of the National Audubon society and getting strong resolutions drafted against the entire unwarranted, terribly dangerous program.

Like me, I believe you feel a chill in your bones thinking of those dead sea birds and the gardens of the Central Coast being devoid of bird song. We must not let this happen to California.

To read more about this, please visit the following websites:
http://www.cassonline.org
http://www.stopthespray.org
http://www.lbamspray.com
http://www.dontspraycalifornia.org
http://www.veganreader.com

I welcome any questions you may have and would appreciate your reply.
Kind Regards,
&etc.
——————

*Note to Vegan Reader’s Valued Readers:

I have sent the above letter to the 43 chapters of California Audubon for which I could find contact information. If you abhor what happened to the Central Coast birds and don’t want any further wildlife to be harmed and exterminated by Checkmate and CDFA’s ground programs, I urge you to send your own call to action to Audubon. Here is a list of addresses for the 43 chapters:

wba@acm.org
jdhuckabay@sbcglobal.net,
jacknjanet@bigvalley.net,
rcongersky@conejovalleyaudubon.org,
apples@thegrid.net,
pcpumphrey@schat.net,
John.Hlavac@alumni.ucr.edu,
bhill968@scccd.org,
emurdock@goldengateaudubon.org,
madielsea@aol.com,
brubakerfros@aol.com,
mariomagician@hotmail.com,
LAAS@laaudubon.org,
bsalzman@worldnet.att.net,
djensen@mcn.org,
asoleado2003@yahoo.com,
jansurbey@earthlink.net,
jedgar@AG70.younglife.org,
kmauro2@yahoo.com,
cheryleharris@sbcglobal.net,
pagpeg@aol.com,
pennybirder@juno.com,
willo2001@earthlink.net,
cevaughn@pacific.net,
dguthrie@jsd.claremont.edu,
president@redbudaudubon.org,
icteria@hotmail.com,
k.wag@comcast.net,
drew-f@worldnet.att.net,
redfern@sandiegoaudubon.org,
aKotin@earthlink.net,
k1mize@aol.com,
dchirman@starband.net,
scvas@scvas.org,
lucienplauzoles@aol.com,
aljanetbaumann@aol.com,
carolmasterson@sbcglobal.net,
rheathwakelee@cs.com,
froba@comcast.net,
xchiker@sbcglobal.net,
marianneslaughter@yahoo.com,
bxoliver@c-zone.net,
kris_randal@yahoo.com

We’ve been keeping track of Ag. Secretary A.G. Kawamura’s mounting total of lies to the public. Here’s his latest intentionally deceptive statement:

“I urge all Bay Area families to remember this eradication is based on the best science; a decade of worldwide aerial pheromone applications shows no indication of human health threats and I assure them that a product for aerial treatment in 2008 will not be chosen until it is proven safe to people, pets and the environment. I also encourage everyone rely on scientifically proven research and ignore false information that causes an alarming amount of unwarranted fear.”

To take it apart:

1) It’s not an eradication. Former CDFA and USDA workers have stepped forward to state that use of pheromones is a control measure, not an eradication measure.

2) The pesticide/pheromone compound Checkmate has absolutely not been in use for 10 years over urban populations nor has any new formula they intend to test on the people of California.

3) Following the aerial spraying in 2007, the government, in fact, received 643 reports from sickened families. Subsequent reports have been issued documenting the deaths of birds, bees, fish, cats, dogs and rabbits. CDFA has abundant evidence at their disposal now proving that their product is toxic and deadly to humans and animals.

Yet, he keeps lying, and insulting the intelligence of Californians by urging us to believe in him - a lawbreaker who was convicted by the Superior Court of violating CEQA - rather than believing the expert testimony of disinterested parties including scientists, doctors and statisticians. A.G. Kawamura urges us all to rely on scientific research, while CDFA turns a blind eye to all of the scientists who are reporting the harm of this spraying.

A.G. Kawamura is saying that major media like CBS 5 is very foolish for documenting the harm that has been done on the Central Coast and demonstrating how 7 million people will be harmed if the spraying resumes this year. CBS, alone, has caught Kawamura lying on film half a dozen times, to my recollection.

A.G. Kawamura also patronizes the intelligence of hundreds of informed parents who are on the move, marching, demanding that their children not be subjected to deadly pesticides and PM10 pollution.

All these silly people, spreading misinformation across the web, across the state, just aren’t as smart as A.G., apparently. I don’t know that I’ve ever encountered a more arrogant person than this lawless, deceitful secretary.

“USDA’s Credibility Is At Stake,” proclaims California Farmer editor, Len Richardson, shedding light on the fact that while CDFA is lying to us, they are blackmailing the farmers who grow our food. From this must-read article:

California is under the same USDA quarantine list (read: blackmail) as other countries. Go along with it, or you can’t export — no matter that USDA will spend another $75 million (for spraying) that could be better spent elsewhere, and spraying has already made people sick.

Who, in their right mind, would trust an agency that creates an illegal emergency to gain millions in federal funding, puts unwarranted quarantines on organic farmers, promulgates the ludicrous concept that inhaling pesticide is fine for people and then looks the other way when the reports of irreparable damage start flooding in from all sides? I would take editor Len Richardson’s statement one step further. CDFA and USDA’s names are mud now in California. I can think of no other agencies so deeply mistrusted, criticized and despised here. Everyone I know has now had it up-to-here with the deceit and the patronizing urgings that we ‘trust’ these failed agencies.

“I encourage you to keep the pressure on,” says state senate candidate, Joe Nation. “This is the beginning of the end of pesticide use in California.”

Vegan Reader supports this goal, and we hope it is also the beginning of the end of A.G. Kawamura’s shameful career as a ‘public servant’.

Hats off to the JAM Band for creating this terrific Anti-Spray Video.

It was a really nice surprise to see some Vegan Reader images used in this very well-made video. We are so glad that people are using these images in so many creative ways. I first heard this catchy little tune, There Ain’t No Moths On Me, on KGO a couple of weeks ago and have been humming it ever since.

Great job on the video, folks! Keep fighting! And don’t let anyone describe the across-the-board socio-political opposition happening in California as the ‘concerns of some environmentalists’. Outrage and protest are coming from mothers, fathers, grandparents, farmers, teachers, doctors, scientists, statisticians, nurses, young folks, elders, representatives, senators, mayors, city councils, military men, organic consumers, Whole Foods, musicians, public parks workers, birdwatchers, Silicon Valley executives and the media. We are not few - we are many, from all walks of life, demanding that no one ever presume to the right to spray us with deadly toxins. The right is on our side.

My kind readers sent such lovely get-well notes 2 weeks ago when the vineyard next door put me in the emergency hospital as they started their annual bi-monthly spraying of their crop. Well, here we go again.

My husband and I had worked all day and night and had sat down for an hour of rest at the end of our long day. We had a little snack and I was going to do some embroidery for relaxation. I wasn’t paying much attention to the fact that I started to wheeze. I was so tired. Then I started to cough. And then I heard the machine. Outside, lighting up my yard and all my neighbors yards’ with vast ghostly plumes of light and deadly toxic chemicals, the ground spraying had resumed.

This is a photo taken by Maxina Ventura from Don’t Spray California of the ground spraying that is a nightly event in the alcohol country that is Sonoma Valley. Maxina has assembled the most comprehensive documentation about the toxic trespass residents and tourists to this area are subjected to between April-October, every year, year after year.

My husband and I are renters here. We are desperately looking for a new home in a less-toxic place, but in the meantime, our only choice is to jump up at 2 AM when the machines go on, cover our mouths with scarves, run to our car and drive away into the night, driving past vineyard after vineyard where the machines are going, filling the air with toxins that cause neurological disorders, disease like cancer and, obviously, death. It’s a world so few people see when marketers invite them for a romantic stay in the ‘Wine Country’. It’s a world which most residents are oblivious to, sound asleep as they are in their beds, living with diseases for years of their lives without ever connecting the dots.

Last night, we drove all the way to the ocean and back, trying to fill our lungs with the fresher air, trying not to complain too much about being tired, cold and evicted. We’ve been through this so many times now since I first got sick during last year’s spraying.

Eventually, you have to come home again. Dawn had just broken over the beautiful mountains here when we returned to the valley. Everywhere, neighbors were getting up to start their day. Doubtless some are wondering why they are having asthma-like symptoms. Why their eyes are burning. Why they have a rash. Why their mouth tastes like they were sucking on a piece of rusty metal in their sleep. Why the kids are throwing up. Why everyone around here dies of cancer. Maybe tragedy struck someone’s house last night and a family has awoken in my neighborhood to find their new baby a victim of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome - cause unknown.

You’d think to yourself, “this has to be illegal!” How can one man decide to poison all his neighbors and not be sent to prison? How can this be?

But, here in the long, wide, populous Sonoma Valley, all agencies, all newspapers, everything bends over backward to protect the poisoner’s right to poison, calling it good business.

And now, as you’ve read, they’ve quarantined a portion of the valley because of the discovery of 2 little moths. The Sonoma City Council just passed their resolution against aerial spraying, but no resolution will be passed about what will actually happen here because of the moth. CDFA can come and put up as many toxic twist ties as they want, but I predict the billionaires who own the endless stretches of ugly vineyards won’t leave it at that. I predict that every vineyard in and along the spray zone will respond to the threat of quarantine by blanketing the land, air and water with even more organophosphates and other deadly toxins than usual. They will cause even more illness, even more deaths in their greedy pursuit of ever more billions of dollars.

Feeling pretty sick today. Time to go look at Craigslist again.

CONTACT:
San Franciscans Concerned About the Spray
Kelly McMenimen — 415-673-6783

SAN FRANCISCO TOWN HALL ON APPLE MOTH AERIAL SPRAY – GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE WALK ANNOUNCED, SPEAKER PELOSI WEIGHS IN

Expert Panel Says Aerial Spraying of Pesticides over San Francisco

Not Safe, Not Effective, Not Necessary

San Francisco — A panel of scientists and other experts talked to a standing-room-only crowd of more than 300 people at a Town Hall meeting Thursday night about the state’s plan to spray pesticides from airplanes over San Francisco and other Bay Area cities starting August 17.

Among the announcements at last night’s Town Hall were a Golden Gate Bridge Walk against the Spray that will take place May 31 and reading of a letter from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger asking about both short and long-term heath effects of the aerial spray, including the effects of the pesticide’s “inert” ingredients and the likelihood that the aerial spraying will eradicate the light brown apple moth from California. San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi underscored that the Supervisors have directed the City Attorney to pursue legal action against the spray.

The expert panel described the state’s plans to spray the Bay Area and Central Coast with pesticides monthly for the next 3 to 5 years or longer, the adverse health effects reported after spraying in Monterey and Santa Cruz last fall and the risks of the pesticides, and why the moth isn’t the agricultural emergency the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) claims it is.

“The pesticides being sprayed on densely populated cities have not been tested for their short- or long-term health effects on human beings. That’s because it’s against the law to experiment on human beings,” says panelist Mike Lynberg, Monterey spray victim who collected over 800 complaints of adverse health reactions after an initial spray in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties.

“San Franciscans have a right to determine what happens to their own bodies. The state is not being transparent in their effort to force this program on the people of California,” said John Russo, Monterey county farmer and founder of Stop the Spray.ORG.

“To use blanket aerial spraying of populated areas as the first strategy for addressing a pest that has done no damage to crops is simply poor pest management,” said panelist Nan Wishner, Chair of the City of Albany Integrated Pest Management Task Force.

Event organizer Kelly McMenimen told the crowd that the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Secretary’s office had contacted her yesterday afternoon asking to make an hour-long presentation at the event. In response, the event organizers invited the Secretary to participate in the question and answer period and to make a presentation of equal length to those of the other panelists as long as the other panelists agreed cede time to allow for the CDFA to present. The Secretary declined. The Secretary’s office later issued a press statement saying the event organizers had “refused CDFA’s requests for Secretary Kawamura to make a presentation.”

“That is absurd,” McMenimen said. “We were doing everything we could to welcome them into our evening in response to their last-minute request as well to respect the other panelists who had prepared well in advance to participate.” McMenimen added, “CDFA has made numerous and lengthy presentations at public meetings all over the Bay Area at which balanced views were not presented. While we welcomed CDFA’s inquiry about joining our panel, we also wanted to be sure the public had an opportunity at this event to hear the solid, independent science that differs from the unsubstantiated information CDFA has been presenting.”

The Town Hall meeting was put on by a coalition of concerned San Francisco residents and elected officials who wanted to inform the public about the planned pesticide sprayings and what can be done in response. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi presented the resolution he put forward opposing the spray, which was passed unanimously by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on GIVE DATE. State Senator Carole Migden talked about their efforts to block the spray plans with state legislation. Other panelists included UC Entomologist Dr. James Carey who said that eradication won’t work and that the moth has likely been in the state for decades based on the range over which it has spread and Stacia Lansman M.D. who described the potential health impacts of the spray in the Bay Area, which she called “unacceptable human experimentation.”

Our friends at the Ecological Options Network and California Alliance to Stop the Spray have created a wonderful, informative Public Service Announcement video which they have the opportunity to have shown in movie theaters. This will reach an audience of 2 million people.

They are asking for donations to make this possible.

Click here to read about this powerful project

Hats off to CBS for this must-watch interview of Dennis Knepp and Jeff Haferman explaining the State’s egregious miscalculation of the deadly PM10 in Checkmate aerial spray.

Watch the video I’ve linked to and you will not only hear Knepp and Haferman explain the shoddy ’science’ CDFA is guilty of in regards to their wrong calculations of the deadly PM10 in LBAM aerial spray, but you will also see CBS providing a simple, graphic demonstration of why CDFA’s calculation was dead wrong. Knepp and Haferman have discovered that the amount of PM10 in the spray is not the 1.2% percent touted by the state, but rather that fully half of the particles in the spray are size PM10 or less! As you know, the American Lung Association uses the designation PM10 to classify tiny particles of 10 microns in size or less. This size of particles are inhaled into the deep human lung and cause chronic disease and death.

It has been my honor to be in communication with Dr. Dennis Knepp, and I want to take this moment to thank both him and Jeff Haferman for shouldering the burden of proof that our government has refused to take on and for proving, in my opinion, exactly why hundreds of families were sickened with respiratory illnesses in 2007, and why the aerial spraying must NEVER be allowed to resume in California. Thank you, Dennis and Jeff. You are heroes.

A Word from Mike Lynberg
Mike Lynberg, another of our heroes and the man responsible for championing the cause of all of the wrongfully sickened families of the Central Coast, has sent the following letter in regards to the release of the findings of Knepp and Haferman. Mike has been writing to OEHHA - the agency guilty of dismissing the hundreds of reports of illness when they were charged with the sacred duty of investigating the terrible sickness caused by the spray in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. Here is Mike’s most recent letter to OEHHA’s agents:

Joan, Mary-Ann and Mark:

The independent scientists interviewed in this CBS-5 report are doing the work your teams were responsible for doing, but totally failed to do. Please share this message with those responsible for your cursory, unscientific and highly biased “Illness Report.”

Scientists Question Safety Of Apple Moth Pesticide
CBS 5 - San Francisco, CA,USA, May 7 2008

http://cbs5.com/pets/apple.moth.spraying.2.718614.html

You can view the most current, May 7 video story by clicking the thumbnail image on the far left; however, the other CBS 5 reports contain important information for you, too – again, things that should have been considered by the people on your teams.

As the USDA’s and CDFA’s reckless, poorly researched and managed eradication campaign moves to an area of more than 7 million people, I would hope that you are deeply concerned about the harm that could be caused by it. If not, there is something very, very wrong.

I would also hope that you are remorseful for the harm already inflicted on thousands of California citizens. Your lack of care and diligence has resulted in grave injury to many innocent people, including children. And we’re not sure what the long-term effects might be; neither, I might add, are you, since you never studied them.

The report below is further evidence that the spraying of pesticides on highly populated cities has been a grand experiment on the health of California citizens without their informed consent. I’m not sure how you can live with that!

As I’ve said before, all three of you owe an apology to the 200,000 citizens who have been impacted by your lack of diligence and respect for human health and safety. Moreover, you need to tell the Governor that aerial spraying should not resume before you go back and do a more thorough epidemiological study – in-the-field with interviews and a survey of all the people impacted, rather than a statistical analysis from the comfort of your offices in Sacramento.

As Dr. Larry Rose MD said in his alert to Marin County doctors, the fact that you “have not implemented or funded a well designed epidemiology study to determine scope and seriousness of the health impact on exposed residents in these two counties is far beyond irresponsible; criminal negligence would be a more appropriate label for the lack of public health follow-up.”

I’ve attached Dr. Rose’s alert as well as testimony by Dr. Elisa Song, a pediatrician who testified before members of the CA State Assembly a couple of weeks ago. She remarked, “OEHHA did not contact any of those people who reported illnesses or their physicians, and discarded many of the complaints as incomplete rather than following up and investigating them. This report was not a scientific study of the complaints and does not reassure us in the medical community about the safety of the spray.”

Nor does your work reassure the public, especially as new studies come out like the one reported last night on CBS 5.

Please remember why you got into your professions in the first place, and start doing what you can to protect the health of children, expecting mothers, the elderly and others.

Sincerely,

Mike Lynberg

Author of “Report on 643 Illnesses” and advocate for those who got sick – including my family and friends

VeganReader thanks Mike Lynberg for his persistence in reminding OEHHA that they have violated the trust of the American People, have wronged the people of Santa Cruz and are guilty of both professional and ethical misconduct. Like Mike, I don’t know how these agents are living with themselves, knowing the harm they have caused to the innocent.

Sonoma City Council members voted 4-1 Wednesday to pass a resolution opposing aerial spraying to eradicate the light brown apple moth.

Read the Press Democrat Story Here.

I will make the actual resolution available here when I can find a copy of it.

In the meantime, deepest thanks to Councilman Ken Brown for introducing the resolution and to the members who voted for it.

I am concerned that the Press Democrat report indicates that the council is asking the state to use least-toxic methods. Unfortunately, CDFA’s idea of least-toxic is blanket aerial spraying of carcinogenic pesticides and deadly PM10 over 7 million people! I need to see the resolution for myself to get a clear idea of what was resolved. I’ll update this post soon.

Update:
Here is a Sonoma Index Tribute article regarding the city council meeting. From the article:

Sonoma architect Bill Willers told the council its most important responsibility is “the health and welfare” of the community. “It’s absurd,” he said, “to put ourselves under this aerial assault.”

Mayor Joanne Sanders emotionally recalled her childhood experience in the South Bay when her neighborhood was sprayed with malathion, a pesticide used to combat the Mediterranean fruit fly. “My parents told me the malathion was coming and it marked my whole life…It wouldn’t matter to me if this room was full of people from the government saying this was safe. I guess I don’t trust the government.”

Update:
Extract from letter to the editor from Sonoma Mayor Pro-tem, Ken Brown:

As a Sonoma County resident and parent, I am concerned that the state may conduct aerial spraying for the light brown apple moth, which has been found in Sonoma Valley.

In Santa Cruz and Monterey counties last year, there were more than 600 health-related complaints attributed to the spraying when it happened there.

In almost all circumstances there would be a complete environmental impact report to determine the effects of this spraying. All we are asking is that the full process of an EIR study be included before any spraying occurs.

Sometimes, life is poetic in its demonstrations of simple lessons.

Every summer and winter, our home is visited by ants. They come in two varieties, for which we have common names.

1) Sugar ants - these are the larger, common ants you likely know best.
2) Oil ants - these are the tiny, tiny ants that may be less common where you live.

Here I was, today, thinking about the LBAM spray poisoning and how it will devastate our health and environment, and while my thoughts were thus occupied, a fair-sized swarm of oil ants came in my kitchen screen window above my sink. This is an experience we’ve gotten used to over the years, and my husband and I got right to work.

The oil ants need to be gotten out of the house for 2 reasons:

1) They would be injured and killed in the kitchen, falling into water, onto hot burners, etc. The house is not a proper environment for them - they belong outside.
2) Oil ants do bite people. Their bites are rather painful.

Why not reach for a can of Raid?
It’s true, like so many Americans, we could reach for a can of insecticide and blast away the oil ants, but in so doing, we would not only be killing innocent little critters who, after all, are just trying to go about their day, but we would also be poisoning our own home and ourselves. The fumes of the Raid would also drift out to our neighbors, possibly sickening them. The poisoned ants might stagger back outside and be eaten by birds or my neighbor’s kitty cat, thus poisoning further innocent bystanders.

Raid is the dangerous choice. It is also the lazy choice when, with a little work, it is possible to send the ants about their business without a drop of poison.

Today, we began by carefully sliding a piece of printer paper under the ants to pick them up and transport them outside. This works well with Sugar Ants, but I was having trouble with the miniscule oil ants so we switched tools. I got a remnant of porous linen from my fabric scrap box and very gently swished up the ants with it, taking care to be as soft in my movements as possible so as not to damage the ants’ tiny, fragile antennae and legs, which are so important to them. Once outside, they can go rejoin their colony again and start making other plans for finding a summer home.

In twenty minutes of relays from the sink to the kitchen door, my husband and I had transported the swarm outside. It is my observation that when ants stop returning to their home base, the ants at home realize something is wrong and pause in sending new ants. So, once you’ve got the ants outside, you can take step two.

With a clean sponge, carefully wipe down all of the areas where the ants were walking with vinegar and non-toxic liquid soap. We like Avalon Organics peppermint. We have observed that this appears to remove the ants’ scent trails and discourages them from thinking they’ve claimed the kitchen as belonging to them.

Lastly, locate the point of entry for the ants and make a barrier around it with non-toxic liquid soap. No new ants will be able to cross over it if you carefully surround the entry area. Thus, your little problem is solved.

If you’ve got the larger Sugar Ants, the solution is often even easier. If you can pound on the counter and wall where they are walking and speak in a low, loud voice, telling them to go away, they turn and run back to their entry point 9 times out of 10. They do not like that awesome, massive voice warning them and they don’t like the vibrations. You can also blow gently on them. They don’t seem to like the smell of human breath or the gust of wind.

If this doesn’t work, you can use the printer paper or soft cloth technique. Always follow up by washing away the scent trail and creating the barrier around the entry point.

What It Takes
What it takes is time. It took us about 25 minutes from start to finish to deal with this visitation of oil ants. Apart from the soap, which we already have on-hand as a household staple, this solution costs nothing. But the real savings is so much more far-reaching than that. We aren’t poisoning nature’s important creatures, we aren’t poisoning our neighbors and we aren’t poisoning ourselves. In today’s toxic world, you can’t overstate the value of that.

Insecticides and pesticides have been created and marketed to the laziness of people. The proposition made is that you can either put in a few minutes of your time or your can poison yourself. Amazingly, Americans so often choose poisoning themselves because they are obsessed with ’saving time’, or, sadly, because they don’t realize what their non-toxic options are for dealing with small inconveniences in daily life.

We Are Like The Ants
Agribusiness and CDFA are the epitome of the lazy approach to living in this world. Rather than working hard to create a good, and vibrant Earth with healthy ecosystems where good farming practices and diversity keep all populations in a correct balance, farmers have been marketed the lazy, ‘time-saving’ poison approach. Thousands of years of indigenous agriculture say that poly-culture (growing lots of kinds of plants together in the same place) keeps soils healthy and foods nutritious. But farmers have been sold the non-sustainable approach of growing vast acreages of a single crop (monoculture) and covering the land in poisons because the other organisms get so out of balance in so artificial a setting.

Rather than teaching farmers to grow abundant food with organic polyculture, CDFA intends to blanket 7 million human beings, all lands, all wildlife with carcinogenic, deadly poisons because of the presence of a single kind of bug. It would be like dropping a nuclear bomb on your house because you found a ladybug in your bathroom. It might be a quick way to get rid of the lady bug, but then, you’d end up with no place to live.

And that’s what Agribusiness and profit-driven, shamefully lazy entities like California Department of Food and Agriculture are doing. Blowing up the house because of a ladybug.

We are like the ants that visited my kitchen today. Innocent, hardworking beings, just trying to go about our business, meaning no harm to anyone. My respect for nature and myself made the scene in my home play out so that no toxins were inflicted on anyone, and the one chance to live life was honored for all beings. But CDFA claims that California is their house, and they refuse to deal with us respectfully. Their fingers are on the triggers of the vast pesticide bottles and they have no compunction about poisoning us all. Because they are allowed to neglect the wisdom and necessity of sustainable polyculture that makes NO insect a major threat when the environment is so diverse. Because they are after the instant answer and the easy money. Because they are so lazy.

Gandhi said you must be the change you want to see in the world. I want to see people finally reach the consciousness that a little ant’s life is as much to him as my life is to me. In vain, have countless people tried to win this recognition of our own value, our own hopes, dreams, lives, from CDFA so that they will realize the evil of poisoning us. I believe in doing unto others as we would be done by.

So, there is no Raid in my cabinet. There is no devilish Round-Up in my tool shed. And I can’t stop working until I am secure in the knowledge that there will be no deadly Checkmate in my body.

As a vegan, a birder, and a woman who holds our animal friends in sincere reverence, animal testing is abhorrent to me. It’s an unforgivable evil that tortures innocent creatures and dehumanizes the torturer, inflicting him with a woeful, desensitized outlook on pain and suffering. Much like slavery, it turns the master into a monster.

Unlike some whom I’ve heard expressing a strong wish that animal testing be conducted to prove that LBAM spray is toxic, I would like to think we’ve developed far enough as an intelligent species to know that poison is poisonous. No mumbo-jumbo testing needed to prove what would be obvious to a 3 year old.

Yet, CDFA has already conducted extensive animal testing by flying poison-laden airplanes over the Central Coast of California in 2007.

And what did the tests show?

That LBAM spray kills birds, cats, dogs, rabbits and bees.

It’s the silent spring Rachel Carson warned of in the USDA’s infamous DDT era. LBAM spray is the new DDT, and Roy Upton has carefully prepared the following report demonstrating that the toxicity ‘testing’ of LBAM spray in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties caused disease and death in the ‘test animals’.

Read the chilling, red flag report regarding LBAM spray’s deadly effects on wildlife and pets