I was forwarded a round robin email regarding the Sonoma meeting which I’ll excerpt here:

Last night in Sonoma we had 2 members of the CDFA, Robert Dowell and another gentleman (who refused to give me his name), a member of OESHA, the Sonoma County Ag. Commissioner as well as 5 others from the Sonoma County Ag. Dept…9 Ag. people in total. As for the public attendance there were 10 people present. Of those 10,4 of us were outside the quarantined area and wanted to hear what CDFA had to say about the twist ties/aerial spray.

The CDFA presentation was made up of maps,charts on easels and informational papers and examples of the twist ties; a walk about presentation. No formal presentation was given.

I expressed my disappointment in them giving the public one weekday notice to this meeting and hope that in the future they would give the public more time. All four of us asked different questions ranging from what the cost of this program in Sonoma would be to the issue of aerial spraying in Marin, as well as wondering what occurred in Santa Cruz and Ann specifically asked about the Monterey Bay Aquarium. She wondered if CDFA had inquired about the ‘yellow foam’ found around the Aquarium. She asked the question multiple times and never received a clear answer.

I think it is certain we made them all very uncomfortable with our questions and our obvious knowledge on the subject. The sad part, is there were only 6 people from the public who attended. I was only able to reach out to 2, one a grapegrower who was very supportive of whatever needed to be done to ’save the grapes’. I did give her literature but unfortunately she was already ’sold’ on the CDFA program. My hope is that the 4 other heard enough of what we had to say to stop and at least think about it.

Robert said if people wanted to refuse the twist ties, they could. If everyone refused, they would have to come up with something else (I don’t know what the something else is).At the end of the meeting he did say that they could look into using the wasps for Sonoma but that they are usually used for ‘medium infestations’ not ’small ones’, like Sonoma.

Robert will be getting back to me on the price of this project. The ballpark figure he gave me when pressing him for an estimate was $30,000 total for both programs. I told him I had done basic rough research and that at full retail price the wasps would cost less than this program. I couldn’t contain my disgust of this program especially in lieu of the budget cuts to our schools and I was descriptive on how parents are asked to provide copypaper for the schools because of budget cuts and yet in turn we have a $30,000 program which will not work and the CDFA have nice new bright white trucks.

No money lacking there. By the way, the CDFA pays gas money as well as lodging for the 30 employees who will be coming down from Watsonville for 2 days to install the twist ties. I might have been a bit confrontational with Robert and the Sonoma Ag Dept. personnel and hope I did not make my colleagues too uncomfortable…! It’s kind of hard to stay fully composed in front of deceiving cheaters.

On the issue of aerial spraying… I asked Robert if he could, with all certainty, look at me in the eyes and tell me that he would feel confident being under the Bay Area spray zone with his 2 children and feel fine? His answer was yes.

To stop the twist ties, it would take man power which we don’t have in place in Sonoma. It would mean contacting the 200+ residents, educating them and getting them to take the step to refuse the twist ties. Very difficult and time consuming. I will be writing a letter to the editor about what I learned last night from CDFA and my disgust in the $$ being spent on a program that will not work. If I have time I might go to the quarantined neighborhood and get a feeling from the residents. If they seem positive in stopping the twist ties, it might be possible to start a ’round robin’ (neighbor speaking to neighbor) and I could help initiate, coordinate and follow up.The twist ties would go up on the 17th of June.

I really appreciated this summary of the meeting and hope it will help folks to know what went on.

My Take on the Trouble With Sonoma
If you’ve never been to Sonoma, or haven’t visited in years, you would likely be shocked by what has happened to the once-beautiful Valley of the Moon. The alcohol fields stretch right up to the noble mountains now. Every field, crevice and hill is striped with uniform, ugly, toxic vineyards. You go up into Sugarloaf Ridge State Park and there are even vineyards there. Truly, this place has been turned into an agribusiness wasteland.

And, because the majority of the alcohol growers use commercial growing practices, they are constantly, constantly spraying here. Up to 10 nights EVERY MONTH for the majority of the year, unprotected Hispanic employees ride the spray machines between about 2 AM - 5 AM (the time when they are least likely to be noticed) spraying some 30+ highly toxic chemicals all over the valley. The people here breathe, eat and live in a carcinogenic soup and the billboards along Sonoma HWY advertising the ‘romance of the wine country’ are really the final insult from the completely amoral alcohol growers who are making billions of dollars in a manner that has sickened and killed an untold number of people.

I would break down the people walking around Sonoma into 5 categories.

1) Tourists who have no idea that the price of their bottle of alcohol includes the wreckage of all natural land and the poisoning of innocent people.

2) Residents who live here and have spent years sleeping through the constant spraying, never realizing the danger their families are in.

3) Residents who have realized that the alcohol growers are hogging the water and using pesticides, but figure that they have the right to do this because it’s ‘industry’ and probably isn’t all that dangerous.

4) Residents who have come to grips with the wreckage the alcohol growers have created in the valley and who are either sick now or trying to get away before they are sickened.

5) The Hispanic and migrant workers who are the servant class of the alcohol growers and alcohol consumers. As one resident put it, “they are being paid to die.” Not only have I seen, with my own eyes, these poor men driving the spray machines without so much as a face mask or gloves on, friends of mine have seen them working in the alcohol fields while spray planes pass back and forth over their unprotected bodies.

The trouble with Sonoma is that the majority of the residents here have been sold on the idea that industry has the right of way. They are as surrounded by signs of industry here as steelworkers in a steel town. The grotesque alcohol fields stretch in every direction, as far as the eye can see, and it would be a miracle if people were actually to care enough about a bunch of toxic twist ties to speak up. As the above letter states, apparently CDFA couldn’t put up the twist ties if people protested, but even if the people fought and stopped the twist ties, they’d all go to sleep that night inhaling deadly poisons anyway, living in the valley. Maybe my attitude is defeatist about this, but I know Sonoma, and it’s a sad scene around here.

Lastly, it’s important to note that the twist tie zone encompasses residential areas which are predominantly Hispanic - Aqua Caliente, Boyes Hot Springs and El Verano. Here, the charming little Mexican kids play along the sidewalks much of the day, their homes overcrowded with family, many of their homes crumbling around them, some without doors. Their mothers take them by the hand to visit the Carnicerias and Mercados to shop for dinner. The men, in their few hours of ease, sit on boxes outside the fruit stand, passing the time of day, their faces shaded by white stetsons and colored baseball caps. For the millionaire cruising past in his BMW, this section of the valley may look kind of rosy.

But what is going on inside the walls of these impoverished villages? Doubtless, the people are quietly dying of cancers and other diseases. The menfolk come home at dawn, literally soaked in pesticides. Whoever does the laundry is subjected to an unbelievable toxic assault, and these substances are then in the machines where all the children’s clothing is washed. The people live in substandard housing, work backbreaking days for the plantation class, and lose their lives so that tourists can have some lovely Chardonnay. Somewhere, someone thinks this is worth it.

So, that’s the problem with Sonoma. This isn’t San Francisco, with its principles of equality and equal opportunity. This is the Old South here in Sonoma, with some very distinct classes, and some very mistreated folks.

Yes, I’d love to see Sonoma march CDFA to the borders of the county with their ludicrous LBAM myth and their deadly toxic plan. But, CDFA could walk off into the sunset and Sonoma would still be suffocating in a desolate waste of monoculture toxicity.

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