8 acres is bad enough.

We are terribly sorry you’ve got Suterra there with you in Bend, and that your city fathers/council members have done nothing to prevent this.

Please, Bruce, do look here and elsewhere for information about the Suterra chemicals that were sprayed on Santa Cruz and Monterrey families in 2007. People were horrifically sickened and then dismissed by government agencies. We are never going to forget this, and it was because of this terrible action that I wrote about Suterra’s Bend land purchase in the first place.

I appreciate your comments.

The better informed Bend citizens can be, perhaps the less certain Suterra will be of their welcome in your town.

“Suterra caught negative press last fall in California when people raised health concerns over the use of CheckMate in aerial spraying for the light brown apple moth.”

The sixth paragraph of a subsequent article, on Aug. 3, stated,

“Suterra makes pheromone-based pesticides that target several species of moths and worms, and are supposed to be environmentally friendly. Its products are usually sprayed on specific fields or attached directly to plants with special bands. But the company came under fire last year when California started spraying the CheckMate pesticide from the air over several cities, leading to hundreds of claims of respiratory problems and other health effects. While the state halted the spraying program, the pesticide’s health effects remain in dispute.”

As a resident of Bend and a subscriber to the BULL, I find that statement hilarious. The BULL is so conservative and pro-development it managed to spend to full columns endorsing McCain for President without ever using the word “Palin”.

Our fine City Council once again went behind closed doors and discussed selling land at Juniper Ridge last night. They emerged to quickly vote on the sale and funding of eight acres at Juniper Ridge in short order. Ground has already been broken. More at http://www.juniper-ridge-info.blogspot.com and further discussion in general (especially in the comments) at http://www.bendbubble2.blogspot.com

A couple of facts to straighten out: 1)Suterra only bought eight acres, not 1500. The 1500 acre figure is for the entire Juniper Ridge development. 2) Suterra is not creating that many new jobs, only five to ten per year. It is moving its current 50 or so employees out of their facility on the West side of Bend north to Juniper Ridge, leaving an empty building in an area where roughly 200,000 square feet of commercial property is currently vacant. Suterra’s jobs are better paying than most of the service jobs here in Bend.

Interesting stuff about the Checkmate spraying in California. We haven’t heard anything about that.

The Bend Bulletin was perfectly willing to print Suterra’s party line about the harmlessness of their chemicals. This is not only un-documented but egregiously false and the fact that the newspaper was willing to print this utterly false claim of Suterra’s can only result in your community being misled about a matter as serious as their health and their lives.

Having watched hundreds of Californians fall ill after being exposed to Suterra’s products, I felt it was my duty to let the Bulletin know about what happened here. We don’t want this to happen in Oregon. But, I’m sorry to say that the editors did not even have the courtesy to respond to my email.

All across this country, the major Genetic Engineering corporations are using the press as their vehicle for delivering totally false marketing messages to the public, and unless journalists have the smarts to see past this, they are being used as little more than marketers for Big Ag, pesticide manufacturers and GMO labs. The tactics these completely odious corporations use to deceive the public are merciless, and if newspapers like The Bend Bulletin don’t defend themselves from being used by these corporations, they are doing their communities a major disservice.

In this battle of public welfare vs. corporate profits, I think Bend has a stand to take, if anyone will be brave enough to let them know what is really at stake.

Thank you again for commenting.
Miriam

2. If you’ve ever been to Bend, you would know that it’s not just a little town of rednecks. It’s a vary diverse and evergrowing community with MANY environmentalists like yourself that would dissaprove of this company moving in without their sketchy background.

The idea of posting a press release on your webpage is to inform the public of what’s happening. The Bend Bulletin, which I read on a very regular occassion, is an incredibly ethical and well documented local publication. They don’t write slam stories based on a few rumors of what happened in another state, so they post what they have and they let the public do the research. People like you help inform the public of what happened in California, and then they will take your information and the information from Suterra and the state departments who defend them and decide for themselves what should be done about it.

1500 acres is a huge piece of land, I agree. Perhaps they intend to use open land to test their products on? A horrifying thought.

It’s so nice to see you here and I’m glad to know that you are writing to the newspaper.

Mim