Check Mate, CheckMate

California officials yank controversial urban spraying plan

Posted at 12:07 PM on 22 Jun 2008

California officials have announced that they will not spray the urban Bay Area with a pheromone this summer, delighting activists who had campaigned strenuously against the plan. The pheromone with the ominous name CheckMate LBAM-F keeps the crop-gobbling light brown apple moth from reproducing, but also has been linked to complaints of respiratory trouble in humans. Spraying had already been banned in one county pending environmental review. As part of the new moth-attacking strategy, officials will attempt to deter moth reproduction by introducing millions of sterile moths; the change of plans had nothing to do with loud public outcry, officials insist, but is thanks to scientific advances that have increased the availability of non-reproducing moths. Aerial spraying will still occur in rural areas.

sources: The Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press

ADVERTISING POLICY

Comments: (9 comments)

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have a Gristmill account, log in below. If you don't have a Gristmill account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

Victory For The Earth And The People

This change of plans was a direct result of a lot of hard work by many people. The Earth destroyers already lost TWO lawsuits -- not one as Grist reports -- and would have needed to prepare environmental impact reports in order to spray in both Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. But our strategy was also to get all the cities to formally oppose the project, which obviously worked. Most, if not all, of the Bay Area cities formally opposed the spraying. The larger cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley passed resolutions against it, as did many smaller cities and towns.

It is a total lie to say that "the change of plans had nothing to do with loud public outcry." The public outcry, of which the two lawsuits were a part, forced the California Department of Food and Agriculture to find another method, just as it did in the case of the medfly fiasco on which the strategy of getting the cities on record opposing the spraying was modeled. Those in power don't want to admit that their power is dependent on public approval, but that was clearly the case here.

Never underestimate the power of the people. If enough people care enough about an issue, we can actually change things significantly.

by Wolverine at 12:20 PM on 22 Jun 2008

Grab A Dictionary

You know what a pheromone is right?

No...it wasn't invented at an oil refinery...

by jabailo at 1:33 PM on 22 Jun 2008

Hey Bailo

You know what an endocrine disruptor is, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrine_disruptor

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 2:12 PM on 22 Jun 2008

Artificial Pheromones And Other Chemicals

John,

As usual, your ignorance is breathtaking. Instead of me grabbing a dictionary, you need to learn something before you go spouting your half baked idiocies.

The plan was to spray artificial pheromones, encapsulated in plastic and mixed with chemicals, from planes. Now, what part of that resembles anything natural? Moreover, the spraying of Monterey and Santa Cruz counties the previous year sickened at least hundreds of people and possibly caused the deaths of hundreds of birds.

Some people are so supportive of destructive human lifestyles that they automatically attack environmentalists when we oppose harmful projects, even though the former have no idea what they're talking about. Environmentalists don't oppose projects for the sake of opposing everything or for any other silly reason. We oppose them because they're somehow harmful.

by Wolverine at 2:15 PM on 22 Jun 2008

Last Post

Err, I meant latter, not former. Obviously.

by Wolverine at 2:16 PM on 22 Jun 2008

Maybe Santa Cruz should be tested with water

Wolverine wrote: The plan was to spray artificial pheromones, encapsulated in plastic and mixed with chemicals

Is that supposed to imply something sinister?

Wolverine wrote: the spraying of Monterey and Santa Cruz counties the previous year sickened at least hundreds of people

Perhaps it is just a coincidence that both Santa Cruz and Monterey are also notorious hotbeds of anxiety neurosis. It is well known that there are special reasons that people move to special places like Santa Cruz and Monterey, and that high stress-tolerance is not one of those reasons.

If a double-blind test -- consisting of random alternation between 1. any-given commercial spray and 2. a placebo (maybe plain water?), and with sufficient time between sprayings -- were to be conducted over Santa Cruz and/or Monterey, would you expect the corresponding sickness-reporting from the public to statistically-significantly vary between the two types of sprayings?

by Nucbuddy at 6:25 PM on 22 Jun 2008
[ Parent ]

Wow...

That's amazing. I definitely think that we should throw out the lab tests identifying the substance as an endocrin disruptor right out the window and instead conduct illegal human psychology experiments. What a great idea!

I don't even understand the objection here. The people in those counties decided that it was a harmful substance they'd rather not have sprayed in their neighborhoods. They should have the freedom to veto it. After all, my neighborhood can put a lien on my property if I paint my house without approval, so I can't imagine why this topic is causing such news.

by BlackBear at 6:36 AM on 23 Jun 2008

Black Bear

We have several anti-environmentalists who comment on this blog, John Bailo and Nucbuddy being two of them. (The internet name for them is "trolls.") That's the reason for those two comments; I can't imagine that they're representative of Grist or its readers.

by Wolverine at 9:43 AM on 23 Jun 2008

Black Bear

Perhaps it is just a coincidence that both Santa Cruz and Monterey are also notorious hotbeds of anxiety neurosis.tiffany jewelry

by caredun at 7:36 AM on 24 Jun 2008

The comments of Grist users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?