2/4/09 Farmers & Environmentalists Call For Reclassification

[isabelle]

PRESS RELEASE STOP THE SPRAY

For Immediate Release: February 4, 2008

Farmers and environmentalists united, say: LBAM not a threat

Farming and environmental groups push for reclassfication of the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM)

San Francisco, CA. (February 4, 2008) The Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) will not devastate California crops, gardens or natural resources: this is the shared message of farmers and environmentalists –who are often perceived as being on opposite sides of the LBAM issue.

In a letter addressed to the new Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) and 16 co-signers state: “There is no evidence to suggest that LBAM has yet had or has the potential to have a detrimental impact on either agricultural crops or native flora and forests in California.”

The letter states further: “The federally imposed international LBAM quarantine and associated eradication measures already implemented have themselves posed human health and environmental hazards and have created significant and unnecessary economic hardship for growers.”

Among the signers of the letter are California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR) and several community groups that sprang up last year in opposition to aerial pesticide spraying for LBAM.These environmental and farming groups join in a growing movement calling on the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to reclassify LBAM, a moth originally from Australia which has been the subject of much controversy in California.

LBAM classification matters because the class A status of the moth sparked a multimillion-dollar eradication program that included aerial spraying of pesticides over neighborhoods in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. After the spraying, more than 600 residents filed health complaints and reported hundreds of dead seabirds. This program was a special earmark in the Bush administration's final budget.

Says Isabelle Jenniches of Stop the Spray: “This whole program has to stop. Here is our chance to save money and do the right thing at the same time. It is hard to fathom how this unnecessary, expensive and harmful program can continue in a time of financial crisis.”

Today’s letter argues that the classification of LBAM should be downgraded from class A (major pest worthy of quarantine) to class C (minor pest) and quotes extensively from a petition submitted to the USDA by United States congressman Sam Farr (D - Carmel) in September 2008.

Farr is joined in questioning the status of the moth by California assemblymembers Jared Huffman (D – San Rafael) and Dave Jones (D – Sacramento); Senator Mark Leno (D – San Francisco), as well as former Senator Migden (D – San Francisco) and former Assemblymember John Laird (D -Santa Cruz). Other elected officials are expected to sign on to this request as the issue intensifies. The USDA announced recently that the petition is being seriously considered and that a review is to be released this spring.

"State and federal agriculture agencies put the cart before the horse," says Paul Schramski Towers, State Director of Pesticide Watch Education Fund. "Rather than identifying and publicizing the lack of a threat posed by the apple moth, the agencies rushed to declare an emergency. Reclassification puts the moth in its place."

An executive summary of the petition can be found in the Documents section
of the http://www.stopthespray.org website.


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Press release in PDF format

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Press release February 4, 2009

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PRESS RELEASE PANNA

For immediate release, Feb. 4, 2009

California Coalition Urges Obama Administration to Pull Controversial Moth off “High-Risk” List

San Francisco - It turns out the controversial “Light Brown Apple Moth” isn’t such a significant threat to crops after all.

In a letter delivered today to newly confirmed Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a broad coalition of organic farmers, community groups and pesticide policy reform advocates called on Vilsack to immediately strip the tiny moth from USDA’s “high-risk pest” list.

“This pest has been in Hawaii for more than 100 years without doing much harm at all,” says Margaret Reeves, a Senior Scientist with Pesticide Action Network North America and lead author of the letter. “Other countries have managed the moth effectively for years -- dramatic action simply isn’t needed to keep this bug under control.”

The California-based groups argue that the US Department of Agriculture’s listing of the moth as a high-risk pest is based on outdated data. “The moth poses no significant economic or ecological threat,” notes the letter, which goes on to point out that USDA’s current “high risk” classification of the pest triggers “quarantine measures and associated eradication efforts [that] impose real and unnecessary economic hardship on growers, in many instances compelling pest control activities that constitute a further threat to human health and the environment.”

The letter also notes that experts in entomology and invasive species suggest that the pest has likely been in California for decades. Yet it’s official identification in 2006 spurred dramatic action from the California Department of Food and Agriculture, including a controversial (and now abandoned) plan involving aerial spraying over populated areas of the state.

The moth is a native pest to Australia and has been established in New Zealand for a century, as well as in New Caledonia, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and Ireland. It can be found on a wide variety of plants, flowers, fruits and vegetables.

Like the many other leaf roller moths in California—none of which are considered significant pests—LBAM has been shown to have effective natural enemies that keep populations under control.

[isabelle]

Light Brown Apple Moth May Be Like Any Other Butterfly

FOX NEWS 35, February 5, 2009

CENTRAL COAST, Calif.- The fight over the Light Brown Apple Moth continued this week as a coalition of organic farmers and anti-spray advocates called on President Obama's new cabinet to take the moth off the high-risk pest list. As it stands the Light Brown Apple Moth is classified as "high-risk" by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

The state Department of Food and Ag was able to use federal money to spray a pheremone to eradicate the moth last year. But those same anti-spray groups who managed to stop the aireal spray application are asking the newly confirmed Ag Secretary to de-regulate the pest. That would mean the Light Brown Apple Moth would be classified just like a Monarch Butterfly for example. California still has their own classification system.

At this point, the moth sits at a class A which poses the most threat and they can choose to leave it there, but if the USDA pulls the regulation of the pest, the state department would get no funding for any further attempts at eradication. With the state's financial situation in ruins, it would be much harder to fund.

The USDA says there are a series of parameters they look at before deciding whether to take the moth off the list. Some of those include the economic harm it would have to the state's ag industry, also talking to other states and countries to see if they would quarantine any produce coming from California if the regulation was lifted. Two petitions in that last few months have been brought before the USDA with similar intent, they expect it will take another couple of months before a decision is made on the status of the moth.

[isabelle]

Spraying opponents ask ag chief to delist moth

Groups say pest not high threat
By LARRY PARSONS
Herald Staff Writer
Posted: 02/07/2009 01:32:05 AM PST

Critics of California's campaign against the light brown apple moth want the Obama administration to take the controversial bug off the high-threat target list of farm pests.

Several environmental, organic farming and community groups this week asked newly confirmed Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to strip the moth of its high-risk status — a ranking that underpins the California Department of Food and Agriculture's two-year-old eradication program against the insect.

They contend the moth doesn't pose a significant threat to the state's agricultural industry and can be managed without a massive eradication effort.

"This really isn't a pest that is going to do significant economic or environmental damage," said Stephen Scholl-Buckwald of the Pesticide Action Network North America in San Francisco.

Other groups signing the letter to Vilsack were California Organic Farmers, Californians for Pesticide Reform and several community groups that formed after the state started an aerial spraying program against the moth in Monterey County in 2007.

The petition comes on the heels of a similar request to federal agricultural officials made during the final weeks of the Bush administration.

Critics of the apple moth campaign contend that quarantine and eradication measures not only pose health and environmental hazards, but take an economic toll on some growers.

"They are basically spending a lot of federal money to control a pest that is unnecessary," Scholl-Buckwald said. "It's a sky-falling syndrome."

The moth was first detected on the U.S. mainland in February 2007, and state officials said it could cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to California crops.

The state dropped the aerial spraying of pheromones against the moth after hundreds of people in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties complained of health problems. State officials maintain the spray ingredients pose a low likelihood of causing health programs.

After dropping aerial spraying, the state's weapons against the moth included pheromone applications on the ground, the release of sterile male moths, nursery inspections and continued trapping to monitor the moth population.

The apple moth is classified as an "actionable pest" by the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, USDA spokesman Larry Hawkins said.

The recent petitions for possible reclassification will be "evaluated and given consideration," he said.

The moth's potential impact on agriculture — not only in California, but in other states — will be considered, along with economic and trade factors, Hawkins said.

"We will look at all of those and try to come up with a determination whether this pest should be delisted," he said.

The final decision rests with the chief administrator of the federal inspection service.

"The evaluation is done on a scientific basis, and the (secretary of agriculture) tasks the agency to do that," Hawkins said.

Larry Parsons can be reached at 646-4379 or lparsons@montereyherald.com.

Source http://www.montereyherald.com/local/ci_11651835