Green Options

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In California, and San Francisco in particular, we see almost as many Obama for president placards in home and business windows as we see Stop the Spray signs. It seems like the precursor for a B-grade sci-fi film with the storyline pitting the the government versus this evil moth. But this isn’t Mothra we’re talking about, its the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM).

The situation involves not just the local governments but the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) and CDFA (California Department of Food and Agriculture) that claim that the LBAM will cause major destruction of crops in California. The feds think that we must take swift action or suffer the economic impact of quarantines, which they estimate will cost CA millions of dollars.

Something curious happened on the way to this economic thinking. To date, the LBAM has caused ZERO crop damage. The economic damage has been due only to quarantines imposed on the Golden State by Canada and Mexico. When the Feds sprayed Santa Cruz and Monterey counties last fall the counties recorded over 640 health problems. This number represented only the reported cases, and conservative estimates of actual health impacts by local agencies put the number of cases at ten times the number of reports claimed.

Does aerial biochemical spraying really work to control foreign species?  Many communities extensively sprayed pesticides in an effort to control the spread of West Nile Virus, yet mosquitoes quickly spread this disease across the continental United States in just a few short years. Will aerial pesticide spraying combat the spread of the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM), or is this moth even a threat?

The LBAM is a moth originating in Australia that has been recently found in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. LBAM is also found in New Zealand, New Caledonia, Hawaii, and the British Isles.  The moth does not have a dormancy period and development is continual.  It is artificially spread through nursery plants, fresh produce, and green waste.

California officials fear LBAM poses a potential threat to the state’s agriculture, but their own projections state the greatest environmental impact as:

Establishment of this moth could cause direct environmental damage via increased pesticide use statewide by commercial and residential growers and via adverse feeding impacts on native plants.