Green Options » mothra http://greenoptions.com/tag/mothra Posts tagged 'mothra' Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:37:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en Stop the Spray or Mothra Might Ruin the Economy http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/06/13/stop-the-spray-or-mothra-might-ruin-the-economy/ http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/06/13/stop-the-spray-or-mothra-might-ruin-the-economy/#comments Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:37:00 +0000 Keith Rockmael http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/06/13/stop-the-spray-or-mothra-might-ruin-the-economy/ 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.

Read more of this story »

]]> http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/06/13/stop-the-spray-or-mothra-might-ruin-the-economy/feed/