On the heels of this morning’s ruling by a Santa Cruz county judge to stop aerial spraying for the light brown apple moth in that county until the completion of an environmental impact report, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced a suspension—until August 17—of the spraying for the moth state-wide…until, he says, there’s more investigation into the health affects of the as-yet-untested product being used. Oddly enough for us up here in the Bay Area, aerial spraying wasn’t scheduled to start until August, anyway. In the state’s press release the governor ’says’ this:

I am confident that the additional tests will reassure Californians that we are taking the safest, most progressive approach to ridding our state of this very real threat to our agriculture, environment and economy.

I don’t know how he is so sure just what the ‘additional tests’ will reveal about the product—especially since state agriculture secretary A.G. Kawamura acknowledged in a visit to Alameda City Council chambers early this month that the exact formula they plan to use has not actually been finalized.

One can hope that this ‘halt’ is more than PR manipulation, but, rather, is a genuine effort by our state’s highest leader to make sure there’s a complete investigation into the long- and short-term impact of spraying millions of people, old and young, with synthetic moth pheromones delivered in time-release plastic microcapsules.

And thanks to the reporting of Michele Ellson over at the island, we know that a host of environmental watch dog groups—despite portrayals to the contrary by the State of California—oppose plans to spray the city of Alameda and other Bay Area cities and towns with an untested and possibly unnecessary synthetic moth pheromone delivered in tiny plastic microcapsules.

The more I read about the moth—and, trust me, reading about it in all its complexity gives me a headache—the more it becomes clear that the reason for the rush to erradication (the possiblity of which many experts dispute) has to do with trade embargoes (Mexico has imposed embargoes on agriculture products from areas with the moth) and loss of business for our growers. It begins to seem like it’s more a trade issue—the moth does not result in quarantines in other world regions—than an environmental one. So let’s work to change trade requirements.

The state has released its report on whether the spraying of Checkmate (synthetic moth pheromones in plastic ‘microcapsules’ for time release) in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties last fall caused illnesses. Chris Metinko’s story about the findings is here. It is no surprise that the state found there was not enough evidence to conclusively link the two events. They even complained about the quality of the data–which they made no effort to collect.

But what I’m looking for, as a person in the area slated to be sprayed in a few short months, is a report that proves they’re not linked, the symptoms and the spray.

Michele Ellson over at The Island has two new posts on the latest on the moth. It appears the response to the moth is the result of complex interactions between government agencies, agriculture lobbies, other nations and economic forces. More than anything it’s looking like it’s the state, more than the LBAM acronym, that’s goofy here.

Genevieve Bookwalter reports on the United States Department of Agriculture’s response to the study issued last month by UC Santa Cruz Arboretum Director Daniel Harder. Harder says the light brown apple moth is not so much of a threat to California crops.

Here’s the report.

The San Francisco Chronicle has a new article up today about how the spray impacted people in the Santa Cruz area when it was used there last fall.

You can learn more about the moth and government response to it at a meeting at Berkeley’s Ecology Center on Thursday evening.

And one more: an editorial opposing the rush to spray from the Marin Independent Journal.

While the politics of the situation are intriguing—the ‘emergency’ which allows government agencies to sidestep normal health and safety requirements, the fact that the manufacturer of the synthetic pheromones is a Schwarzenegger campaign donor, and, too, that the state recently had to cancel a $500,000, no-bid PR contract to promote the spray—the basic facts remain the same:

(1) There is no scientific consensus regarding how much (or if!) the moth will spread.

(2) There is no scientific consensus on how long the moth has been in California and, therefore, how much of an ‘emergency’ it really is.

(3) And, most importantly, there is absolutely no scientific certainty that the synthetic pheromones and the small plastic ‘microcapsules’ in which they will be delivered are at all safe for human beings (not to mention fish, wildlife and water).

After the presentation and hours of citizen comments, council members questioned Kawamura, who became increasingly inarticulate as the evening wore on. Frank Matarrese forced him to admit that if this product were sprayed on fields, farm workers would not be allowed to be in them. Marie Gilmore questioned him on the speed with which the state’s strategy had been developed. And Mayor Beverly Johnson let him know that she was not at all convinced, after hearing details, that the state’s plan is sound. “I came in here with an open mind, but I have two children and I don’t want them to be sprayed,” said Johnson, who also chastised Kawamura for expecting people to accept the wide distribution of unknown agents without question. “If there’s only disclosure,” said Johnson, in response to Kawamura’s assertion that he was doing his best to explain the state’s methods, “the public doesn’t really feel like that’s a dialogue.”

Kawamura repeatedly resorted to scare tactics, implying invasive species will ruin the natural world as we know it if we don’t spray the moth right away. He had odd arguments, too, suggesting that since we are already exposed to pesticides and environmental toxins, we ought not worry about the moth spray. And he made at least one alarming revelation: that the formula for the spray hasn’t even been determined yet (and therefore, obviously, has not been tested for safety). Kawamura was, at core, quite unreassuring, insisting on the one hand that the state would stop spraying right away should there be health problems, yet dismissing out-of-hand the 600-odd health complaints made by citizens after the spraying in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties last fall. “It’s really kind of unimaginable,” said Mayor Johnson.

Have we not learned enough as humans to know that new agents may have unintended consequences both immediately (like Thalidomide) and way down the road (like asbestos).

The moth item is high on the agenda, so it should be addressed pretty early. And you can always watch on cable from the comfort of your own home.

Not knowing much about moths, I called Dr. Jerry Powell the Berkeley entomologist who found the first light brown apple moth in his backyard blacklight trap in July of 2006. While Powell graciously declined to weigh in on the value of spraying–”insect control is not my field,” he said—he did point out that science does not indicate with any certainty that the apple moth (which he describes as “small, drab and maybe about a centimeter long”) will necessarily become a huge problem: “I think the crux of the matter is that the USDA classifies it as a potential pest and there’s a budget to keep it from spreading.”

What I found most interesting about my conversation with Powell—aside from the fact that it’s not every day I get to chat with people who’ve made a career studying insects (there’s a heck of a lot more of you tech people out there)—was that he made it quite clear there’s no way to predict how and where the apple moth might establish itself:

There is precedent for new moths coming in and not spreading elsewhere along the coast. There’s also a couple of examples of ones that have come in and spread. And there’s one that was in Southern California on the coast for 50 years and then suddenly began to spread inland. You certainly can’t predict what’s going to happen based on other species. It’s sort of anyone’s guess what would happen if you did not spray.

To be clear, the plan does not call for spraying pesticide, but rather synthetic moth pheromones designed to confuse the male moths and interrupt their breeding patterns. Powell:

It’s a kind of like a dust. They call it spray, but it’s a dust made of tiny plastic flakes on which the synthetic pheromone is affixed. And the way that kind of treatment works—or they hope it works—is that it causes so much confusion on the part of the males that they can ‘t find females. The hope is that it leaves a lot or most of the females unmated.

Call me crazy conservative, but I’d like to know, one, that these moths really, really are going to be a big problem if left unsprayed and, two, that the little plastic flecks with pheromones (as well as the other ‘inert’ ingredients included in the product) really, really don’t harm people.

For more information—-you must be curious now? The Pesticide Action Network has a pretty extensive description of the issue, including a timeline of moth-control related events and some background on aerial spraying and pheromones.