When I first heard of the light brown apple moth, I promised myself I’d never use the LBAM acronym—because who calls a little brown moth “LBAM?” It’s goofy. But there it is, up there in the headline, in all its space-saving goofiness.

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 Read the rest of this entry »

Alameda schools may suffer from budget woes, but in this, at least, we’re not an island. The megalopolis to the south of us has mega-problems. You can read here what Steve Lopez of the Los Angleles Times has to say about the impact of $100 million in cuts to Los Angeles schools.

The esteemed Dr. Metablog, in town from Colorado, has written a response to the anti-parcel tax editorial by Guy Smith (”Make parents pay for child’s education”) that ran last week in the Alameda Journal. Visit Dr. Metablog and read his take on Smith’s position.

Indeed, it is not each and every day that a car lands in the Alameda-Oakland Estuary. Here’s some video of the car and the Alameda Avenue homeowner under whose house the car is lodged. (The house is on the Oakland side of the estuary, just east of the Fruitvale Bridge.) My best guess is, come high tide, they’ll tow that car out.

The early morning helicopters above Alameda were not, it turns out, because students were protesting budget cuts and not because of an accident on 880, but, rather, they were the news copters chasing down shots of a car in the estuary. A woman apparently drove off the road in Oakland near the Fruitvale Bridge around five this morning.

I went over to take some pictures (see below), and one of the camera guys—several networks were there—showed me Read the rest of this entry »

As you may have already heard, the state of California plans to spray up and down the coast three to five nights a month for five years to eradicate the light brown apple moth, a newcomer from Australia. Hundreds of people in the Santa Cruz area, where spraying began last fall, reported respiratory problems. Legislation has been introduced to stop the plan and some towns like Albany (here’s a recent Contra Costa Times editorial by Albany Mayor Robert Lieber) are resisting. Our Alameda is in the area slated to be sprayed.

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.

Bay Area sports talk show host Tom Tolbert has caught wind of Alameda’s budget woes and dedicated this afternoon’s drive-time show to raising funds for Alameda sports programs. They’re urging everyone to match a $30,000 donation from the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame. KNBR producer Janet Magleby says Encinal High grad Dontrelle Willis has also pledged $20,000 to support athletics in Alameda schools. Magleby:

Technically, in 50 minutes we made $50,000 dollars. Hopefully everyone who hears us today will go to our Web site and donate. Even if all we raise is $50,000, that’s $50,000 more than they had.

Magleby says they hope to do more than just support Alameda athletic programs:

Sports are hurting not just in Alameda but all over the Bay Area—that’s why we got involved. We’re trying to show what a few people can do to help their community and that you can do the same in your community. People can send us an email and tell us what they’re trying to do and we’ll post it on our site and try to give it some priority on the show–we’re trying to give some attention outside your booster and your local newspaper.

USA Today’s prep sports blog picked up the news of budget cuts here in Alameda, asking readers to respond to this question: “Where would you be without Prep Sports?”

By way of context for Alameda’s struggles, you can find headlines about the cuts other East Bay districts are facing here. And, for good measure, here’s this morning’s story about Antioch: “Bloodletting begins in Antioch Schools.”

By now it would be hard not to have heard that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed 2008-09 budget cuts more than four billion from K-14 education. He’s also proposed suspending Prop. 98, which, since 1988, has set minimum funding levels for our state’s public schools.

Today Alameda’s PTA Council is joining with other Bay Area PTA’s in a day of advocacy in Sacramento. Many parents, educators, community members and students wrote letters to bring to the capitol. To the left is one such letter penned by a third grader, Sophie, from Franklin School.