NO SPRAY COALITION'S RESPONSE TO MAYOR GIULIANI'S EXPANSION
OF INSECTICIDE SPRAYING - FOLLOWING
FILING OF LAWSUIT AGAINST CITY OF
NEW YORK FOR INDISCRIMINATE PESTICIDE SPRAYING.
"The Mayor has gone bonkers in his bunker.
City officials always claimed that spraying deadly insecticides would be
a 'last resort.' How did a few dead
birds become a 'last resort'?"
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Subject: NO SPRAY COALITION'S RESPONSE TO INSECTICIDE SPRAYING----
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 09:40:53 -0400
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
For Immediate Release: CONTACT: Cathryn Swan - July 21, 2000, @ 212/343-2209.
NO SPRAY COALITION'S RESPONSE TO MAYOR GIULIANI'S EXPANSION
OF INSECTICIDE SPRAYING - FOLLOWING
FILING OF LAWSUIT AGAINST CITY OF
NEW YORK FOR INDISCRIMINATE PESTICIDE SPRAYING.
"The Mayor has gone bonkers in his bunker.
City officials always claimed that spraying deadly insecticides would be
a 'last resort.' How did a few dead
birds become a 'last resort'?" asks
Mitchel Cohen, a director of the No Spray Coalition and member of the Brooklyn
Greens, in response to the Mayor's
plan to spray toxic pesticides on all of Staten Island and parts of Queens.
The No Spray Coalition is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit
filed July 20th by the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project in
conjunction with Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic.
The lawsuit's goal is to force the City to halt pesticide spraying in
light of the serious threats it poses to the
health and safety of the people of New York City and in violation of federal and
state environmental statutes.
"Mayor Giuliani proclaims concern for alleged victims
of West Nile Virus but has expressed no concern whatsoever for the thousands of
people who have been made sick by the spraying.
The Mayor continues to claim that the pesticides are perfectly
'safe,'" Cohen said. (Under law regulated by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC),
no pesticide can be declared 'safe.')
Pesticides including organophosphates like Malathion, and
pyrethroids such as Resmethrin
(Scourge), and Sumithrin (Anvil) - the pesticides
being used in the current spray program - are not "safe."
The pyrethroids are mixed with another dangerous chemical, piperonyl
butoxide, which acts as a synergist and vastly enhances their toxic effects,
killing living organisms and wreaking havoc on human health, fish, butterflies,
bees, our drinking water, and the natural environment.
"The spraying continues without concern for risk to
people with asthma or compromised immune systems," said Eva Yaa Asantewaa,
a Plaintiff and board member of the No Spray Coalition.
"Our neighborhoods have a high number of both, particularly among
people of color."
Karl Coplan, co-counsel for the plaintiffs, states:
"The City is using a cure that is far worse than any kind of disease."
"In fact," says artist Robert Lederman, another
plaintiff in the lawsuit, "these pesticides are designed to be used in
agriculture, not sprayed on an urban population. Far from being 'irresponsible' (Mayor Giuliani has called the
plaintiffs 'irresponsible' for filing their lawsuit), we are acting in the
public interest by opposing Giuliani's spraying of our homes, streets, parks,
and waterways and by distributing scientific information on pesticides which
runs counter to official propaganda."
"Our" Government - is now THE Government, by
THE Government and for THE Government. How
did we get to this point in our history? Those
of you who survive - Vote in November and REMEMBER!
Steve
By Sean Delonas (www.nypost.com)
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