Dejected Lobstermen Blame Mosquito Spraying in Crippling Die-Off 

It is a suspicion that some scientists are taking seriously, saying there are plausible indicators -- but not definitive proof -- that the pesticides could have played a role in the catastrophic lobster kill. 

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Subject:   Your "Registered" POISONS Are Killing More Than Pests---
Date:      Tue, 01 Aug 2000 08:18:00 -0400
From:        Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

To:     Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
          Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation 

Dear Mr. Helliker, Now that Lyndon is "retired", I have decided to send you, the Director of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation some reasons why you should not demand that only "registered" POISONS be used to "control" pest problems in your State.  I therefore thought you might like to read an article from the New York Times dated July 31, 2000 entitled: Dejected Lobstermen Blame Mosquito Spraying in Crippling Die-Off - By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN.

NORWALK, Conn., July 28 -- John Makowski is a fourth-generation lobsterman, or at least he was until the mysterious death of most of the lobster population in western Long Island Sound last fall. And though he does not have a degree in marine biology, Mr. Makowski, like many of his former colleagues, said he was convinced that millions of lobsters were killed by the pesticide spraying to fight the West Nile virus.

It is a suspicion that some scientists are taking seriously, saying there are plausible indicators -- but not definitive proof -- that the pesticides could have played a role in the catastrophic lobster kill.

On Tuesday morning, just hours after New York City concluded pesticide spraying in Central Park, Mr. Makowski and about a dozen other demoralized lobstermen were in the offices of the Norwalk Seaport Association submitting paperwork to get federal disaster money authorized for them by Congress. The mosquitoes may be back this year, several pointed out, but the lobsters are not.

They were skeptical about theories last year that a micro-organism, a paramoeba, could have killed the lobsters.

"There has been a lot of talk about this paramoeba," Mr. Makowski said. "But paramoeba is in the water all the time. It's not something that in 200 years has ever wiped out a fishery."

Like insects, lobsters are arthropods and are extremely susceptible to pesticides, he said.

Last year's die-off, marine scientists say, was the worst ever to hit the Sound.

Officials estimate that about 11 million lobsters, more than 90 percent of the full-sized population, died in the Sound last fall, putting hundreds of  lobstermen out of business in Connecticut and New York. Millions of younger lobsters, too small to be harvested, are also believed to have died. The Sound is the nation's third-largest lobster source, after Maine and Massachusetts, generating $45 million in annual sales.

Lobsters and other crustaceans are vulnerable to many things, including changes in water temperature and oxygen content that can prove deadly.   The effects of dredging and sewage treatment can also be lethal. But  many lobstermen believe that the pesticide spraying last September and the die-off were not a coincidence. They theorize that the pesticides were washed into the Sound by heavy rain, including Tropical Storm Floyd, and that those chemicals combined with overflows of chlorine and sewage from water treatment plants weakened the lobsters' immune systems, allowing the paramoeba to kill them.

Scientists have mixed views, but generally regard the theory as plausible and well worth researching. The death last year of other crustaceans like crabs and starfish suggests that whatever happened was not specific to lobsters.

And Dr. Richard A. French, a veterinary pathologist at the University of Connecticut, who identified the paramoeba in the dead lobsters, said investigators had ruled out several known causes of lobster deaths, including bacterial, viral and fungal agents. He said researchers have been collecting lobsters since June 1 to test the pesticide theory and are anxious to do so. But until the tests are done, the theory remains just one of many possibilities. "If I had any concerns it would be that there are concentrations that could affect the animals in a way that makes them more susceptible to other causes of mortality," he said.

Outside the Seaport Association, Jeff Samson, 44, held a small bag filled with pink receipts documenting sales for the last three years and copies of income tax forms to prove their losses. The numbers: 50,989 pounds of lobster caught in 1997; 53,792 pounds caught in 1998; 18,496 pounds caught in 1999. "This year I might get 1,000 if I'm lucky," Mr.Samson said, adding that he has taken a job driving an oil truck, and can afford to fish only part time.

Many lobstermen are questioning whether politicians overreacted to the West Nile virus, noting that far more people die of the flu. And several are irked by what they consider to be brazen comments by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York City about his willingness to kill fish and other animals if necessary to protect human beings from infected mosquitoes.

"I think they really overdid it," said Anthony Coviello, 56, a lobsterman who lives in Rowayton. "If you are going to spray to protect lives and it's going to protect lives, then pay me for my damages because I'm out of business."

Mr. Giuliani has repeatedly said his primary concern is the health of citizens, and officials throughout the metropolitan region have said that pesticides were used in accordance with federal regulations.

The Western Long Island Sound Lobster Association has hired its own researchers in hopes of more conclusive findings. Congress has authorized $13.9 million in response to the lobster deaths.

Half will go to direct aid for unemployed lobstermen and half will go to research. And Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it will conduct a separate six-month, $125,000 environmental study of the Sound, not focused on pesticides, to help determine what killed the lobsters.

Experts generally agree that insecticides, by definition, are deadly to crustaceans.

But Dr. Robert Bayer, the director of the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, which is testing the effects of pesticides, said the situation in the Sound is complicated.

"I think there are other pollutants that could fit into the picture and it's hard to define what those might be in Long Island Sound when you have got the megalopolis around it, which actually could affect the way lobsters respond to many things, including pesticides," Dr. Bayer said.

And Ernie Beckwith, the chief of the Connecticut Department of  Environmental Protection's marine fisheries division, was more cautious.  He said there was also evidence suggesting the pesticides were not involved. "I don't think we have proven anything yet," he said. "We had lobsters dying in places where we didn't have spraying going on."

Mr. Beckwith also said his agency was doing everything it could to aid the lobstermen and to better understand last year's die-off.

Whatever the cause, the fact remains that what was once a vital industry has been all but wiped out. Marine scientists say it will take at least five to seven years for the lobster population to recover, if it recovers at all.

Mr. Makowski has put his boat up for sale and plans to sell his house.  He has two daughters, one about to start college. To pay bills, he has taken a job on land, with a ventilation company in Massachusetts.

Waiting to file their paperwork at the Seaport Association, the lobstermen said that not only have they lost their livelihoods, they have lost each other.

"I used to talk to him three, four times a day, where our wives would be mad at us," Tony Carlo, who is now delivering furniture in New Jersey, said of Mr. Coviello. "Now, I don't even see him."

Gary Olewnik, 45, is surviving on a pension from a former job and insisting on trying to trap lobsters, but he is barely making back expenses.  "I'm paying for my boat and I'm paying for my fuel," he said. Mr.Coviello has put his beloved boat, a custom-built beauty named Black Mountain Risin', up for sale.

"We can't collect unemployment and there's no severance pay," Mr.Coviello said. "It wasn't our fault. We didn't get up and quit fishing.  Somebody killed these lobsters. This is nothing but pollution that did this.  I honestly believe it. Between the pesticides and the sewage treatment plants, there was nothing else." He added: "To be wiped out completely, you can't tell me it wasn't something different. Between three weeks and one month, we were completely out of business."

Well Mr Helliker,  Synergism kills more than crustaceans - it kills people and pets too.  I ask you why you continue to demand that only your "registered" POISONS can be used to "legally control" pests in California, especially when there are so many safe and far more effective alternatives?

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