BLUE CLAW CRABS TURNING UP DEAD IN GREAT SOUTH BAY.

Areas Adjacent to Marshes Where Mosquito Spraying Has Taken Place 

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Subject:   Your "Registered" POISONS Are Killing More Than Pests----
Date:       Tue, 29 Aug 2000 08:52:25 -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, I thought you might like to read this: August 29, 2000 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - BLUE CLAW CRABS TURNING UP DEAD IN GREAT SOUTH BAY.

Areas Adjacent to Marshes Where Mosquito Spraying Has Taken Place

New York, New York – The environmental organization FISH Unlimited announced today that large amounts of blue claw crabs have begun turning up dead in Great South Bay in shallow water areas adjacent to the marshes in Mastic and Shirley where mosquito spraying by Suffolk County Vector Control has been taking place for over a month.

“We’ve received calls from two crabbers and a lobsterman who alerted us to the die off in these areas, and who are supplying us with a number of dead crabs to be tested for pesticide poisoning”, said Bill Smith, Executive Director of FISH Unlimited. “Like the lobster deaths in Long Island Sound, this is not a coincidence.”

FISH Unlimited has been critical of pesticide spraying in areas close to estuaries since September 1999 when they first raised the issue of a relationship between the massive spraying in New York and Connecticut and the lobster die off that occurred shortly after. Videos of experiments with lobsters and low levels of pesticides in controlled environments done by The Lobster Institute of Oreno, Maine for FISH Unlimited will be made public shortly. Also data from testing done on dead lobsters taken from Western Long Island Sound last October is scheduled to be released shortly by the environmental group.

“It appears that Suffolk County Vector Control has now poisoned Great South Bay”, Smith continued. “Last year it was the crabs that died first in Western Long Island Sound, then the lobsters.”

Suffolk County has been spraying massive amounts of the pesticides Resmethrin and Sumethrin in the marshes around the Mastic/Shirley for over a month. Both pesticides are known to be extremely deadly to marine life and are banned in countries such as the United Kingdom for that reason.

“We were having one of the best years we’ve had in 20 years until the spraying started,” said Steve Kelly a crabber from Brookhaven, New York. “Then all of a sudden, right after the spraying started, crabs started turning up dead like we’ve never seen before.”

FISH Unlimited will be sending the crabs for tissue sampling, and additionally has taken a number of grab samples of water and sediment around the shallow water marsh areas that also will be analyzed for pesticide levels.

“It appears that we did not learn our lesson from DDT”, Smith said. “The massive pesticide spraying of 1999 and 2000 is truly a sad chapter in our history, and one that will be looked back on with disgust by future generations.”

For more information contact FISH Unlimited at 631-749-3474 or 516-639-5874. 
FISH Unlimited - A Leader in Fisheries Conservation
1 Brander Parkway Box 1073
Shelter Island, NY 11965
631-749-3474 - p
631-749-3476 - f
fish@fishunlimited.org
www.fishunlimited.org

Well Mr. Helliker, I agree that future generations will look back on this era of spraying your "registered" POISONS with absolute disgust.  You have certainly not solved any pest problems and you clearly have created many more problems than you have "solved".

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