California Organic Farmers Protest Pesticide Spraying

California Organic Farmers Protest Pesticide Spraying

They call it the cholesterol of grape vines: Pierce's disease, a bacterium that chokes plants to death.

Now, an insect headed north could transport it deep into Northern California vineyards. Growers want to take no chances, forcibly spraying private gardens if necessary.

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Subject:   California Organic Farmers Protest Pesticide Spraying
Date:       Sat, 28 Oct 2000 09:33:37 -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 an article entitled: Fight over pest highlights tensions between growers, environmentalists. Dated October 25, 2000.

GEYSERVILLE, California (AP) -- They call it the cholesterol of grape vines: Pierce's disease, a bacterium that chokes plants to death.

Now, an insect headed north could transport it deep into Northern California vineyards. Growers want to take no chances, forcibly spraying private gardens if necessary.

The proposal, fiercely opposed by environmentalist, has set off a new debate over possible threats posed by pesticides and revived an old one: Is a booming vineyard industry choking the country out of Wine Country?

"They have taken down ancient oak trees, they have gone into areas that are full of redwood forests and have brought the forests down. They have flattened hillsides, they have filled in rivers and creeks," said Lynn Hamilton, director of the nonprofit Town Hall Coalition that is opposing forcible spraying. "The green that you see in the industrial vineyards is a dead zone."

The vineyards of the Alexander Valley lie lush and lovely beneath an Indian summer sun.

Still, it doesn't take long for vineyard manager Pete Opatz to spot the serpent in his Eden.

"Pierce's disease. This will be dead in a year," he says, stripping a wilting vine bare to show the telltale blotches of green and brown.

Pierce's disease has been found in Sonoma County for decades, caused by bacteria that flourish along waterways. So far, damage has been limited because the bacteria are carried by insects that don't fly too far. In the Clos du Bois vineyard Opatz manages, for instance, about six out of 500 acres of vines have been struck by Pierce's disease.

But on the way is the bigger and more powerful glassy winged sharpshooter -- a half-inch brown leafhopper that can take the bacteria for a quarter-mile ride.

The disease has caused $40 million in losses in Riverside County's Temecula area in recent years.

The flying insect hasn't infested Sonoma County or adjacent Napa County yet, although it has been found about 60 miles south in Brentwood.

Eleven counties are infested by the insect, and the state issued emergency regulations this summer for trapping the bug and monitoring infected plants.

Several counties have taken action against the insect. Officials in the Brentwood area approved spending $80,000 to spray an infested neighborhood with carbryl, an insecticide often used on lawns.

But in Sonoma County, a bastion of California's organic farming movement, county supervisors this month rejected mandatory spraying.

"The whole issue of forced spraying just tears my guts out," Supervisor Mike Cale said.

Sonoma County officials are scheduled to re-examine the issue November 7.

Anti-spraying factions hope to convince officials to use organic alternatives to carbryl.

"We have a lot of voices," said Mari Russell, a county resident who has battled cancer and says she'll "do whatever it takes to not have them come on my property."

County Agriculture Commissioner John Westoby says there are no organic alternatives. (Obviously he has not looked!)

Sonoma County, about 70 miles north of San Francisco, has long been a quieter cousin of adjacent Napa County. That's changed in recent years, with more rows of regimented vineyards marching over the county's rolling hills.

Last year, 9,000 acres of wine grapes were planted in the county, bringing the total to 52,000 acres.

Daniel Schoenfield, who with his wife runs the 5-acre Wild Hog Vineyard, hopes his organic practices -- cultivating beneficial bugs to eat the bad ones, for instance -- will keep the sharpshooter out.

"It doesn't mean that I'm not concerned about the sharpshooter ... but I just don't think poisoning the environment's the appropriate thing to do in this case," he said.

Opatz understands why people don't like the idea of mandatory spraying, but he says the most likely alternative is something spraying opponents may like a lot less than chemically treated vineyards -- seeing the land sold for houses.

"We're talking about not being here if the glassy wing has an opportunity to take hold," he said.

Well Mr. Helliker, contrary to what County Agriculture Commissioner John Westoby says, there are safe and far more effective alternatives to your dangerous "registered" POISONS - when will they be "legal" to use (in your opinion) to control pest problems in California? Why do you continue to insist that only your "registered POISONS can be used to "control" pest problems when there are safe and far more effective alternatives?

Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten