[CVF] SB671, The Pierces Disease in Vineyard and aerial spraying

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson]

Hi folks,
We all better not be asleep on this one. About 14 million is being pumped
into this bill to flood the agricultural industry with money options to
fight Pierces Disease. This includes aerial spraying which they are
currently doing in Riverside County as we speak.
The aerial spraying of Lorsban-is suppose to be phased out along with
methyl bromide (biocide-kills all living things) by year 2004 orginally.
SB671 allows for chemotherapy of nursery plants (plants are injected with
pesticides before they enter the county coming up from the south (fruits
trees, ornamentals), which is toxic to honey bees. All you bee keepers
should be asking a lot of questions about this procedure.
Genetic engineering is the perferred method of fighting PD. To give
millions to this effort without thoroughly   understanding the implications
is dangerous. Many environs are asking that all food products be labled
that the products are genetically engineered. If the  plant is genetically
altered to resist a pest this usually means that some part of the plants
bio-chemistry is altered. This has been shown to be toxic to other
creatures that frequent the plant  as part of their feeding habits. In one
case it killed monarch butterfies.
The wine industry is breaking the rules of mother nature and we all know
what happens when you mess with the natural balence of nature-it usually
comes back to bite you on the butt.
Here is what you can do locally to have public say about the money that
will come to your county but you must be proactive ASAP:
1. Contact your Agricultural Commissioner and ask to be included in all
public discussion regarding the WORK PLAN for your county regarding SB671
money. The money can not be spent without a work plan.
2. Build in the invironmental language needed in the WORK PLAN to protect
our aquatic life and public from aerial spraying.
3. Put your ag-commissioner on the hot seat regarding his position on
aerial spraying. Get him to talk publically about his or her plans. You
need the public record on this.
4. Insist on riparian and woodland setbacks as natural barriers. The
UC-Davis extension suggests healthy setback in their publications
-VINEYARDS IN AN OAK WOODLAND.
5. The industry must become sustainable-that means stop overplanting-they
are engineering their own demise.
This bill is moving at record breaking speed. It started as a media bill
for the ag-industry and transformed miraculous into a PD bill mid stream
with multi-millions of dollars. There appears to have been no public
hearings and may be a violation of the Brown Act.
It is troublsome that so many tax dollars are being appropriated to an
industry that brought this on themselves, have been causing much
environmental damage and now need to be rescued from their own bad
judgement, and poor farming practices.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To get off the CALIF-VINEYARD-FORUM list, send any message to:
CALIF-VINEYARD-FORUM-signoff-request at LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG