Panel of Experts Say No to Light Brown Apple Moth Spraying

Eradication of the light brown apple moth won’t work.
That’s according to one of the experts who spoke at a San Francisco town hall meeting last week, over concerns about the light brown apple moth spraying.
“Pheromone has never been used in any other eradication program,” said James Carey PH.D. Professor of Entomology at U.C. Davis. “Entomologists know that it is simply not a tool that can be used in eradication, because it’s ineffective even as a control tool. There aren’t exceptions. This program is an experiment”
Carey, who spent seven years on a panel with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), says he’s seen how things work on the inside and on the outside.
The USDA, according to Carey, has placed the light brown apple moth on the Class ‘A’ list, because of its’ alleged ability to cause enormous damage to California’s agriculture.
“There’s no science in that,” said Carey. “All science is cherry-picked and brought in to support the decision, rather than the decision being based on science.”
Carey alleges his colleagues are reluctant to speak out about the moth, that it hasn’t damaged any crops “because of funding through agriculture.”
According to scientists, the light brown apple moth belongs to a family of “leaf roller” moths.
Jeff Rosendale, a horticulturist and executive director of U.C. Santa Cruz arboretum, says that these types of moths, unlike some other species such as the fruit fly, feed on tree leaves, not fruit.
“The reason it [the insect] has significance is because they’re quarantined, they’re a pest in quarantine,” said Rosendale. “That is then the status of a pit-bull, when they really are more of a chihuahua.”


Jeff Rosendale

That “paper status”, Rosendale says, has caused agriculturists and horticulturists to have to meet USDA zero tolerance standards for the moth.
“That’s what’s happening to us right now. We’re in the zero tolerance directive.”
That won’t change, according to Rosendale, until the USDA changes the moths’ classification from a Class ‘A’ to a Class ‘B’. That is the class other North American leaf roller moths fall into. Those moths have never been quarantined, according to Rosendale.
But putting pressure on the USDA to change the moths’ classification could take up to four to five years, according to experts.
Aerial spraying over San Francisco and other Bay Area cities to eradicate the moth is expected to begin this year in August, despite a judge’s decision yesterday in Santa Cruz to postpone spraying over Santa Cruz-Monterey areas.
Last years’ spraying in those areas has triggered an enormous amount of opposition to the states’ current plans for spraying, mostly because the public has been kept uncertain as to what kinds of chemicals will be used. It is expected, though, that chemicals used this time will be similar to the ones used last year.
Suterra LLC, the Oregon based company that manufactures the chemicals for light brown apple moth spraying, leaves over 82 percent of the ingredients unnamed in the chemicals sprayed last year over Monterey and Santa Cruz, listing them as “other ingredients”.
The remaining ingredients contained in those microcapsules, are the actual synthetic pheromones designed to disrupt the mating cycles of the moth.
After aerial spraying last year, over 600 illnesses were reported in the Santa Cruz and Monterey areas just after the spraying with the pheromones.
In a recent report released by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), the Department of Pesticide Regulations (DPR), and the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), the “other” ingredients, or “inert ingredients” as they’re called, were disclosed, but not before having been kept from the public for months after the spraying had been completed.
At least three of the nine inert ingredients that were listed in the report are characterized as lung irritants, skin irritants, and eye irritants, according to their material safety data sheets. Included is Butylated Hydroxytoluene (BHT), a known carcinogen.


Nan Wisner

According to the Chair of the Albany Integrated Pest Management Task Force, Nan Wishner, who was on the panel at last nights’ town hall meeting, and spoke the day before at a meeting in Berkeley, BHT is a carcinogen and, in fact, a known a mutagen, mutagen meaning that it causes cell mutations. According to Wishner, BHT is also known to be associated with birth defects, as well as miscarriages.
The report released by the states’ agencies, however, did not reveal the percentages that the inert ingredients were used in, citing that information as being patented “business information.”
OEHHA, DPR, and CDPH’s claim that there never was enough evidence to determine whether or not last year’s health complaints filed by residents of Monterey and Santa Cruz, could or could not be linked to aerial spraying.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the inert ingredients in the light brown apple moth spray are safe. The government agency approved all of the ingredients in the spray, active or inert, “based on their low toxicity.”
However, the October 2007 EPA analysis report that this article is citing, approves ingredients in the pheromone spray for “products that come in contact with food”, but does not mention safety with respects to people, pets, and wildlife.