Fighters for Freedom Won, #1: 'Stop the Spray!' 2008 in the San Francisco Bay Area

10 Counties organized and STOPPED aerial spraying of their neighborhoods--from Marin and Sonoma Counties south to San Francisco, east to Alameda and Contra Costa, south to San Mateo, Santa Cruz, ...

In March, April and May of 2008 I was engaged with Stop the Spray Marin, an ad hoc, spontaneously assembled organization with its base in Marin County, California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco and home to beloved Mount Tamalpais.

We were united to oppose the spraying of 10 Counties in central and northern California with CheckMate aerial pesticides. The CheckMate sprays were spuriously said to be protecting farmers and neighborhood from the Light Brown Apple Moth. The Light Brown Apple Moth—LBAM for short—had for decades lived in those Counties, fields, neighborhoods and orchards with overall beneficience. The LBAM, you may already guess from our COVID years’ vantage-point, was a Fraudulent Threat, a Pretext for conditioning and poisoning human communities.

In December 2020 the Stop the Spray fight struck me again as a good example to raise. It centered a Post in my ‘The Choices Are Us’ series on the Flipping the Script blog within the WeAreRevolutions websites.

I wrote then: ‘How groups got together to resist the attacks on their entire enviroments and how they (or we) WON in the fight to make State and Federal Agencies desist and retreat is a lesson for many publics in December of this COVID-19 year and Governors' and Mayors' 'second wave of lockdowns.’

Parallels between Corporations’ and Governmental Agencies attack on residents of the ten California Counties, through blanket spraying based on Pretext of a Moth, are, you may register, consistent with the ‘Flatten the Curve’ campaign that arrived at ‘Warp Speed’ to injection of hundreds millions across the U.S. with ‘Not Safe / Not Effective / Not Necessary’ …' poisons in 2020 and 2021.

Returning to the Flipping the Script Post of December 5, 2020.

‘The engagement as Campaign Director in Marin led to my further hiring by Organic Valley Farms to write and disseminate something more general in favor of the burgeoning increase of growers and consumers of organic food. Doing this work--traveling to Los Angeles, San Diego, Davis and Sacramento--and talking to
organizers such as those in South Central and Upland and Mendocino Counties--organizers such as Katrina and Jon Frey and Henry and Virgilia Dakin and Kris and Eric Brewer--was a big pleasure. Many worked very hard and intelligently and with great cooperation. See the FANTASTIC amount of participation through the links here.

I also got to work with Terbo Ted on the eventual 4-pager that was distributed in 5000 copies. You can read a PDF of the 4-pager with full-color graphics here, thanks to Ted.

We can win! What can DO and CREATE whatever we CHOOSE to be strong enough to DO and CREATE!’

How the tens of millions of us already invested in organic diets and friends to Farmers’ Markets could take control of our health was inspiration for my May 27, 2020 Post, #9 in the ‘COVID-19’ series, over on the Flipping the Script blog. That For Our Health ... Post contains many links to Farmers' Markets, Local Growers, and Community Gardens across the USA.

And now to the Good Example from 2008, as reported in the December 5, 2020 Post.

‘Local Control of Pesticides: The LBAM Example

March-August 2007: A Sudden Pretext for Sudden 'Emergency'. A Particular Problem-Reaction-Solution Starts Its Act in California

MARCH 2007:

Supposed first finding of a Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) in California, as confirmed by the California Department of Agriculture (CDFA) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) is a leaf-roller about 1/4-inch wide. This Moth is very hard to distinguish from more than 50 other Moths. According to Dr. James Carey, an entomologist at the University of Calfornia, the LBAM has likely lived and spread in California for more than 40 years without damaging crops.

MAY 2, 2007:

The USDA declares an LBAM-related quarantine, choking off growers' ability to earn unless they accept USDA/CDFA-ordered pesticides.

JULY 24, 2007:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grants an 'emergency exemption' that allows immediate aerial spraying of CheckMate-brand pesticides for 'eradication' of the LBAM without an Environmental Impact Report or other, normal precautions.

Check-Mate products' labels warn of their toxic dangers. Spraying of the CheckMate pesticides dispenses plastic microcapsules that then emit their ingredients in time-release fashion.

Check-Mate is made by the Suterra Corporaton, owned by Stewart Resnick, a major donor to Republican and Democrat candidates ($143K to Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor of California in 2006). Resnick's Roll International Corporation also 'owns Paramount Farms, the world's largest grower of almonds and pistachios, and Paramount Citrus, one of the largest citrus producers in the United States', according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

SEPTEMBER—NOVEMBER 2007: Attacks from the Air

Days or nights of spraying urban areas of California's Central Coast by airplanes of Dynamic Aviation, a U. S. Defense Dept. contractor that's based in Virginia, follow.

In early September, the municipalities of Monterey, Carmel and Pacific Grove are sprayed with CheckMate OLR-F. In late October spraying of Monterey County with CheckMate LBAM-F begins after a lawsuit by Central Coast citizens is overriden by the USDA/CDFA.

In early November Santa Cruz and nearby communities are sprayed with CheckMate LBAM-F.

Hotel workers compare the overhead dosings (from 300 to 500 feet above ground) to aerial bombing. 643 individual reports of illness from the spray are registered in the two Counties, most of the illnesses respiratory. Hundreds of dead birds wash up on beaches. Surfers report ear and sinus infections and the worst water ever offshore.

The CDFA admits that no provable inhibition of LBAM mating has come from the spraying.

JANUARY-JUNE 2008: Reason and Resistance Win a Partial Victory

JANUARY 24, 2008: The CDFA announces $74.9 million more from the USDA for 'eradication' of the LBAM. The CDFA plans aerial spraying of at least six more Counties (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo) as well as more spraying of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, beginning in June 2008 and proceeding once-per-month for nine months a year through 2010.

FEBRUARY-JUNE 2008: Activists in targeted communities organize to oppose LBAM spraying.

Town Hall meetings and radio talk-shows quiz California Secretary of Agriculture A. G. KawamurA.

Attorneys, physicians and realtors note the losses and liabilities that will come from LBAM spraying. County and Municipal governments pass Resolutions that oppose the aerial spray.

On April 22 Arnold Schwarzenegger receives thousands of anti-spray phone-calls and e-mails. On April 24 and May 12, Superior Court Judges in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties (Paul Burdick and Robert O'Farrell respectively) decide against further LBAM spraying until Environmental Impact Reports and other precautions are completed.

Activists increase their efforts and numbers. Thousands march in Marin County and San Francisco. By June of 2008 a total of 27 County and Municipal governments officially oppose aerial LBAM spraying.

JUNE 19, 2008:

CDFA spokesperson Steve Lyle announces that the Department is suspending plans for aerial anti-LBAM spraying of urban areas.

December 10, 2024 … That we now hold through the Internet and our vastly increased means of communication and empowerment FAR MORE CAPACITIES to ORGANIZE IN OUR COMMUNITIES and to TAKE CONTROL of our ECONOMIES and DESTINIES may be as OBVIOUS to you, too, as it’s COMPELLING and APPEALING. Look around! See what we can do! Have fun and fulfillment with our futures!