apple moth EIRs required now in two counties

I have written a couple of other blog articles about this problem since last fall. When synthetic pheromone was sprayed by plane above our suburban home along with everyone else in our county, my wife got asthma for 6 days even though she doesn't have asthma. So we knew it was from being exposed to the spray. Around 500 people reported to the State and County that they had become ill which likely means that around 10 times that number actually became ill and weren't able to either make the association with the time of the spraying or didn't know the spraying had occured. My wife, being a good citizen even went to her doctor to get a letter for the state and county to illustrate
the plight of her and hundreds and possibly thousands of people in our county.

Our area was sprayed twice. After much research we found the asthma causing agent was not the synthetic pheromone but the propellant which also gives asthma to painters because it is found in many paints. Most of the associated illnesses were resperatory in nature or allergic in nature to the propellant.

Now, both Santa Cruz County and Monterey County in California have required through the courts and EIR(Environmental Impact Report) before further spray can occur.

As resident, most all of us want the spraying to not occur ever again because of not only human health issues but also many of us have noticed the extreme reduction of not only all moths and butterflies but of local birds and squirrels. My assessment would be that there is presently a 90% reduction of all local birds and squirrels as well as 90% of ALL moths, butterflies and insects. The moths and butterflies and insects have depleted because the synthetic pheromone affects so many insect species not just the Light Brown Apple Moth from Australia. The loss of so many insects in turn has seriously reduced species that feed on those insects and this affects all animals and birds up this food chain.

I have also noticed a depletion of local squirrels both gray and brown. One other factor that isn't recognized much is that when the planes go over at night and spray it scares many creatures and so they look up in fear and because their eyes are open are blinded either temporarily or permanently because unlike humans, washing out the spray out of their eyes with water is much more problematic for them at night. So many blinded creatures like birds and squirrels were likely lost in this way when the spraying actually occurred both times throughout all the counties affected.

It is the hope of many of us that the EIR won't just be another whitewash and we hope that spraying of this pheromone or anything else will cease permanently over heavily populated areas.