Dozens of residents overwhelmingly spoke out Tuesday against the aerial spraying for the light brown apple moth in early November, claiming the pesticide has not been proven to be safe and saying they weren't buying the state's contention that the situation was an emergency.
Their comments came after Department of Food and Agriculture officials gave an hourlong presentation of its eradication plans at a Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday night.
Some residents called for the county to join the city of Santa Cruz in a potential lawsuit to try to stop it while others asked the county to investigate less toxic ways of killing the moth.
In an emotional public hearing that was similar to last week's Santa Cruz City Council hearing, residents took the podium one by one to voice their disgust, saying the health and welfare of the people should take precedent over controlling the population of an invasive pest.
"The days of the EPA telling us what is safe is over," said Dave Lommen, a Santa Cruz resident. "They [the agency] have approved drugs that have killed people."
The hearing continued into the night, and the Board of Supervisors had taken no action by 10 p.m., but the state's presentation to supervisors was vastly different from the one given at last week's Santa Cruz City Council meeting.
The state warned if the light brown apple moth wasn't stopped, the U.S. Department of Agriculture would step in and take over, something they are trying to avoid.
The state continued to stand by the safety of the pesticide, saying it would be applied in such small amounts that it would hardly be noticeable -- 3 fluid ounces per acre or roughly 7 to 8 teaspoons of the pheromone per football field.
"We are struggling in this country with an invasive species, and it's not the first time," said Secretary of Food and Agriculture A.G. Kawamura. "Right now we're dealing with 10 different species in the state. It's something we've dealt with for a long period of time."
He asked the public to trust the state's experience in eradicating pests, something it's been doing for decades, whether with the Med fly, the glassy winged sharpshooter or the gypsy moth.
"We have a food supply that we depend on in this state and the nation," he said, adding that the "magnitude of this infestation calls for aerial application."
At issue is a pair of pesticides that replicate the scent of a female moth, steering the male moths off course, thus disrupting the mating process. The problem, opponents say, is that there is no evidence that the pesticides -- CheckMate OLR-F, which has been sprayed over parts of Monterey County, and CheckMate LBAM-F, to be sprayed over Northern Monterey County and parts of Santa Cruz County in early November -- are safe for humans.
Although the state Department of Food and Agriculture insists similar pheromones have been sprayed in Australia with no harmful consequences to humans, opponents counter the spraying occurred in predominantly rural areas there, not in urban settings as is the case along the Central Coast.
What's more, there's never been any studies on the long-term effects of both pesticides, and the manufacturer, the Bend, Ore.-based Suterra LLC, refuses to disclose the ingredients of its products for fear that competitors will copy its products.
The arguments on both sides are plentiful. The state says the moth, which feeds on some 250 plants, must be eradicated before it becomes a problem for California's entire agricultural industry, capable of causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to crops. Opponents, however, believe the state officials have overreacted by calling it an emergency, given that they believe the moth has lived here for more than two years and has wrought little havoc on local crops.
"Their claim is false, and that's how they've succeeded in getting this 'emergency exemption' without conducting any real environmental assessment on how it's going to affect the people and the environment," David Dilworth, executive director of Helping Our Peninsula Now, said earlier Tuesday.
HOPE, a Monterey-based nonprofit group, filed a lawsuit on Sept. 24 that led Monterey County Superior Court Judge Robert O'Farrell to temporarily suspend aerial spraying over the Monterey Peninsula until he had more scientific research on the inert ingredients of CheckMate OLR-F.
While environmentalists and the courts try to get to the truth on what the pesticides actually contain, $17 million in state eradication funds -- $15 million of which has been provided by the USDA -- have been put on hold, said Steve Lyle, a spokesman for the state.
At greater stake, says the state, is the sense of "food security" and a reputation that's in jeopardy and under a microscope in Mexico and Canada, which is inspecting products closely for the moth so that they don't inherit the pest.
As Kawamura has repeatedly said, an invasive species like the light brown apple moth shouldn't be taken lightly. His admonishments have ranged from the usual to the extreme, including the moths feeding on redwoods and capable of causing a forest fire in the worst-case scenario -- if the state continues with drought-like conditions.
And the epicenter for the pest is Santa Cruz County, where more than 6,000 moths have been trapped, the vast majority of them in the Live Oak and Soquel area. Opponents to the spraying think that sticky traps are a viable alternative. The state insists the only successful form of eradication is enlisting a trio of airplanes to spray the pheromone for six straight nights from Nov. 4 to Nov. 9, between the hours of 8 p.m. and 5 a.m.
The area is just too large, the state says, to blanket with sticky traps or with tiny twist ties, garbage-bag looking instruments that have been used for years in apple orchards across the Pajaro Valley to kill apple moths.
Two more hearings are scheduled later this month in Santa Cruz. The first is 7 p.m. Monday at the Cocoanut Grove Ballroom, 400 Beach St., Santa Cruz. The second is 7:30 p.m. University Inn and Conference Center, 611 Ocean St., Santa Cruz.
Contact Tom Ragan at tragan@santacruzsentinel.com