Caroline Griffith, NEC Executive Director
GM Mosquitoes
On October 30 the California Department of Pesticide Control (DPC) will hold a workshop on using “modified mosquito technology” for pest control. What is modified mosquito technology, you ask? Well, it is the use of genetically modified mosquitoes, generally males, who pass along a “kill gene” or self-limiting gene which only allows male offspring to survive. Female mosquitoes are the ones that bite humans, so the idea is that controlling female mosquito populations will reduce the spread of diseases like Zika, dengue fever and yellow fever. The first genetically modified mosquitoes, a version of the species Aedes aegypti, were released in the US by biotech firm Oxitec in Florida in 2021. California followed suit with a pilot program that released GM mosquitoes in four counties. At the October 30 meeting, DPC will discuss its planned approach for evaluating modified insects for pesticide registration.
Are You the 1 Percent?
Americans are concerned about the environment, but apparently don’t see themselves as drivers of change. According to a recent survey of 22,000 people from around the world conducted by the Global Commons Alliance, respondents from the US largely placed the blame for climate change on businesses and the government, and felt like climate change wasn’t going to directly affect them. We’ve often written about the conflict between personal choice and societal change when it comes to healing environmental harm, and there is a tendency for people to focus on one or the other as the solution. While businesses often point to consumer choice as the driver of industrial practices as a way to deflect responsibility, the fact of the matter is that personal choices still have an impact. According to the UN Environment Program, the wealthiest 10 percent of people are responsible for nearly half of the world’s emissions. Although most Americans wouldn’t think of themselves as wealthy, single people earning $60,000 per year after taxes are in the wealthiest 1 percent of people globally. UN Emissions Gap Reports have said that in order to meet emissions reductions goals the world’s wealthiest need to reduce their emissions by a factor of 30. You can use this fun calculator (givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i) to figure out what percentile you are in so you can make your reductions plan accordingly. Here in Humboldt County, 73 percent of emissions come from transportation, so shifting away from reliance on personal vehicles can have a huge impact. Other personal choices that impact the environment include living in large homes, flying frequently, and purchasing high volumes of low-cost clothing, i.e. fast fashion.
Water Quality meeting in Smith River
On October 21 the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board will hold a meeting in Smith River to update the public on the development of Waste Discharge Requirements for Lily Bulb Operations in the Smith River Plain. Details have not been solidified as of this writing, but interested parties can find more information at waterboards.ca.gov/northcoast/water_issues/programs/agricultural_lands/lily/
As reported in the September issue of EcoNews, in 2021 (the most recent year that data was available) Easter lily bulb farmers in the Smith River Plain applied 219,822 pounds of pesticides on approximately 300 acres, averaging 733 pounds per acre. Many of these chemicals are harmful to humans and deadly to aquatic species who are affected when pesticides are washed into waterways, something that happens often in an estuary in a rainy climate. Pesticides used include the fumigant 1,3-dichloropropene (1,3-D), which is banned in 34 countries including the European Union because it is a known carcinogen and reproductive toxin; metam sodium, a human reproductive and immune system toxicant that is also highly toxic to fish and which is banned in the European Union; phorate, a probable groundwater contaminant that is banned in the EU, China, India, Switzerland, Brazil, the United Kingdom and Turkey, among other nations. According to the EPA phorate “is very highly toxic to fish and wildlife” and warns that “runoff may be hazardous to aquatic organisms in neighboring areas.” Easter lily bulb farms also use high levels of copper-based fungicides, such as copper hydroxide and copper sulfate. The EPA label for copper hydroxide notes, “This copper product is toxic to fish and aquatic organisms. Unlike most organic pesticides, copper is an element and will not break down in the environment and will therefore accumulate in sediment with repeated applications.”
2013 water monitoring of streams that feed the Smith River estuary uncovered “chronic reproductive toxicity” (red circles) in Delilah Creek, Rowdy Creek, and Morrison Creek, and “acutereproductive toxicity” at the mouth of Rowdy Creek (red square). In 2024, Federal fisheries biologist Dan Free said, “Rowdy Creek has some of the highest intrinsic potential for coho [salmon] in the Smith River, and there’s no coho there. They haven’t seen coho there … for years. And we’ve seen high levels of pesticides in Rowdy Creek during critical outmigration times, so it kind of doesn’t surprise me that that’s what we’re seeing.”
Map: Siskiyou Land Conservancy/North Coast Regional Water Board