From Max Ventura
Sonoma, California

While I'm glad to hear of areas where there is no broadcast spraying
over urban areas, please, please help people there and elsewhere not fall
into the trap of division and ALSO... don't to fall into the trap of
deception which follows such announcements.

Let me outline the problem and common deceptions using my old home: I
got my kids out of the Sonoma Valley which is in the Southern part of Sonoma
County, Wine Country, right by Napa. As we pushed in our battles to stop
the possibility of spraying around the Glassy-winged Sharpshooter at some
point the Agriculture Commissioner tried to pull the wool over people's
eyes by saying that they ("probably"--- I also used this to enlighten people....
chemicals seem to have affected many people's ability to think critically enough
to listen carefully to his words) wouldn't do any spraying over urban areas.

First of all, I kept confronting him publicly telling him we needed to
know what he meant when he referred vaguely to urban areas. He never
answered. Never. Next, I called the County Tax Assessor and we had a talk
about this issue. I asked him what he, as T. A., would consider urban in
our county full of ag, forests and various towns. He said no one had ever
asked him this question, but that he would sit down and look at maps,
calculate and call me back with an answer. Amazingly, he did exactly this.
Drumroll...... What the T.A. considers urban comprises only 5% of the whole
county. This would be common around the country. Or uban areas might be
30% or 50%.

Though I would have estimated something like this, most people living
in the towns probably would not have even considered this issue as carefully
as me and I think would have felt unduly protected, precisely the slimy Ag.
Comm.'s intention, so I started getting this info out far and wide. I think
you would do well to do the same.

Here are some problems: first, this is an issue meant to divide and
conquer. More people in urban areas means more voice. Are the others with
less numbers and less power (especially the workers in the fields) any less
important than we are? Of course not. So let's not let powers-that-be
divide us. Second, and this is the big kicker, people are kidding
themselves if they think widespread spraying can occur anywhere and not
affect them. We have to push the issue that pesticides drift 24 miles on a
CALM day and have been found to drift hundreds on the wind. GE crop drift
has been discussed by Percy Schmeiser who was attacked by Monsanto when
others' GE crops drifted onto his canola fields. He reminds us that farmers
have always seen drift of seed over 10-15 miles in his area, obvious because
people would find others' hybrids.....

So, the point to make is that if spraying is happening outside D.C.,
residents are still getting it, but "lawmakers" are not seeing the hell of
pesticide spray and everyone can pretend that it's a good thing. People who
experience spraying in front of them often are horrified, which is why the
photos I took primarily over 5 months' time in my old neighborhood helped
wake up people to what is actually going on around them all in Wine Country
as most sleep.

The growers used to claim (they still do) that they sprayed
at night because that was when the air was calmest. My photos show that
that is an outright lie.

Monitoring drift for a statewide study done by the Environmental Working
Group (pub. Jan., 1999), I was out every night for over 3 months.....
Lies, lies and more lies. They just know that if tourists were seeing this,
suddenly Wine Country wouldn't seem so romantic.

(take a look at our website to see photos and tell people to log on to get
good info on what to do if sprayed..... www.dontspraycalifornia.org)

I hope you all use the D.C. refusal to spray for West Nile this year to
expose the deception of it, find out the amount of urban area within, say, 50
square miles or whatever, and then go on using the no spray stance to point
out that if lawmakers realize they will be fine in regards to West Nile virus,
then we all know that the people who do pass away due to it would likely have
passed away due to any virus passing through. The rest of us all will be fine
unless we're sprayed. If we are sprayed our healthcare systems will be overloaded
with victims of spraying.

- Max Ventura