Foray 48B

[Spartan]

Actually when you have already drawn your conclusions before gathering supporting data, that is not research. While you might have convinced yourself this stuff is safe, you have not addressed any of the legitimate concerns placed here except to simply dismiss them as wrong. You are perfectly free to hold this opinion but it does not invalidate the opinion of those who live in the affected area, who have health concerns this is something to be worried about.

You can't do a study when you don't know the ingredients. Ingredients that change from manufacturer to manufacturer and over time. That would seem to be a perfectly logical argument, so it confounds me that anyone could say there are studies that say it is perfectly safe.

[I CARE]

Again, who will stand in it, allow their children, grandchildren, grandparents and little Fluffy the pooch to stand out and be directly sprayed?

The City says it is not required to bring your children or pets indoors... how safe do you really think it is. Do you really believe everything "they" tell you?

Does no one here have a loved one, a friend, a co-worker, a neighbor, even an aquaintance with asthma or any other illness or sensitivity?!

And as for crying about losing trees, I recently saw how many trees have been removed from the forested area behind Park and Fairview, also a large area on Archdale demolished for devolpment.

There are many trees missing or replaced on Queens Rd West, pride of the canopy and it looks......... just fine. Trees die, more trees grow. What is it with this idea of picture perfect and things must not change because it won't "look" just so.

The City arborist is already supposedly going to remove appx 500 trees this coming year... This spraying is not necessary but being done to placate the complainers! I went through the archives of the Observer and there are tons of articles going back 20+ years of people complaing because the caterpillars are hanging from the trees and getting all over them... because they eat the leaves wah. They grow back... bugs eat leaves and a lot of the damage is blamed on them that is just natural disease, natural things that happen to trees, they lose limbs.. they keep growing until their time to die. Its all part of the circle of life duh. People remove their limbs all the time, they "shape" the trees to their idea of perfection or convenience but complain of anything "they" don't "like". Pollution hurts trees and there were complainers saying if we lose the trees we will suffer from pollution.. oh yeah and lose highway dollars. No call for working on the pollution, pollute all you want, the trees will take care of it. Charlotte is already a horrible place for pollution, regular Ozone alerts, are the buggies supposedly going to make this worse? Will this summer be instantly better if the buggies are sprayed and less leaves are eaten this year?!

[I CARE]

I don't know how to add a link but I found the following on the website Monsoon noted earlier and thought this was interesting (remember the coming rate hike too):

^{Cankerworm Spraying and Washing Your Cars}

^{The question came up at this months meeting if residents could wash their cars after the upcoming aerial spray. The reason for the question came from one of the Q and A's from the Charlotte Meck. web site on the spraying. Upcoming details on how this will work will be forthcoming from the city.}

^{Will the spray affect my car's paint? Over the many years of use of Bt in aerial spraying, there have been no documented cases of harm to automotive paints.} <LI>^{Should I wash my car after the spray? The carrier for Bt is similar to tree sap. The sooner you wash your car after the aerial spray, the easier it will be to get off of the paint. Mr. Doss - thank you for your question. After the cankerworm spraying has been completed, we will allow citizens to wash their cars for a limited period. We are currently finalizing the details of this and will include this information on the City's website and in further distribution of information regarding the upcoming spraying. Please let me know if you have any additional questions or if you need any additional information.}

^{Denise D. Foreman}

^{Assistant Director}

^{Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities}

^704-391-5094

^{Learn about water conservation at www.saveyourwater.org}

^{Also saw today that all of a sudden oops, there is a big budget shortage. Well, I know where they can find $2.6 million real quick. It aint over til the fat lady sings, why oh why do I have the feeling the fat lady is named Charlotte?! It is not too late... yet}

[uptownliving]

The contract for the aerial sparying has been awarded to Al's Aerial Spraying out of Michigan. This is the same company that did the spray job in Charlotte in 1998. The bid came in about $1M under budget (comes out to about $18 per acre to spray) . They plan to spray for about 4 days sometime around April 10th depending on weather conditions and the state of the canker worms. Spraying will occur from roughly sunrise till about 10am.

[tozmervo]

I thought they were going to be accompanied by the Ride of the Valkyries? That would have been awesome. I walked out my door this morning just in time to watch one of the planes diving across my neighborhood (Sedgefield). I couldn't tell if they were spraying anything against the overcast sky, though. One things for sure, the canker worms are out in full bore around here. I opted out of my usual afternoon walk yesterday because there were so many hanging down on their little threads.

[swampfox43]

I have to say I had an eerie feeling this morning. Last night before bed I was watching something about the German air assault on London and when I was getting ready for work this morning I heard those planes buzzing around. Sounded just like the ones from TV (without the bombs thank goodness)....

[monsoon]

^I recommend a viewing of the classic James Bond move Goldfinger for something closer to home.

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[RiverwoodCLT]

I live near Matthews and those planes have been flying near my house all day.

[swampfox43]

^I recommend a viewing of the classic James Bond move Goldfinger for something closer to home.

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[Andyc545]

I had walked outside during my lunch at CIC and I see this yellow plane brushing just above the tree lines. I couldn't believe how low this was flying! There was another onlooker that staired in nervousness thinking it was going to be crashing. I admittingly thought the same thing until I pulled up the O online coming back inside and then everything clicked.

[Spartan]

I thought they were going to be accompanied by the Ride of the Valkyries? That would have been awesome. I walked out my door this morning just in time to watch one of the planes diving across my neighborhood (Sedgefield). I couldn't tell if they were spraying anything against the overcast sky, though. One things for sure, the canker worms are out in full bore around here. I opted out of my usual afternoon walk yesterday because there were so many hanging down on their little threads.

[dubone]

I heard those planes going all day. I sure hope they weren't accidentally spraying downtown multiple times. I saw them up close twice. Once over the treeless Levineland and once over Elizabeth. I did hear them, though, most of the day. We didn't end up with any sticky stuff anywhere like they described.

[Raintree21]

I worked all day outdoors in the area that they were spraying and counted at least 11 times that a plane passed overhead while a mist came out of it's wings. At no point did I have any of the dreaded respiratory affects that they naysayers warned about. I hope the spray kills every last one of those little worms!

[monsoon]

At no point did I have any of the dreaded respiratory affects that they naysayers warned about. .

[HopHead]

How long are they supposed to be spraying? I hear the planes buzzing around again this morning...

[dubone]

The fact that this is a naturally occuring bacteria seems to be a big difference from some of the more notorious pesticides. The infrequency of our exposure also makes it much less likely to have health impacts from it.

People are exposed to much worse than some random bacteria that shuts down the stomach of certain insects. (Although I am not using that as an argument for or against the spraying). When we get in our cars, we breathe in all those VOCs from the glues and plastics breaking down in the sun.

Smoking is bad, too, but really, the exposure you get from just a short time of smoking is not enough to create long term damage to your health. They say that quiting smoking, even after years of doing it, can dramatically improve people's long term health.

Potentially, DDT would not have had the same environmental and health impacts if its use had not been pervasive and frequent.

Most problems from environmental damage come from prolonged use and exposure. The chemicals get approved due to lack of issues with short term exposure, but then people use those chemicals daily and it becomes a very different story.

Just look up the chemicals in your shampoo and toothpaste. It puts a naturally occuring bacterium that might trigger some asthma for a few days into perspective.

[Raintree21]

How long are they supposed to be spraying? I hear the planes buzzing around again this morning...

[monsoon]

The fact that this is a naturally occuring bacteria seems to be a big difference from some of the more notorious pesticides. ....

[monsoon]

Potentially, DDT would not have had the same environmental and ealth impacts if its use had not been pervasive and frequent.

[dubone]

Foray 48B is legal, safer, biodegradeable, and for the most part naturally occuring. DDT is not.

They could spray DDT once a decade and it and it would not have the type of devastation that were detailed by Rachel Carson. The issues of the day were the constant and indiscriminate use, creating very high concentrations in the streams.

Foray 48B, though, seems to be more specific to the species that is the pest, and is an organic pesticide that breaks down in the environment after a period.

No doubt, the better scenario is to a balanced ecosystem where there can be natural predators. But the environmental damage from having the tree canopy devasted is much more serious than an occasional spray of a naturally occuring bacteria.

There are definite trafe-offs. I think there is a case to be made that DDT use should be restored in malaria-ridden areas, using a much more deliberate and small scale basis.

Many chemicals in the environment, when in small doses, can be filtered out by the body. That is different from radiation which recent studies appears to indicate is safe a NO level. That means, our small doses of radiation from our Wifi routers and our mobile phones, etc., are not really safe. It is a dangerous world, and we do have to make some choices that are not good for us or good for the environment. The real shame is when our society does outright dangerous and wasteful things for no reason at all. A minority of people recycle, even though it is now extremely easy. People buy plasma tvs that use 3x the energy, even though they are only marginally better visually. People get out their toxic herbicides to spray one little weed that could be plucked with their fingers for less effort. People build massive sprawl on extremely fertile land or in the middle of the desert.

[Raintree21]

Spraying is now complete according to the city arborist. It should take about 2 days for the worms to die.

[dubone]

Naturally occuring? What does that mean exactly? As I said earlier black mold, the mold that if it invades your home is very dangerous is, Naturally Occurring. Now that I think about it, the tobacco is naturally occuring. That is a platitude put out by the government to give people some warm feeling that what they are doing won't cause any health problems. (which whey won't say).

Who, in authority, went out to the contractor, drew out samples to see that in fact what was being sprayed did not contain anything that would cause short term or long term health effects? This would be the least they could do since they are not giving the people any choice in the matter in what is being sprayed into the air they breath and onto their property. (they are still finding traces of DDT sprayed into homes in the 50s)

[monsoon]

Spraying is now complete according to the city arborist. It should take about 2 days for the worms to die.

[Raintree21]

911 has been fielding a lot a calls from concerned citizens about the low flying planes.

[dubone]

Those people must not live uptown. We constantly have hospital helicopters bringing in emergencies and new helicopters hovering over Brookshire to give the scoop on the traffic (Mostly so they can read the same traffic report that you can get from glancing at google maps, from inside a helicopter above an actual intersection).

I do love imagining those out of touch people who are scared that all these little planes are attacking or crashing.