Environmentalists sue over state attack on moth

The state's attack on the potentially crop-threatening light brown apple moth and its mating pattern in Davis has come under legal attack from environmentalists.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, two Northern California groups want to stop the state's agriculture department from using a chemical sexual attractant to disrupt the male moth's pursuit of the female.

A lawyer for the Pesticide Watch Education Fund out of Sacramento and San Francisco and the Davis group called Better Urban Green Strategies (BUGS) said he doesn't know for sure what sort of environmental threat the substance called pheromone might present. Rather, attorney Donald B. Mooney said, the state's exemption of itself from California Environmental Quality Act review is an abuse of the process.

"All the lawsuit seeks is that they comply with CEQA before they initiate the program," Mooney said.

Prompted by lawsuits, the California Department of Food and Agriculture in 2008 canceled an aerial spraying program in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. Hundreds of residents in the two counties had complained of asthma attacks and other physical problems.

Since then, the agency has fastened the 9-inch, pheromone-laced twist ties on trees and other objects in 12 other counties to interrupt the moth's life cycle.

CDFA spokesman Steve Lyle said Wednesday the agency's lawyers couldn't comment on the suit. He said the program under way in Napa, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Alameda, San Joaquin, Contra Costa, San Mateo, San Francisco, Marin, Santa Clara and Solano counties hasn't caused any environmental damage. "It's been effective," Lyle said.

According to the agency, the moth first popped up in Berkeley in 2006 and resulted in a 182-square-mile agricultural quarantine. The insect feeds on as many as 2,042 plants, including berry bushes, grapes, stone fruit trees and other products in California's multibillion-dollar agricultural industry.

"We know in the Watsonville area (in Santa Cruz County), it's done significant damage to the berry crops there," Lyle said.

The Sacramento Superior Court lawsuit filed by Mooney questioned how much damage the moth has really done in California. It said that the moth has been in California "a very long time" and with "no documented damage."

Plaintiffs assert there are other ways to attack the insect, such as with rival insect predators such as wasps and flies that lay their eggs in and kill moth larvae.

The suit said the state needs to review the Davis program in conjunction with all the other pheromone projects.

"They're piecemealing all these little projects, Davis included," Mooney said.

No hearing date has yet been set on the suit.