County urges fast action on moths

<p>Sonoma County supervisors and state legislators are calling on state agriculture officials to hasten their efforts to eradicate a small but growing number of light brown apple moths.</p><p>The calls for action come as officials revealed that an estimated 8,000 acres of Sonoma County vineyards now lie within a state quarantine area linked to the invasive pests. That amounts to about 12 percent of all county vineyards.</p><p>"This is not a time for the state bureaucracy to sit on their hands and fumble through an environmental process," said Mike Kerns, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.</p><p>He said delays caused by months of environmental review might force "a much harsher, more drastic level of treatment" in order for farmers to eradicate the moths from their croplands.</p><p>Twenty-two moths have been found this year, mostly in the southeastern portion of the county. Individual moths also have been confirmed near Sebastopol and Petaluma.</p><p>The moth, an insect native to Australia, was first confirmed in California almost two years ago. State and federal officials have deemed it a significant threat to agriculture and to a variety of native plants.</p><p>Critics dispute the threat, and this year they successfully opposed the state's plan to use aerial spraying elsewhere in the Bay Area to disrupt the moth's mating cycle.</p><p>The state has ordered two quarantine areas in the county, the first near Sonoma and the second in the Carneros region on the southern border of Sonoma and Napa counties.</p><p>The latter quarantine area has been greatly expanded and now extends from west of Arnold Drive near Sonoma to Benicia State Park east of Vallejo. Along with the Sonoma farms, the quarantine area includes more than 2,500 acres of Napa County vineyards.</p><p>Within such areas, grape growers and other farmers cannot transport their crops until their fields are inspected and declared free of the pests. Such inspections didn't prevent the grape harvest, but farm leaders still consider the quarantines an economic threat, especially as the amount of acreage increases.</p><p>"The problem is not getting better. It's getting worse," said Lex McCorvey, executive director of the county Farm Bureau.</p><p>Farm representatives and elected officials have urged the state to fight the moths with special twist ties, an eight-inch-long strip embedded with a synthetic pheromone that attracts male moths.</p><p>The ties, which don't kill but disrupt mating, have drawn support from such groups as the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center and the California Certified Organic Farmers. But Sonoma Valley residents this year sharply resisted efforts to have the twist ties hung in their residential neighborhoods.</p><p>Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, opposed aerial spraying but maintains state officials should give the twist ties a chance to work.</p><p>"I think they need to get on the ground quickly with the least invasive strategies they can employ," Huffman said.</p><p>Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, said that out of frustration last month she wrote A.G. Kawamura, the state's food and agriculture director, to urge action and to offer her assistance.</p><p>"I'm willing to help out in any way I can, and nothing seems to be happening," Evans said.</p><p>A spokesman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture Wednesday referred questions about the eradication efforts to U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman Larry Hawkins.</p><p>He said the state and federal moth program is prepared to use twist ties where appropriate in the county but first must complete environmental consultations with state and federal wildlife officials.</p><p>As to the start date for eradication efforts, Hawkins said, "I really can't tell you when that's going to be."</p><p>The calls for action come as the battle lines are shifting against the moth.</p><p>Eighteen months ago Santa Cruz and Monterey counties became the region with the most moth detections.</p><p>But in 2008 San Francisco trapped 15,000 moths, more than any other county and nearly two-fifths of the 41,000 moths collected to date this year in California.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale</p><p>@pressdemocrat.com</p>