NJ Calls on Tiny Crustaceans to Fight Mosquitoes

From Beyond Pesticides:

Tiny Crustaceans Enlisted to Fight Mosquitoes in New Jersey

(Beyond Pesticides, June 27, 2012) One county in New Jersey is getting serious about combating mosquitoes this season. Instead of relying on pesticide spraying, which has been shown to not be effective, the Cape May County Department of Mosquito Control is employing 10,000 tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that will eat their way through mosquito larvae in the county’s swamps, roadside ditches and small pools.

The latest weapon in the battle against mosquitoes is barely visible. The crustaceans, known as copepods, are cousins to crayfish and water fleas, and do not get much bigger than two millimeters. They are voracious predators of mosquito larvae. New Jersey recently delivered 10,000 of the tiny shrimp-like crustaceans to Cape May County. They are already being used to fight mosquitoes in Bergen, Passaic, and Morris counties. Ocean County is next on the delivery list and six other counties will follow.

“The days of driving a truck down the street and spraying pesticides are long gone. These copepods can pick up where fish leave off,” according to Administrator Robert Kent, of the state Office of Mosquito Control.

Natural Predators as a Solution for Mosquito Control
New Jersey has used mosquitofish, fathead minnows, killifish, bluegill and other fish to combat the blood-sucking pests in larger waterways. Sometimes this involves digging ditches, not to drain the swamp as in the early days of mosquito control, but to give the fish access to the mosquitoes. Copepods, which eat mosquito larvae but not adult mosquitoes, are meant for smaller freshwater applications, such as roadside ditches, small pools, and near schools where there are strict regulations limiting pesticides. The hope is birds and other wildlife will also move the copepods around.

Peter Bozak, Cape May County’s director of Mosquito Control, set up a test plot with six small water holes. Copepods were put in four of them and left two as control plots. How many mosquito larvae are eaten and at what stage in their development is being monitored. Mosquitoes hatch from eggs and then go through several stages toward adulthood.
“We’re trying to use our native species and take pesticides out of the environment,” Mr. Bozak said.

The county also put some of the copepods in water-filled tires to see how they do in one of the smaller mosquito-breeding environments, and a batch has been applied to a scour hole filled with rainwater at Middle Township High School. According to a study by the New Orleans Mosquito and Termite Control Board, copepods have proved more effective for practical mosquito control than any other invertebrate predator of mosquito larvae. The most effective copepod species have the capacity to kill more than 40 mosquito larvae/copepod/day, typically reduce mosquito production by 99-100%, and maintain large populations in habitat for as long as there is water. However, while copepods by themselves may not eliminate Culex pipiens production or other mosquito species that transmit West Nile Virus, they can reinforce and augment control by other methods.

Least-Toxic and Cost-Effective
Reducing the use of pesticides is one of the big selling points. Copepods are natural and native to New Jersey, though this is the farthest north they have ever been used for mosquito control. New Orleans was the first to use copepods, and it taught New Jersey its system of growing them in a laboratory. New Jersey is only the second state to use them. They are also inexpensive to produce at the state Department of Agriculture’s Philip Alampi Beneficial Insect Rearing Laboratory in West Trenton. It takes about six weeks to make a batch using distilled water and wheat seed as a medium, feeding them paramecium.

Pesticide spraying for mosquito management is widely considered by experts to be the least effective and most risky response to this important public health concern. Pesticides typically used in mosquito spray programs are synthetic pyrethroids and in some cases organophosphates, both of which are associated with a host of adverse health effects, including neurological disorders and cancers. The frequency of pesticide applications required for aerial applications to be effective, combined with the public health risk caused as a result of these applications, makes aerial mosquito spraying campaigns ineffective both in terms of cost and public safety. In fact, the CDC and many local mosquito abatement districts emphasize public education and the control of larval populations as the first line of defense against mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases. Additionally, there is no credible evidence that spraying pesticides used to kill adult mosquitoes reduce or prevent mosquito-borne incidents or illnesses.

Beyond Pesticides believes the ideal mosquito management strategy comes from an integrated approach emphasizing education, aggressive removal of standing water sources, larval control, monitoring, and surveillance for both mosquito-borne illness and pesticide-related illness. The first step in avoiding mosquitoes around your property is prevention. Remove any standing water where mosquitoes can breed around the home, such as potted plants, leaky hoses, empty buckets, toys, gutters, and old tires. When outdoors in the evening, while mosquitoes are most active, the best way to avoid them is to wear long pants and long sleeves and use natural least-toxic mosquito repellents. Burning citronella candles outside also helps repel mosquitoes. It is important to read labels carefully before buying or spraying repellents.

For more information on safe and effective mosquito management strategies, see Beyond Pesticides’ page on Mosquitoes and Insect Borne Diseases, or contact us at info@Beyondpesticides.org,

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Sparky's Safe Lawn Tip - Tips for Cheap Garden Containers!

Safe lawn?  Check.
Safe family and pets?  Check.

Place to showcase all your beautiful flowers, plants and veggies?  Hmm....

Not to worry!  Checkout this great article from our friends at Mother Earth News on cheap gardening containers!  There's tons of great tips on how to find and use them to make your entire lawn looking its best. 

We'd love to see your pics! 

Updated rankings for pesticides in produce

From The Oregonian:
 Apples again topped the list of foods containing the most pesticides.



An environmental advocacy group has updated its rankings of pesticide-laden produce, and several fruits and vegetables grown in Oregon top the list. Following new data released by the USDA in May, the Environmental Working Group has recalculated its "Dirty Dozen" and "Clean 15" shoppers guides. They also noted that, for the first time, the USDA has included baby food in its testing and detected pesticide residues.

Four of the top five fruits and vegetables testing positive for pesticides are major products of the region listed by the Agri-Business Council of Oregon. Apples maintained the top spot on the list, even when washed for 10 seconds. Celery, sweet bell peppers, peaches, and strawberries rounded out the top five.

Among produce with the lowest measures of detectable pesticides were onions, sweet corn, and cabbage.

Although these fruits and vegetables are all products of Oregon, most of the samples the USDA tested were not sourced from Oregon growers. For example, only one apple out of 744 tested came from Oregon.

The EWG ranked the foods by comparing how frequently pesticides turned up, and how concentrated the pesticides were. With the exception of the so-called "Dirty Dozen Plus", rankings did not account for the type of pesticide or relative toxicity of each. Additionally, rankings weighted the breakdown products of pesticides equally with the original chemicals, although potential danger may not be identical.

This year, the EWG's list of foods with the highest levels of pesticides was renamed the "Dirty Dozen Plus" to highlight a specific class of insecticides called organophosphates. Although some of the "plus" vegetables would not otherwise top the rankings, the EWG emphasized particular concern with organophosphates because of potential toxicity to the nervous system.

Green beans, kale, and collard greens all tested positive for organophosphates. Although levels were below safety thresholds set by the EPA, the group emphasized particular caution for these pesticides.

For produce containing high levels of pesticides, the EWG encourages shoppers to consider purchasing organic versions. Organic farming does not mean food will be pesticide-free, however. The USDA tested for – and sometimes found – organic pesticides as well as synthetic alternatives.

Baby food was no exception to the presence of pesticides. A portion of the baby food made of green beans contained the same organophosphates as whole beans. 3 of the 191 containers of baby food from pears contained a pesticide not registered for legal use on the fruit. Almost half of all tested baby food pears contained detectable levels of spinosad, an organic pesticide.

The latest USDA report only includes testing completed through the end of 2010, and not all types of produce are tested every year. Four fruits and five vegetables grown frequently in Oregon were updated this year.

The newest rankings are available online from the EWG, and the USDA testing results are available online as well.

Sparky's Safe Lawn Tip - Juice Up Your Compost!

From our friends at GreenerGreenGrass:


We survived the move with nothing broken (not even my spirit, miraculously)!  I have treated my body so badly during the past few weeks – not exercising enough, eating crappy food because we’ve been going out so much, not getting enough sleep, perhaps drinking a little too much wine… The list goes on and on.

So, in an effort to be nicer to myself (for a few days anyway), I’m doing a 3-day juice fast.  I’m normally kind of skeptical of these types of fads, but the stars have aligned in such a way that I believe that this is a good thing for me to do.  For now, anyway.

Yes, I watched the movie Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead and I will say that it had an impact on me.  I have a passion for health and wellness and I love to see success stories like the ones profiled in the movie.  A friend of ours was inspired by the movie and has become a success story herself – she has lost 30 pounds so far and she’s still going strong!  She’s got a nice blog about juicing if you need some inspiration yourself.

On top of all this, another friend is opening a juice bar right here in Portland and I am so pumped about it!  Roost House of Juice is going to be fabulous!  They source from local farmers (including New Beat Farm, where I used to be a CSA member – they uses horses to plow their fields and farmer Adrienne is great, and not just because we share the same name).  Roost  will also give back to the community by donating a portion of the proceeds from their Give a Hoot Juice to local organizations.  They’re in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign to raise some funds.  I’ll be making a donation later because I can’t wait for them to open!  There is definitely a positive side to being a mainlander again…

Anyway, all of this just to say that I have made a lot of juice today, which has resulted in a lot of leftover pulp.  As I was shoveling it into the garbage disposal, I couldn’t help but think how awesome it would be for my long, lost compost pile on Peaks.  Sigh… I do have some nifty plans for the citrus peels though!  I’m going to make an all-natural citrus peel vinegar cleaner that I can use instead of stinky chemicals.

I do think that if this little juicing trial results in a long-term habit, I’ll definitely have to find an outlet for all this pulp.  I just hate to see it go to waste when it could be turning into nutrient-rich compost.  Any juicers out there have suggestions for leftover pulp?

Updated organic standards become regulation

From our friends at Beyond Pesticides:

(Beyond Pesticides, June 8, 2012) The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Organic Program (NOP) has published a final rule in the Federal Register officially codifying into federal regulations changes to organic standards that were recommended by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) over the past year and a half. The changes to the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances (National List) include the renewal of a number of substances already on the list, the removal of two substances, and specific changes to several others.

Among the more notable changes to the organic standards made by the publication of this final rule is a hard fought victory for organic hops growers in the form of a new requirement that, beginning the first day of 2013, all hops used in organic beer production must be produced organically. Due to the “commercial availability” clause in the organic law, beer bearing the organic seal had previously been allowed to contain conventionally produced hops due to a perception that hops produced organically were not available in the necessary quantities. However, the American Organic Hop Grower Association petitioned the NOSB to remove this allowance on the basis that this would create increased demand for organic hops and their availability would grow. At the November 2010 NOSB meeting, the board agreed and adopted a recommendation to require all hops in organic beer to be produced organically beginning in 2013.

Among the new changes is a compromise among a number of interests in the organic community to extend the phase-out until October 21, 2014 of the antibiotics tetrachycline and streptomycin to control fireblight disease in organic apple and pear production. The allowance of streptomycin and tetratcycline antibiotics in organic fruit production had been scheduled to expire on October 21, 2012 as the result of a previous NOSB recommendation. Environmental and public health advocates had argued at the April 2011 NOSB meeting that current regulations allowing antibiotics to be used in organic fruit production was out of step with organic principles and inconsistent with the prohibition on antibiotics in organic livestock production. However, fruit growers argued that there was no viable organic alternative to fight fireblight and that organic fruit production would suffer significantly if the ban was allowed to take effect. A compromise was reached whereby the allowance was extended by two years until October 21, 2014 to allow for increased research on alternative controls for fireblight in organic fruit trees. The apple and pear producers have indicated that they will submit a petition to the NOSB to extend the phase-out yet again.

Other changes addressed in the final rule include:
• Only non-amidated forms of non-organic pectin, typically added to thicken jams and jellies, will be allowed when organic pectin is not commercially available.
• The listing for iodine, which is used to fortify organic foods, has been clarified.
• The allowed use of chlorine materials in organic crop production has been clarified.
• The allowed use of lignin sulfonate in organic crop production has been clarified.
• The allowed use of non-organic colors in organic processed products has been clarified. Organic colors must be used if they are commercially available.
• Effective October 21, 2012, yeast used in baked goods and other processed organic products must be organic, if commercially available and intended for human consumption.
• Effective October 21, 2012, sulfur dioxide (smoke bombs) will no longer be allowed for rodent control in organic crop production.

The full list of renewals and specific changes to the National List can be found in the appendix to the Federal Register notice. The majority of the changes will take full effect on June 27, 2012 (expiration dates will be added to hops and streptomycin, but the bans will not take effect until those dates are actually reached). Several other potentially significant changes to the organic standards that were recently recommended by the NOSB will be addressed in separate rulemaking actions, according to NOP. These include the NOSB’s recommendation to begin prohibiting the use of sodium nitrate as a fertilizer as well as a recommendation concerning the allowance of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals in processed organic foods.

Source: NOP press release

Sparky's Safe Lawn Tip - The Ultimate Compost Tea Recipe!

June is out of the gates - so you've got to keep that grass looking it's best.  A great way to do that is with the magical mix called     compost tea.

There's a lot of recipes floating out there - and I'm sure you've even got your own.  Who doesn't?

But, if you've got a little time, checkout this one from CompostJunkie.com.

We'd love to hear about your experience with compost tea!

Lawn Fun Fact - Lawns and dust...

Did you know...

Home lawns trap much of the estimated 12 million tons of dust and dirt released annually into the US atmosphere!

Spiffy!  Have a great weekend!

France considers ban on pesticide linked to Colony Collapse Disorder

From our friends at Beyond Pesticides.


(Beyond Pesticides, June 4, 2012) France’s Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll announced plans on Friday to cancel Swiss manufacturer Syngenta’s registration to treat canola seed with the neonicotinoid insecticide thiamethoxam, a chemical cousin of the bee-killing pesticide clothianidin, in a move to protect honey bees from Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). When honey bees are exposed to thiamethoxam, it breaks down in their bodies to, clothianidin, which Beyond Pesticides is petitioning the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban due to a preponderance of adverse effects data and inadequate registration safety testing. Both pesticides have been shown in numerous scientific studies to play a key role in CCD. As France acts to protect its pollinators from pesticides, the U.S. continues to allow the uses of theses highly toxic chemicals to continue. Tell Congress and EPA that the U.S. should join France in taking a precautionary approach to our pollinator crisis.

The chemical manufacturer Syngenta has two weeks to report its own evidence before the ban officially goes into effect. If enacted, France’s Agriculture Ministry stated that the ban will take effect before the start of canola sowing season in late summer. Minister Le Foll reinforced the fact that farmers do not need to rely on this product to protect their crop. “To protect rapeseed [canola] plants, there exist alternatives to coating seeds that are already widely used. If the withdrawal of the authorization (for Cruiser OSR) is confirmed, farmers will therefore have solutions to call on,” Minister Le Foll explained.

The decision to ban the coating of canola seeds with thiamethoxam, commercially labeled Cruiser OSR, is based on a late March study in the journal Science, entitled “A Common Pesticide Decreases Foraging Success and Survival in Honey Bees.” In their study, the researchers used Radio-frequency identification (RFID) to test the hypothesis that a sub-lethal exposure to a neonicotinoid indirectly increases hive death rate through homing failure in foraging honey bees. When exposed to sub-lethal doses of thiamethoxam, at levels present in the environment, honey bees are less likely to return to the hive after foraging than control bees that were tracked with RFID, but not intentionally dosed with pesticides. Higher risks are observed when the homing task is more challenging. The survival rate is even lower when exposed bees are placed in foraging areas with which they are less familiar.

The legal petition in the U.S., crafted in collaboration with environmental groups and beekeepers around the county, points to the fact that EPA has failed to follow its own regulations. EPA granted a conditional, or temporary, registration to clothianidin in 2003 without a required field study establishing that the pesticide would have no “unreasonable adverse effects” on pollinators. Granting conditional registration was contingent upon the subsequent submission of an acceptable field study, but this requirement has not been met. EPA continues to allow the use of clothianidin nine years after acknowledging that it had an insufficient legal basis for initially allowing its use. Additionally, the product labels on pesticides containing clothianidin are inadequate to prevent excessive damage to non-target organisms, which is a second violation of the requirements for using a pesticide and further warrants removing all such mislabeled pesticides from use.

A British study, published in the journal Science at the same time as the French study, “Neonicotinoid Pesticide Reduces Bumble Bee Colony Growth and Queen Production,” examines the impacts of another neonicotiniod pesticide imidacloprid on bumble bee colony health. Researchers exposed colonies of the bumble bees to levels of imidacloprid that are realistic in the natural environment, and then allowed them to develop naturally under field conditions. Treated colonies had a significantly reduced growth rate and suffered an 85% reduction in production of new queens compared to unexposed control colonies. The study is particularly noteworthy because it shows that bumble bees, which are wild pollinators, are suffering similar impacts of pesticide exposure to “managed” honey bees.

A third recent study in published by Harvard University’s School of Public Health in the June 2012 Bulletin of Insectology reinforces the link between the neonicotinoid imidacloprid and CCD even at sub-lethal doses. The Harvard study provides an in situ look into CCD by performing the experiment in the field following normal commercial beekeeping practices. Researchers looked at the effect of feeding High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) to honey bees, a common practice during the winter months. Results show that 94% of the hives had died after exposure to imidacloprid, at levels hypothesized to have been present in HFCS since the introduction of neonicotinoids.

Neonicotinoids are taken up by a plant’s vascular system and expressed through pollen, nectar and gutation droplets from which bees then forage and drink. Several EU countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Slovenia, have put restrictions on the use of these toxic substances. beyond Pesticides and other groups are calling on the U.S. to do the same.

Learn more at Beyond Pesticides’ Pollinator Protection webpage.

Sparky's Safe Lawn Tip - How to talk to your neighbors about pesticides

From our friends at SafeLawns.org.

Those other signs are ubiquitous these days. “Caution.” “Warning.” “Danger.” “Keep off the Grass.” Usually in yellow, but sometimes in green, gray, red or black, the flags are nearly as plentiful as lawns themselves.

They are actually legal documents designed to warn pedestrians and homeowners about the very real dangers posed by EPA-registered products known as pesticides — the weed and insect killers and fungicides that are engineered, mostly in laboratories, to keep our lawns lush and green according to the larger society’s aesthetic standards. Depending on where you live, the warning signs are suppose to remain in place until the product is “dry,” or 24, 48 or 72 hours after the application. It’s all determined by the arbitrary whims of local lawmakers.

Of the many questions we receive here at SafeLawns, perhaps the ones that bring the most inherent angst are those concerning how to talk to neighbors who stubbornly refuse to cease applications of these toxic products. These are the people we need to live next to, the folks whose living rooms our children visit and, often, the friends we entrust with having our backs in times of need.

And when these folks apply pesticides themselves, without hiring a licensed lawn care company, they don’t even need to post. They almost assuredly don’t watch the wind speed or pattern, or concern themselves about whether or not it will rain later that day. They just apply the stuff they just bought at Wal-Mart — unaware that the stuff is banned in Canada because it’s so dangerous.

How to hold that most awkward of conversations is a study in nuance. There is no one right way to proclaim to another human being that he or she is doing something that is, at the least, offensive and, at the worst, life threatening.

Here are a few ideas we have found that can help:

BE CALM — Begin by offering to share your knowledge about pesticides with neighbors in non-threatening, friendly terms. Angry approaches rarely work, but chatty banter can get people’s attention: “Say, Joan, did you hear about a report from Cornell University about those products we put on lawns?” Joan shrugs, but she’s not yet on the defensive. “Yeah, I just read a study by Dr. David Pimentel at Cornell University found that as little as one-tenth of one percent of the weed killers we apply ever reach their target weed. That means most of the product is winding up in the wrong destination, maybe inside your house, or on your skin or in your lungs. And it’s costing a lot of money, most of which is wasted.” Really? says Joan. Maybe she shrugs again, but at least you might have her thinking.

THE SCHOOLTEACHER APPROACH — Collect web sites and magazine articles that can be photocopied and disseminated among friends. Some of the best on-line sources are www.BeyondPesticides.org, www.panna.org, www.ehhi.org and (of course) www.safelawns.org.

THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN — Right before an election, those “VOTE-FOR-ME” signs pop up everywhere. Our SafeLawns “Safe to Play” signs, above, are a non-confrontational way to let everyone in our new neighborhood know exactly where we stand on the issue of weed killers — while avoiding the awkward conversation that my wife doesn’t want me to have with people she might need to help her someday when I’m out of town. Everyone on our cul-de-sac either walks or drives by daily and the sign helps explain why ours is the only lawn in the area with dandelions and clover growing freely.

A NIGHT OUT — Organize a local seminar and recruit an expert to speak (I’m asked to present at dozens of these events each year). Invite local garden clubs, watershed alliances, civic organizations and church groups to attend. Offer to buy your neighbor dinner on the way.

THE GIFT — Give your neighbor a book about the dangers of pesticides. One of the best new releases on the market is Dr. Sandra Steingraber’s Raising Elijah, about the challenges of developing a healthy child in an era of environmental crisis. We have begun to give our book, Tag, Toss & Run: 40 Classic Lawn Games as gifts around our neighborhood; the book is 99 percent about games, but it includes a page about the SafeLawns campaign to reduce pesticides. When parents see their children out rolling around in the grass playing all the games, maybe they’ll think twice about coating that grass with poisons.

LEAD BY EXAMPLE — If you grow a beautiful lawn and landscape without using chemicals, your neighbor will willingly follow your example. When we moved into this home last year, the lawn out front was thin, bare and ugly. A year later, we still have a few of what most people would call weeds — and my 5-year-old daughter calls flowers — but we also have one of the most green lawns in the neighborhood thanks to an organic approach that has focused on the soil health.

FIND COMMON GROUND — If your neighbor has children, then you can focus your conversation on the risks associated with pesticides around children. If your neighbor has a dog or a cat, show them studies that associate the health risks of pets around pesticides. Pesticides also affect fishermen, hunters, bird watchers, or the water supply.

The bottom line is that — if you get to know your neighbor — you can usually find a way to bring the conversation back to pesticides. It may not be easy to get them to change, just like it wasn’t easy to get rid of second-hand smoke in restaurants and other public places. But second-hand pesticides are just as bad; we can stop that, too, if we try.