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Toxics Action Center's ChemLawn Campaign ChemLawn is the nation's largest lawn care service provider, and they are knowingly using possibly carcinogenic pesticides that put our families and our environment at risk. A study published in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that household and garden pesticide use can increase the risk of childhood leukemia as much as seven-fold and asthma rates four-fold. Along with pets, children are the ones most affected by lawn pesticides. The same journal published a study in 2004 linking lawn care pesticides with increased rates of miscarriages. We're now finding these chemicals everywhere. In our streams and rivers which serve as our drinking water supplies, in carpet fibers and indoor air, and even in umbilical cord blood and breast milk. These chemicals not only cause birth defects and cancer, but they also pose a grave threat to the quality of our air and water. The campaigns demand that ChemLawn:
For additional information about Toxics Action Center's ChemLawn campaign, please visit www.RefuseToUseChemLawn.org. Join the Coalition for Pesticide-Free Lawns today! www.beyondpesticides.org/pesticidefreelawns/ Stop Congress From Rolling Back Clean Water & Other Vital Protections (Beyond Pesticides, November 9, 2005) Multiple bills are being considered in both houses of Congress that would remove pesticides from the Clean Water Act and allow the President or EPA to waive or weaken any other environmental, health, civil, and tax laws not only in the Gulf Coast, but anywhere in the country. These bills could move at any moment please contact congress today! The bills introduced in Congress would roll back the powers of the Clean Water Act to safeguard waterways against pesticides as well as allow a whole range of laws to be waived under the guise of rebuilding in the Gulf region. Hard-fought laws that protect workers, public health and the environment like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Civil Rights Act and others could be waived without explanation or public input. Big taxpayer giveaways are also included. In the aftermath of a disaster like Katrina, the people of Louisiana and the Gulf region need strong health and safety protections now more than ever and deserve the same as the rest of the country. They should not be made to choose between clean water and a rebuilt home, they deserve both! These bills are a shameless exploitation of the Gulf tragedy and a total disregard for the need to reduce environmental toxins. www.beyondpesticides.org TAKE ACTION NOW: Your voice counts and is needed! Tell Congress to “VOTE NO” on rollbacks in the Clean Water Act (CWA) that would remove pesticide applications from its purview and “NO” to any bill that waives environmental and other laws that protect communities and future generations from polluted air, contaminated drinking water, dangerous waste disposal, lost species, race discrimination, inhumane wages, and other degradations. Dear Honorable Member, [SENATOR] PLEASE OPPOSE Senate Bills S.1269, S.1711, S.1765, S.1776 and any other bills that include similar waivers or generate further chemical pollution of our waterways. [REPRESENTATIVE] PLEASE OPPOSE House Bills HR.1749, HR.3958 and any other bills that include similar waivers or generate further chemical pollution of our waterways. Please protect the welfare of the people in our state and in Louisiana from further exposure to toxic chemicals and pollution in the water, air and land. Protect our rights and the rights of our children to live in a toxic-free and just community. Do not allow a roll back of the Clean Water Act under any circumstance, especially for pesticides. No other Act can protect the quality of water like the Clean Water Act. Bills S.1711 and HR. 1749 will hurt our local waterways, communities and ecosystems, not protect them. Do not support the weakening of vital health, environmental and civil regulation in the rebuilding in the Gulf region. Please ensure that environmental justice is built into the process from the start. Federal and state laws were not waived to help the affected communities recover from other major disasters such as September 11th or the 1992 Florida Hurricane in fact they were needed to protect those involved in the reconstruction. Please support the “Public Health and Environmental Equity Act” (House Res. 477 and Senate Res. 261) that asks Congress to maintain environmental, public health and environmental justice laws and regulations in response to the Hurricane Katrina crisis. For background and links to the bills and more information: Pesticides and the Clean Water Act - Contact Shawnee Hoover, Beyond Pesticides, 202-543-5450 Hurricane Katrina Waivers - Contact Josh Klein at the Clean Water Network at 202-289-2421 “Public Health and Environmental Equity Act”- introduced in the House by Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) and Rep Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and in the Senate by by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) Help Win the Battle for Organic Standards! Tell your Senators and Representatives to keep national organic regulations the way they are. Thanks to many activists who voiced their objections to Congress, an assault on organic standards has been delayed. However, the threat to weaken the requirements for an "organic" label is still with us. The Joint Senate-House Appropriations Committee may make a decision on whether or not to allow an amendment to the Organic Food Production Act that allows synthetic ingredients in organic-labeled food and relaxed standards for cows who produce organic milk as early as September 26th. This amendment is being driven by large corporate food industry members like Kraft who have purchased smaller organic food companies, and now wield clout in the Organic Trade Association. Please contact your Senators and Congressional representatives today! Ask them to oppose the Amendment to the Organic Food Production Act: http://ga4.org/campaign/organicStandards Read more about the battle for organic standards: http://panna.org/resources/panups/panup_20050923.dv.html ALERT: aerial pesticide spraying Call your County Supervisor and City Council person and tell them to stop today's and future planned aerial spraying of pyrethrum. This chemical kills mosquitoes and ALL other insects, warnings for it include NOT to put in on human skin, and it can cause pulmonary problems. There are alternatives to spraying the entire county, including: advising risk groups like the elderly to take precautions to avoid mosquitoes; educating the medical community & public about signs and symptoms of West Nile Virus; increasing mosquito predators, etc. There are a number of measures people can take to avoid getting bitten by mosquitoes and if they do get bitten, they need to know what are the signs and symptoms of complications of West Nile virus and when to get themselves to a medical facility. Contact information for the County Board of Supervisors is at: www.bos.saccounty.net/ Contact information for the Sacramento City Council: www.cityofsacramento.org/council/ We Demand Accountability and Freedom from Aerial Pesticides Applications August 8, 2005, Sacramento, CA. Better Urban Green Strategies (BUGS) and Organic Sacramento held a press conference at the home of Leslie Mitchell and Bob O'Brien - Sacramento to demand the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District (District) account for its public deception and failure to follow the law. Last Thursday the District rushed to announce its decision to spray over 71,000 acres of urban landscape including schools, playgrounds, outdoor cafes, hospitals and private residences with Evergreen EC 60-6, a toxic pesticide to reduce the adult mosquito population and ostensibly protect the public from West Nile Virus (WNV). Leslie Mitchell and Bob O'Brien have provided their home as a site for this press conference as a demonstration of the real people, lives and neighborhoods that stand to be impacted by the aerial spraying. “We are very concerned about the lack of process. The information the District has provided to the public was both inadequate and untimely. The decision to spray appears to have been made in a vacuum with no input from the public” said Leslie. The district originally scheduled three consecutive nights of aerial pesticide spraying beginning tonight at anywhere from 8:00 to 8:45 depending on what source is consulted and continuing for approximately three hours. It now appears the District has reconsidered its need to spray for three consecutive nights and will spray Monday and Tuesday and then study and evaluate the program before spraying Wednesday evening. “This just goes to show this is one giant experiment and that the District really does not know what is and is not necessary,” said Samantha McCarthy of BUGS, a Yolo County citizens group. What is important is reducing the transmission rates of WNV. A Possible reduction of the adult mosquito population cannot be looked at alone, disease transmission rates after aerial spraying must also be reduced for the program to be considered successful. The disease transmission rate cannot possibly be evaluated, less than 18 hours after Tuesday's spraying. The district evidently believes that emergency action it takes to ostensibly to protect public health is above the law, so much so the District failed to obtain an NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit to cover its aerial pesticide spraying activity. Based upon the permit provided by the District, an aerial application over water will violate the Federal Clean Water Act. While the District has a permit to apply larvacides to water, that permit does not allow for the killing of adult mosquitos with pyrethrins and piperonyl butoxide. Despite the District''s assurances that the pesticides it intends to spray throughout northern Sacramento County have been approved by the United States Environmental Protection Agency for this purpose, the labeling requirements of EC 60-6 do not allow for the aerial application and do not specify the application rate for aerial application. By representing that EC 60-6 is approved for this type of activity, the District has mislead the public. The district has repeatedly claimed that it is using a very low concentration and the pubic will be safe. “There is another way of looking at the District's its statements,” said Samantha McCarthy of BUGS a Yolo County citizens group, “if the district is able to use what it claims are very low concentrations then the poisons themselves have to be highly toxic or they could not actually kill the mosquitos, a highly toxic agent designed to kill is by definition not safe. Under federal law a pesticide label cannot make safety claims yet the district in numerous pubic forums and in the media repeatedly makes such claims." “We are appalled that the district has repeatedly refused to consider potential negative impacts and thus, has failed in its obligation to protect the health and safety of Sacramento's citizens.” stated Kim Glazzard with Organic Sacramento. "The district has a case of myopia, all they are seeing is WNV and are failing to consider numerous potential health impacts to both the general public and populations with specific sensitivities that could manifest from the spraying itself." The District is considering scheduling a public meeting on Wednesday after the spraying. The people most opposed to the spray also feel compelled to leave town. A public meeting on Wednesday will be a sham as it virtually ensures the District will only draw supporters. Many people question why they should bother attending another public meeting after last Firday's debacle where the District made it very clear it would move forward with plans to spray irrespective of public comment. “Calling a public meeting after having sprayed us adds insult to injury," said McCarthy, "I see one of two outcomes; either they announce the spraying was ineffective and that they wreaked havoc on the environment, poisoned our families, farms, schools, for no reason, or that according to their criteria the spraying was effective and they are going to poison us again.” The District has already announced plans to aerial spray South Sacramento later in the week. We want to let the district know we will not be ignored and indiscriminately poisoned by a bureaucracy that believes it can operate above the law, above the principles of good science, without public input or regard for the citizens it is tasked with protecting. Kim Glazzard Organic Sacramento See the West Nile Virus page for more Aerial Spraying of Pesticides Fight the Flight - Group is for those organizing to stop the aerial spraying of insecticides by the Sacramento/Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fighttheflight/ To sign a petition To Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control Districtwww.petitiononline.com/Mosquito/petition.html The Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District website at www.fightthebite.net has a map of the area to be sprayed. The Codex Alimentarius Threat is Real! We, here in the United States are at a critical juncture as to the option for maintaining control of the continued availability of our food choices. Codex Alimentarius, an internationally sponsored set of food and nutrition standards, has just landed on our doorstep. The CAFTA legislation passed by Congress on July 28 includes language referencing Codex standards which, if implemented, will severely limit our ability to manage our personal health by dramatically impacting our access to vitamins, minerals, herbs, and other nutritional supplements. These food standards would effect having to have a doctor's prescription, drastically reducing available dosages (upper limit on available Vitamin C would be approx. 250 mg.), and boosting prices (one bottle of Echinacea could cost as much as $143). Codex could also conceivably impact the U.S. federal organic standards, as well as override any local or national requirements for labeling genetically engineered seeds and foods. While the United Nations, in conjunction with the pharmaceutical industry, is engaged in extensive efforts to impose these standards worldwide (and have most recently been enacting them in Europe), there has also been concerted efforts to pass additional legislation in the United States, not only to pave the way for implementing Codex standards, but to also undermine the current DSHEA (Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994), the current legislation which protects our rights to vitamin and mineral supplements. Every effort now has to be made to overwhelmingly defeat every piece of current and future legislation which will in any way assist in legalizing the implementation of Codex regulations. The bills needing earnest opposition include HR 3156, HR 2485, HR 2510, SA 1379 (attached to S1042), and S3. Particularly disturbing is HR 3156, the Dietary Supplement Access and Awareness Act, which would permit the FDA to ban any nutrient which has any degree of risk associated with it, even in the absence of any harm from that substance. (It could give the FDA the go-ahead to ban all nutrients.) Most people are wondering why they haven't heard anything about this until now. It is because there has been an extraordinary effort to bring this legislation in through the backdoor, not only through attaching it to unrelated legislation (like CAFTA), but also by hiding it in very small paragraphs and using nebulous wording that refers to possibilities, as well as putting these paragraphs in different locations throughout the legislation, which makes it more difficult to find and piece together. There has also been an extraordinary information blackout on this topic partly because of confusion created in the supplement industry due not only to a great deal of disinformation being generated and spread particularly by a number of websites, but also due to an extensive effort to block public access to websites offering more balanced information. (I was recently blocked at a public library from accessing one of the suggested websites with a notice stating "this image has been removed for security reasons.) We are vigorously researching this situation and trying to come up with a very detailed synopsis of this whole circumstance, not only with Codex, but also if there are any ways to circumvent the CAFTA legislation and threat. We are also developing a comprehensive action plan and will update the website as soon as we are able. Please stay tuned to this situation and check back periodically. (This first entry submitted on 7/30/05.) www.healthfreedomusa.org www.iahf.com www4.dr-rath-foundation.org www.garynull.com www.alliance-natural-health.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Assembly Bill (AB) 826Support Farm to School Legislation in California -Urge Your Assembly Member to Vote YES on AB 826 Assemblyman Nava has introduced AB 826, which would facilitate more farm to school programs in California schools by providing training to school food service staff and funding and assistance to farmers. This bill will help to ensure that California's children gain access to healthy fruits and vegetables while at school! (See below for additional legislative and contact information and letter samples, etc.) See our AB 826 page * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * West Nile VirusWe are gathering information on the recent activation of the West Nile Virus in Northern California what action the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District ([916] 685-1022, www.fightthebite.net) may be planning, including possible regional spraying for mosquitoes. We are working to arrange a community meeting to discuss public concerns with the District, and will keep you updated as we progress.Orangevale Growers Orangevale Growers, a yahoo e-mail group and wonderful resource for building connections within the local organic growing community, is a special forum for home organic gardeners in the eastern Sacramento valley as an opportunity to offer surplus crops, produce, or products to other list members for purchase, barter, trade, or free. Though many members live in Orangevale, organic gardeners from nearby cities are also welcome. The products available for listing in this forum are unlimited and range from eggs and milk, to flowers, fruit, vegetables, honey, and anything else a person might wish to offer. The only limitation is that the products are organic. To join, send email to EVERYONE IS WELCOME!!!! And Happy Organic Gardening! Karen Baumann's Front Yard Garden Meeting Update (AS OF 5-31-05) Bill Maynard and myself were the only public attendees at the May 17 meeting where the City of Sacramento's Law and Legislation Committee heard the presentation of the City of Sacramento Ordinance - Landscaping Requirements In Setback Areas regarding proposed revised language for ordinances regulating use of residential front yards, and the possible option of having gardens in the front yards or not. While it was expected that the revised language which would allow for front yard gardens would easily pass this committee, there was in fact very verbal objections to the possibility of allowing for front yard gardens, especially the possibility of dried corn stalks in the front yard. The regulations are being returned to the City of Sacramento Neighborhood Services Department staff for re-evaluation and further revision. The City's staff hopes to have these revisions completed within a relatively short time and will offer these new revisions for consideration. It seems really critical that those in Organic Sacramento (and all city residents) who want to support the options for growing vegetables, herbs, shrubs, and trees in their front yards (or on any part of their property for that matter) come to these meetings to express their views and show support of these revisions. Unfortunately, the sparse public turnout was noted by members of the Law and Legislation Committee, and it reinforced a need for significant attendance at future meetings both with the Law and Legislation Committee, and then, the City Council meeting, to reinforce the importance of re-establishing Sacramento citizen's rights to retain control over how they manage their own property. I believe it is important that Sacramentans make their voices heard on this issue. There are times when the City Council eventually listened when they had heard enough from the public, so I believe it is definitely worth a try. This also would be a real victory for sustainability and allowing for alternatives to high resource consumption grass and turf to be allowed in the City of Sacramento's front yards. All help and support of this process would be really appreciated. More on the Sacramento Front Yard Issue here.
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