Musings: Special Interest Shenanigans

If one is a curious, like a cat, one might wonder why Basil Scott is so keen to “open up” the meetings of a committee that is helping Councilman JoAnn Yukimura craft a county ordinance on dealing with Kauai's feral cats.

Basil, president of the Kauai Community Cat Project (KCCP), offers a clue to his motivation in his comment to The Garden Island, which obviously wrote its “closed-door discussions” story on the committee at Basil's request:

"JoAnn has set up something that can’t possibly have a positive result.”

By which he means a result that goes his way, as in no eradication of the thousands of wild cats that roam the island, preying on endangered native birds and other creatures. Basil instead advocates spaying, neutering and then returning the cats to managed colonies – an approach that KCCP uses to raise money.

On its website, it offers people a chance to become a “Kitty Kahu” by donating anywhere from $50 to “provide food and supplies for one day for one month” to $500 to “provide shelter for 12 cats removed from a dangerous area.” It states, “We survive solely on contributions from caring people like you.” So the KCCP would obviously be adversely impacted financially by any program that moved to limit managed cat colonies.

No one knows exactly how many feral cats live on Kauai, but the population has been estimated at 15,000 to 20,000. A July 2015 TGI editorial reported that KCCP had increased the number of cats it works with from 300 in 2012 to 510 cats in 2014. Yet in today's article, Basil claims the group works with about 3,000 cats annually. That's quite a jump in just a year – if it's true.

In any case, if KCCP was spending $80,000 to manage just 510 cats, one can imagine how much it's spending on 3,000 cats. And then from there, how much kala might be required to manage 20,000. Empire building, anyone?

The nine-member feral cat committee, which has been working on the ordinance since last August, is reportedly within a month of producing a draft bill. JoAnn would introduce the proposed ordinance, which would then go through committee meetings and public hearings, providing ample time for comment.

But Basil wants to redirect the process his way now, by bringing in his own supporters, some of whom — to put it nicely — have a hard time considering other points of view. We've already seen these same people, including Basil, launch a vicious attack on Kauai Humane Society Director Penny Cistaro, who is also a committee member. They are dead-set on turning KHS into a no-kill facility.

In taking his case to TGI, Basil whines that “the committee has representation from bird and other nature conservancy groups.” Yes, but it also has representation from cat groups, including Basil and Judy Dalton, as well as Penny, who sees the big picture of feral and unwanted animals on Kauai.

If KCCP wants to rescue cats, that's fine. But it's fooling itself, and others, by pretending the outrageous feral cat problem on Kauai can be resolved through spay-neuter-release-manage alone. Kauai has unique native birds that exist nowhere else in the world. As an introduced, invasive species cats are a proven threat to these birds. Serious efforts must be taken to protect these birds by reducing the feral cat population, regardless of whether it hurts the bottom line of KCCP.

We also need to look more realistically at the whole fantasy of no-kill. While these no-kill shelters tug at the heart strings — and thus purse strings —of animal lovers everywhere, the reality is quite a bit different. Consider this essay by a woman who adopted from a no-kill facility:

The promise of life often leaves cats or dogs languishing in cages or transferred from foster home to foster home for years. Animals are given out sick, with minimal to no prior medical care. While numbers are still hard to come by, hardly a day goes by when a rescue or foster home isn’t exposed for overcrowding, neglect or, notably, hoarding.

Even the animal rights group PETA has serious reservations about cat colonies:

PETA has in the past  trapped, neutered, returned, and monitored feral cats (and still does, in favorable situations) but not without hesitation and serious concerns. Our experiences include countless incidents in which cats suffered and died horrible deaths because they were forced to fend for themselves outdoors, whether “managed” or not, and have led us to question whether these programs are truly in the cats’ best interests.

Moreover, free-roaming cats also terrorize and kill countless birds and other wildlife who are not equipped to deal with such predators.

Having witnessed firsthand the gruesome things that can happen to feral cats and to the animals they prey on, PETA cannot in good conscience oppose euthanasia as a humane alternative to dealing with cat overpopulation.

Returning to the essay:

In a sea of no-kill shelters that turn people down, PETA will euthanise your pet for free. But this policy outrages its opponents. ‘We get threats of physical violence, we get animal organs sent to us in the mail. We got a deer head thrown on our front parking lot, all sorts of nastiness.’

The essay concludes:

Perhaps our focus on keeping pets alive, no matter the consequences, is really more about us humans than about a desire to spare animals suffering.

No one wants to see cats suffer — or wild birds, either. The feral cat committee is working on an approach that couples a limited number of managed colonies with an aggressive eradication program akin to what is already in place in other island nations, such as Australia and New Zealand.

It's important to keep the big picture in mind, and resist the efforts of a special interest group to derail and direct the process.  

Musings: Fakers

I noticed a quote on Kauai Councilman Gary Hooser's blog site that sheds some light on his delusions of grandeur:

“Come to the edge.” “We can’t. We’re afraid.” “Come to the edge.” “We can’t. We will fall!” “Come to the edge.” And they came. And he pushed them. And they flew. - Christopher Logue (b.1926)

Except in the case of Gary and his red-shirted followers, it's more like he threw them over the cliff and they drowned, like the lemming “suicides” faked by a Disney crew.

Because the report from the Joint Fact Finding Group on pesticides has shown their litany of claims about poisoning and birth defects and cancer clusters and dead soil and contaminated streams to be fake.

As Scott Enright, director of the Hawaii Department of Agriculture so astutely observed:

“The heated rhetoric of the testimony of Bill 2491 [the GMO-pesticide regulatory bill approved by the Council but overturned by a judge] made a case that the west side of Kauai was drenched in pesticides and that there were these amazing environmental and public health concerns that could have easily been substantiated. A group that took a real critical look at it decided that none of that could be substantiated.”

Yet Gary and the red shirts have been telling that fabricated story for some time now, and they're still sticking to it.

Take this quote from Fern Rosenstiel: "We waited years, the report from the JFFG has only further reinforced our concerns, they are real. Pay attention."

Gary's HAPA: "After years of waiting, the Joint Fact Finding Group (JFFG), a group convened by the State and Kaua‘i County, has validated community concerns about the biotech industry impacts on Kaua'i."

And Gary himself: "It is a tough road to go down but we must say no to industrial dairies and to large scale pesticide intensive research crops that provide zero food for local consumption while polluting our environment and damaging our health." 

So how, exactly, do you deal with a group of demagogues who have caused so much trouble and heartache in our community?

Especially when they refuse to admit they were wrong, or even acknowledge this JFFG statement: “The information we assembled does not show that current pesticide use by seed companies and Kauai Coffee plays a role in adverse health on Kauai.”

Especially when the 2014 Council elections, which saw the anti-GMO candidates trounced and Gary straggle in last, proved they do not represent a majority view.

Especially when they show they intend to keep whipping up fear and hysteria.

A case in point is today's article in The Garden Island, in which the usual suspects — Earthjustice, Hawaii SEED, Pesticide Action Network, HAPA — demand the EPA immediately investigate the incident where Syngenta field workers were exposed to pesticides. It prominently featured the usual overblown hyperbole by grandstander Paul Achitoff of Earthjustice:

“Time and again, Hawaii authorities have turned their back on Hawaii’s residents and farmworkers in favor of agrochemical companies.”

Never mind that the state DOA had an inspector on-site when the incident happened, expedited its review and has already sent its report over to the EPA for further review.

Meanwhile, Gary was blithely spreading rumor and innuendo on Facebook:

I checked with Syngenta, which Gary also could have done if he was interested in getting the facts. I learned that 34 people were working in the area, though not all entered the field before the posted re-entry time.  All were given the option of going to the hospital for evaluation. Ten chose to do so and were transported by private vehicles. None were transported in ambulances.

Two of the 10 were immediately released as the physician determined they hadn't been in the field. Of the remaining eight, five were released later that day and three were kept overnight for observation. Everyone returned to work, and the attending physician did not recommend any follow up care. 

Some of the 10 were contract field workers from California who had been employed under a fixed term. They worked another two weeks, completed their contract and went back home as scheduled. 

Like I said, Gary could have ascertained the facts before spreading rumors. But then he wouldn't have been able to falsely portray Syngenta as first poisoning, then abandoning, its poor migrant field workers.

So again, how do you deal with folks who have demonstrated they value deception over honesty, fear over reassurance, chaos over order, a tyranny of the minority over true representational democracy?

l think you just have to recognize them for what they are and make decisions based on the greater good, rather than the demands of people who have shown they will stop at nothing to advance their own narrow agenda.

Musings: No More Nothing

Here's the gist of the Joint Fact Finding Group's newly released report on pesticide use by Kauai agricultural — though you won't find it until page 52 of a 105-page report:

[T]here is no data from human samples (e.g. concentrations of specific pesticides in blood, urine, or tissue samples) to indicate actual exposure levels to pesticides on Kauaʻi.

Yes, despite all their claims of school children being sickened, and residents being routinely poisoned, the anti-GMO activists could not produce a single medical report or test to show that anyone has even had any actual pesticide exposure, much less been harmed.

Heck, there isn't even “clear causal relationships or strong correlations" to link pesticide use and human/environmental harm, according to the report.

The oft-repeated claim by Councilman Gary Hooser and his followers regarding alarming birth defect rates on the westside is also debunked:

Despite these inconsistencies between individual data sets, none of them indicated significant differences between birth defect rates for the Westside vs. other areas of Kauaʻi.

Similarly, the group did not find any elevated cancer rates on the westside, “nor did the JFF find higher rates for the cancers associated with pesticides in the literature.”

But it did learn Waimea has the highest percentage of adults who smoke, the highest obesity rate, the highest rate of kids receiving assistance and households on food stamps, and the highest percentage of adults without a high school education. Interestingly, Hanalei has the highest rate of heavy drinkers. 

Even the environmental studies conducted to date, albeit limited, have detected only trace amounts of pesticides, well below EPA levels.

Yet the JFFG reports insists “there may still be important signals that suggest associations and warrant concern and investigation.”

Some of those “signals” are studies financed and conducted by Surfrider, which is suing to uphold the anti-GMO/pesticide regulatory Bill 2491, and the anti-GMO Hawaii SEED. Reports from these groups haven't even been written up, much less published, yet the Hawaii SEED drift studies are given the same weight as an air sampling study conducted by a University of Hawaii scientist.

And in the case of the very questionable Surfrider-funded glyphosate-in-honey study, the report notes;

The data has not been formally published but has been mentioned in The Garden Island.

Gee, you couldn't ask for much more validity than that.

The report also sites several constraints in determining the per-acre application rate of pesticides, before concluding:

These factors make it virtually impossible to calculate a reliable and verifiable estimate of the annual volume of pesticides used per acre of corn on Kauaʻi using existing data sources.

Yet the group then proceeds to offer not only its own estimate, but a comparison to mainland states. Given the group's own caveat, it appears its chart is neither reliable nor verifiable. So why did they include it?

Though the group is mandated to examine evidence, its report includes this:

Several local residents on the Westside have reported what they believe may be an unusual number of dead or sick owls but no samples of blood or tissues for pesticide residues appear to have been taken to date.

Again, what is that anecdote even doing in there?

Similarly, the report notes that:

The DuPont lawsuit [filed by Waimea residents] suggested that the amount of non-RUP pesticides such as Roundup may be up to four times the amount of RUPs applied but no evidence was presented. 

So why are they putting it in the report?

Not surprising, given the clear majority of Bill 2491 supporters on the JGGF, the report recommends disclosure and buffer zones similar to those imposed by the bill, as well as more monitoring. And it suggests the Hawaii delegation seek $3 million to help carry these out.

I find it curious that even though folks have decried the state Departments of Health and Agriculture as being in the pocket of the seed industry, corrupt, inept, etc., they want to assign them yet more regulatory and monitoring responsibilities.

Here was something of interest from the report:

Structural fumigator RUP sales have increased steadily over the five-year period, most likely the result of additional housing stock and improved economic conditions.

Given that these structural fumigators account for the bulk of RUP sales on Kauai, you'd think there might be a recommendation related to that. But no, that doesn't fit the anti-GMO agenda.

In short, the state and county spent over $100,000 to confirm what the sane among us already knew.

But hey, it was worth it to prove once and for all that Gary Hooser, Center for Food Safety and the rest of the antis have been lying and fear-mongering all this time .

Musings: Gotcha!

Public records show that for the past decade, mainland groups and philanthropists have carefully cultivated an anti-GMO campaign in Hawaii, arming it with money and training to execute a specific political agenda.

Kauai has been at the heart of this strategy, which employs nonprofit organizations that engage in political advocacy under the guise of “education,” thus skirting the scrutiny, transparency and accountability imposed on lobbying efforts. This tactic produces a movement that claims it's grassroots and broad-based, when in fact, it's a puppet of the national groups that fund its work and pull its strings.

As I've reported previously, much of this political advocacy in Hawaii has been funded by the Ceres Trust and the Cornerstone Campaign, which is bankrolled by the fortunes of two Rockefeller heiresses. Though founded as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Cornerstone functions only to disperse grants to groups active in the anti-biotech movement, including Friends of the Earth, Genetic Engineering Action Network, Organic Seed Alliance, International Forum on Globalization, Californians for GE Free Agriculture and Earthjustice.

In this post, I'll detail how money from the John Merck Fund — endowed by a scion of the Merck Pharmaceutical empire — has further bolstered this totally non-transparent political advocacy in the Islands.

Though activists were stirring up opposition to the transgenic papaya as early as 2004, the Hawaii campaign began in earnest in 2005, when California anti-GMO activists felt the sting of defeat. While two Northern California counties — Mendocino and Marin — made history in 2004 as the first in the nation to adopt GMO bans, three other counties voted down similar measures later that year. In November 2005, Sonoma County voters also rejected a ballot measure that would have made it illegal to raise, grow, cultivate, propagate, sell or distribute most genetically engineered organisms.

The losing ballot measure was written by Dave Henson, director of the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center (OAEC). His group had begun lobbying voters in 2003 through Californians for GE-Free Agriculture, an initiative largely bankrolled by the John Merck Fund and the David B. Gold Foundation. Both are significant donors to the Center for Food Safety, which has been a major player in the Hawaii anti-GMO movement.

Following the Sonoma County defeat, which spelled the death knell for GMO bans in California, Hensen vowed that supporters would “continue their campaign for sustainable agriculture and GE-Free organisms through other venues.”

One of those venues was Hawaii, where Henson was already cultivating a relationship with GMO-Free Kauai. On July 16, 2005, Henson hosted a one day training “to help spearhead and organize this very important effort to pass a county initiative regarding GMO's,” according to a post by GMO-Free Kauai president Blake Drolson.

That same year, the Cornerstone Foundation gave Henson's OAEC a $5,000 grant to host a GMO Free Hawaii conference, according to Cornerstone's 2005 tax return.

The ante was upped considerably in 2006, when the John Merck Fund started funneling money into Hawaii. The John Merck Fund began supporting anti-GMO groups in 1999 — the same year that Merck's Vioxx began competing directly with Monsanto's Celebrex. Over the next 15 years, the John Merck Fund awarded nearly $9 million to anti-GMO nonprofit advocacy groups, financing media campaigns that aimed to “increase public awareness of the negative impacts of agricultural biotechnology” and “reduce the market share of GM crops,” as well as other activities.

Locally, the Fund began financing a campaign to seek "environmental review and regulation ... of GE crops in Hawaii" — a goal that requires legislation. But the Fund channeled all its contributions to 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations, which can skirt state lobbying disclosure laws — and public scrutiny — by conducting their political advocacy under the guise of "education."

Between 2006-2008, the Fund awarded Earthjustice $105,000 in Hawaii-specific grants aimed at stopping bioengineered algae research and production at NELHA in Kona; prohibiting the use of food crops in biopharmaceutical production, and phasing out open air testing of biopharm crops.

Hawaii SEED also cashed in during that same time period, getting grants totaling $75,000 for projects aimed at “halting the release of genetically engineered corn and taro in Hawaii, building resistance to Monsanto's corn seed production and protecting papaya, taro and coffee crops from genetically engineered production.”

By 2007, the Islands' anti-GMO groups were already tag-teaming their money, with Earthjustice bankrolling “Islands at Risk," a 30-minute film about GE crops and patented life forms that featured Hawaii SEED members Walter Ritte and Nancy Redfeather. Those attending the Oahu premiere were urged to bring “the newest leaf from your papaya tree to be tested for GMO,” thus helping to fulfill some of Hawaii SEED's Merck grant requirements.

In an interesting “coincidence,” GM Watch paired its January 2007 reporting on the film's premiere with an episode of student sickening that had occurred at Waimea Canyon Middle School in November 2006. An investigation by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture found no wrongdoing by Syngenta, which was cultivating fields closest to the school.

Nonetheless, in 2007 some WCMS teachers formed a group — variously identified on its own blog as Maluhia and Maluia — “in response to a complete failure of public agencies responsible for the regulation, monitoring, and protection of the public’s health and welfare in relation to pesticide use and GMO agriculture on lands adjacent WCMS campus.”

In 2008, the Merck Fund gave Maluia-WCMS $10,000 “to document health effects in Hawaii related to pesticide exposure and advance policy reforms that protect the health of children and farmers and build toward national comprehensive pesticide policy reform.”

So what did Maluhia do with its $10,000? I contacted the John Merck Fund to request a copy of Maluhia's grant report detailing the use of those funds. The Funds' program officers did not respond. 

But the very specific agenda outlined by the grant may help explain why certain school personnel continue to insist that seed company spraying caused children to be sickened in 2006 and 2008, not the noxious odors emitted by stinkweed, as determined by state health and agriculture officials. They even managed to gain the ear of the Joint Fact Finding Group (JFFG) on pesticides, which actually called upon an anti-GMO activist to review — and, such a surprise, denounce — the state Health Department's conclusions regarding the 2008 incident.

The Merck Fund's 2008 tax return puts the WCMS grant in its broader context. The return notes that the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America was awarded $122,000 “to assist nonprofit groups in seven states that are documenting health effects related to pesticide exposure and advancing policy reforms …. and enable Californians for Pesticide Reform and the Maluia-Waimea Canyon Middle School to document health effects related to pesticide exposure and advance policy reforms that protect the health of children farmers and build toward national comprehensive pesticide policy reform.”

Clearly, the activities funded at WCMS were part of a larger effort with a decidedly political end: "national comprehensive pesticide policy reform.” That's why I wasn't at all surprised to see that agenda mirrored in the first-draft recommendations of the JFFG. After all, its membership is heavily weighted with movement followers.

Meanwhile, GMO-Free Kauai had been absorbed by Hawaii SEED. As I've previously documented, PAN also gave Hawaii SEED money to conduct pesticide drift tests in 2012. Though Hawaii SEED collected some 200 air samples on the westside, it detected trace amounts of one pesticide in just one sample. 

Again, as I've previously reported, when Hawaii SEED failed to turn up any evidence of actual pesticide drift, much less harm, it launched a fear-mongering campaign, using scare tactics to frighten westside residents.  According to the minutes of a Jan. 20, 2013 SEED Strategy Meeting “Pesticide: Breakout Group Report Back:”

The Hawaii SEED drift monitoring project is NOT yielding the kind of info to move this work forward. This project will be closed.

Next steps:

1. Collaborate with others who are testing for pesticides in water, blood, soil, animals (die‐off like urchins) and look for allies like surf riders, dept of fish and wildlife, health department. Strategy: pressure OTHERS to do the testing

2. Door‐to‐door or public surveys:

Target native hawaiians , moms, Ag. Laborers, middle class

Goal: Tell the story of epidemic sickness in Hawaii that may be related to pesticides. Use this as ammunition to pressure health department into addressing the effects of pesticides statewide.

Working group: Jeri [Di Pietro], Kawai [Warren], Mike [Broady], Dustin [Barca], Patty [Valentine], Lorrin [Pang], Brittany [Beers]

I understand unfounded anxieties and fears. I understand lying. What I can't wrap my head around is pernicious lying — deliberately disseminating disinformation with intent to harm others. There's a word for it — socio-pathology — but it's difficult to fully grasp. What makes people leap to that level of distortion? Power? Money?

And what makes people believe the lies? Even with all the money they've spent, and the testing they've conducted, these groups have been unable to document any pesticide harm to either people or the environment. Yet through fear-mongering, they've been able to spin a narrative that Kauai is one of the most polluted places on the planet, with the agricultural sector in grave need of radical reform.

In subsequent years, PAN has continued to fund the anti-GMO efforts on Kauai, including the Stop Poisoning Paradise website that it launched to boost Councilman Gary Hooser's anti-GMO Bill 2491, which was written by Earthjustice and CFS attorneys. It also recruited and funded “community activists” who testified in support of anti-GMO legislation on Hawaii and Kauai, without ever identifying themselves as paid lobbyists.

Returning to Henson, his work in the Islands continues to this day, according to the OAEC website:

Every January, Dave facilitates an annual gathering of GMO-free groups from each of the Hawaiian Islands, helping them craft legislative and educational strategies against GMO’s and associated pesticides.

Yet PAN continues to maintain that this heavily orchestrated, well-funded activism is an “all-volunteer, citizens’ effort” — a fiction perpetuated in the David vs Goliath rhetoric of Earthjustice,  Center for Food Safety, Hawaii SEED and Hooser's HAPA.

In short, a very small group has been quite effective — though deeply dishonest — in carrying out a national strategy here in the Islands: Use out-of-state philanthropy and the nonprofit sector to make an end-run around campaign spending and lobbying disclosure. Then deploy your cause in the arena of the counties, not the state, because the counties generously allow filibuster-style testimony. That enables you to create the impression of an overwhelming majority, even though your numbers are tiny and padded with paid activists.

Sprinkle in plenty of fear, a dash each of anti-corporatism and agricultural Utopianism and voila, you've got the makings of a meltdown. 

Which is exactly what we've witnessed in the rural communities and state Capitol of Hawaii, where folks have been played to the hilt, and most don't even know it. 

But the money trail tells the story — for those who wish to understand how it is that groups in total service to the corporate-derived cash of the 1 percent can carry out the charade that they're furthering the cause of democracy, even as they actively undermine it.

Gotcha!

Musings: Fact, Fancy and Flat-Out Fudging

I've been looking through the draft report of the Joint Fact-Finding Group on pesticides – the one that was supposed to be released on Jan. 6, 2016, and is now being updated and reviewed prior to distribution later this week.

I sure hope that it's gone through some serious revisions, because this first draft has a lot of problems, not the least of which is speculation. But in fact, the entire report is suspect. The group admits it faced numerous challenges in collecting data, due to both medical and corporate “confidentiality barriers:" 

"This put the JFF Study Group in the position of trying to gather and piece together disparate sets of data and match those with peer reviewed national and international research.”

In other words, it's a hodgepodge of data patched together with conjecture and speculation, which is evident in the inflammatory language in the executive summary. I don't know who wrote it, but it seems the intent was to elicit a certain response, knowing most people won't bother to read the full report. Because when I looked at the chapters and data that supposedly informed the summary, they didn't support the rhetoric.

The summary does note that less than 25 percent of restricted use pesticides were sold for agricultural uses on Kauai. “The largest users of RUPs are structural fumigators, the Kauai Department of Public Works (for wastewater treatment) and the Kauai Department of Water.” Buried deeper in the report is the revelation that structural fumigators account for 41 percent of total RUPs sold for use on Kauai between 2010-14.

The JFFG found no data at all on even estimated household pesticide use, though "90 percent of Hawaii's reported pesticide poisonings occurred in a residence."  So again, why are only the seed companies being scrutinized?

The draft report states:

There is no statistically significant evidence that shows causality between seed company pesticide use and harms to Kauai flora and fauna.

But then it warns of “important signals” that indicate we need to be more attentive to pesticide issues. These "signals" include the unpublished, Surfrider-funded school science fair project on glyphosate residue, and disputed research on neonicotinoid impacts on bees, including references to colony collapse disorder, which has never been found in Hawaii. It also notes, “Several local residents on the westside have reported what they believe may be an unusual number of dead or sick owls.”

Now that's the kind of crap that serves to undermine the already tenuous credibility of this report. Unfortunately, there's way too much of that hocus-pocus in what is supposed to be a survey of evidence.

The report also notes the group looked at 17 environmental sampling studies:

“Many of these revealed the presence of pesticides, some of which may be from contemporary use, others that may come from previous agriculture or migration from other sources such as structural fumigation. Most were in trace amounts and at levels between EPA action standards, with a few important exceptions.” 

It then goes on to report that atrazine, metolachlor and chlorpyrifos were found. It's not until some 38 pages later that the actual levels of these "important exceptions" are disclosed: In the Waimea Canyon Middle School air study, the concentration of chlorpyrifos was 24 times lower and the metolachlor level was 650 times lower than California's subchronic level of concern for these two chemicals. It's not until page 44 that the water study results are given, indicating that no samples exceeded EPA regulatory standards. One sample taken upstream of the Kikiaola boat harbor detected atrazine at 2 parts per million — above the aquatic bench mark of 1 ppm — and metolachlor at 1.07 ppm, just barely above the aquatic life guideline.

Though I find it questionable that the JFFG even considered Hawaii SEED's totally undocumented drift tests, the group did admit that samples from some 200 tests turned up just one positive result for chlorpyrifos, and it was at a level 13 times below the California sub-chronic level of concern.

Yet still we see these activists and Hooser claiming that chlorpyrifos is poisoning the westside. 

Worse, the JFFG cites these extremely low-level findings as indicating “the need for additional monitoring to determine the status of drift from agricultural operations on the westside.”

As for health impacts, the report notes: 

“The lack of comprehensive data on human exposure and pesticides in Kauai's environment makes determining causality between seed company pesticide use and human harms virtually impossible at this time.”

Then it goes astray, talking about how “low level but continuous exposure to pesticides can result in a variety of medical conditions” — without ever documenting that folks are a) subject to chronic pesticide exposure and b) that such exposure is from current ag operations. Sadly, the lack of data doesn't stop the group from throwing out a smear: “Some of the health statistics of Kauai's westside are among the worst in the state. The JFF Study Group cannot determine the exact reason why, and so cannot eliminate pesticide exposure as a possible co-factor.”

As an example of its tortured attempts to blame seed companies for health problems, the report references “growing evidence” that toxic substances in the environment can contribute to obesity and diabetes. It then notes that westsiders have a high rate of diabetes and obesity. Well, it also has a large Native Hawaiian population, which has disproportionately high rates of obesity and diabetes.

The report also shows that westsiders have a higher rate of admissions for bacterial pneumonia. Only later does it reveal that it has the highest rate of smokers in the county.

Reading through the health chapter, it's like they identified health problems that may be associated with pesticide exposure, and then tried to find health stats for the westside that fit those ailments. Mo bettah would have been to simply report what is known, and avoid drawing any conclusions, since the panel had neither the expertise nor the data to do anything else. Let's hope they stick to the straight and narrow in the final report.

When I began to drill down into specific findings, I found several that disputed claims made by anti-GMO activists. For example, the oft-repeated claim by Paul Koberstein – who was paid by anti-GMO groups to write stories — that Kauai seed crops use 10 times more pesticides than mainland crops, as well as Center for Food Safety's claim that seed companies use 17 times the rate of of restricted use ingredients as mainland corn farmers.

The report notes:

"There is substantial variability between estimates of RUP application by acre for corn on Kauai. This makes reliable comparisons with … mainland field corn problematic. Kauai seed companies appear to be applying roughly 0.8 to 1.7 times the amounts of different herbicides and roughly 1 to 3 times the amounts of different insecticides per acres. However, these estimates are based on GNP [good neighbor program] data for acreages, which not be sufficiently accurate for deriving precise rates. Also, the ability to grow up to three crops per acre per year on Kauai compared to one per year on the mainland makes this comparison less exact.”

So the 10 times rate is disproven outright, and the CFS 17 times figure is specifically discounted in the report as relying on assumptions. Meanwhile, if you consider three Kauai crops may be grown for every one on the mainland, then the local application figures are either comparable to mainland application rates, or less.

Also debunked was Councilman's Gary Hooser's perennial lie that the seed companies alone are using 18 tons of pesticides per year. Actually, that is the amount of total formulation, which includes inert ingredients, such as water, used over the 20-month period between December 2013 to July 2015. The seed companies and Kauai Coffee applied 7.5 tons of active ingredients – and that includes organic pesticides and substances like clay — over that same 20-month period.

I found it very curious that the JFFG chose to use that particular 20-month period, as opposed to all of 2014 or July 2014 to July 2015. Was that period selected to give a token nod to Gary's bogus allegation? Still, now that Gary's lie has been outed, hopefully he'll start telling the truth. 

Also revealed as total bullshit is the Hooser and activist claim that the companies are “experimenting” with new pesticides on Kauai. Of the six experimental pesticide use permits that the EPA issued to seed companies between 2010 and 2014, five were for “plant incorporated protectants,” such as Bt corn. The only exception was a permit issued to Syngenta to test Callisto, an already approved pesticide, on soybeans.

Like I said, I can only hope that the group sticks to the facts and published studies, and avoids conjecture and speculation when it issues its final report.

Because perhaps most noteworthy is this conclusion:

This report in no way infers that a different approach to using agricultural pesticides in the future will somehow restore the island to pristine environmental or human health conditions

Musings: Off-Course

I've gotta hand it to Scott Enright and Dr. Virginia Pressler — directors of the state departments of Agriculture and Health, respectively — for schlepping all the way out to Waimea this past week to hear the same litany of complaints about the seed fields from the same small, but loud, cast of characters.

Those two busy administrators have far more patience than I with the garbled gibberish, faux science and Utopian agricultural dreams of the activists, as demonstrated by this Facebook thread:

‪Felicia Alongi Cowden MY SUGGESTION: Organize a hair sampling for pesticides of citizens of all age ranges where we are guided by an administrative medical doctor for a scientific snapshot with stabilizing criteria. Twenty or more people each from a number of communities possibly including Kekaha, Waimea, Kalaheo, Lihue, Kapaa, Anahola, Kilauea, Hanalei and so forth. This should reveal a trend. It will be telling if there is chemical contamination in concentrated amounts on one side or another. My sugar plantation house had regular use of Chlordane, Paraquat and other horrible chemicals. We could identify if these chemicals are still volatilizing years later. These outcomes could ease the worries of those living near the fields, exonerate the companies, or prove an outcome that supports the concerns of the people. I am willing to pay for my familyʻs tests. My guess is there will be enough people willing to do the same. We need to answer our own inquiry. Perhaps, there is an available discount in a group order. If we wait for the state or someone else to take the action, we may wait forever.

Yeah, nothing like stirring up a load of shit before you have any documentation whatsoever. Too bad you couldn't have looked for some data three years ago, before the drama of Bill 2491. But I guess the activists have learned the Joint Fact Finding Group on pesticides failed to find a “smoking gun” to validate the outrageous claims, so now they're desperately seeking relevance.

‪Mike Leibbrandt‪ I have only come back to Hawaii since Oct 2015. Since my return from San Diego i have lived in Kekaha and have noticed at times of dry burning eyes. Since i have not lived here for that long, maybe my hair sample would be good proof of whats in the air because i came from a beach town in San Diego and not a farming community. If my hair sample are positive from only 5 months here........oh my goodness. What about the years of you all being here?‬

Because we all know there's no chemical pollution in San Diego beach towns.... Doncha know Cali is pristine? Only Hawaii is a toxic, poisoned paradise.

‪Felicia Alongi Cowden‪ I do not understand why the state funded Joint Fact Finding Study did not do this. There were no fresh data samples included. Hair samples show us what is in our bodies. We need to look near and far from the fields.‬

Well, Felicia, if you'd do the tiniest bit of homework before spouting off, you'd know the JFFG was directed to survey existing data only, and had neither the mandate nor the funding to conduct new studies.

‪Jeri Di Pietro‪ Perhaps the preference is to keep delaying while the keep on spraying. The JFF was the brainchild of the Mayor who did not support, derailed and vetoed the citizens desires. Next tactic is delay. It has a been a year since we passed a law and still they spray.‬

Come on, Jeri. Even a master propagandist like you can't pretend that Bill 2491, as written, would have stopped spraying — even if it hadn't been thrown out of court.

‪Dustin Barca‪ We are all connected more than we will ever know . Money is the problem . Buying politicians , buying respect . Buying time. "TESTING FACILITY" in predominantly KANAKA communities . No Kanaka at the meeting . Sad. I drove from Kealia after ‬

‪working on my Farm for 8 hours. ‬ We should find funders for blood and hair samples from any resident concerned with ‬ ‪being surrounded by War chemical ‬‪corporations . They have patents for Biological weapons in food. And the cure. Are they testing that? We are next to a testing Military base..... ‬Plenty GOOD people work for these companies who do NOT understand the AGENDA of Mostly European based ‬corporations who care about ONE thing, hitting the numbers. This is a proven conspiracy . Not conspiracy theory. ‬

‪Just some humble thoughts of a " uneducated Haole" from the North shore.

At least Dustin has stopped pretending to be a kanaka....Though he'd be a great poster child for any “stay in school and don't let people punch you in the head” campaign.

Speaking of Dustin, it seems he's gained a speck of insight into the challenges farmers face:

It's Humbling to put everything into something and work your ass off for a year 1/2 and not make a dollar. To see 8 acres off Trees and buffalo grass turn into this is a pretty empowering pay off. Within the next year I'll have around 100 pigs and 50 sheep and a lot of Organic vegetables to make Money. No matter what it is in Life, it's gonna take sacrifice, Hard Word, Dedication, perseverance, pride, humility and Love to reach a successful Goal.

Granted, he does have more to show for his efforts than the Kilauea Food Forest's oft-photographed single bunch of banana. Still, I wonder what Dustin's conservation plan looks like. I'm sure, as a self-proclaimed aloha aina warrior, that he's in full compliance with all environmental rules and regs...

Speaking of which, Louisa Wooten took a tip from the Gary Hooser playbook and used her position on the JFFG to weight her comment to the EPA (emphasis added):

I have been involved for the past 10 months in a Joint Fact Finding Group on the Island of Kaua'i, Hawaii that is tasked with studying the effects of pesticides on our island. This process is funded by our State Dept. Of Agriculture and the County of Kauai, specifically to look at the potential environmental and health impacts of research and development of corn and other crops by Dow Agrosciences, Dupont-Pioneer, BASF, and Syngenta. I am a farmer and inspector for Certified Organic farms and processors throughout the state. Sifting through voluminous data and studies on drift, toxicology, potential health hazards, and environmental impacts, there is nothing that I see that the EPA should do but BAN CHLORPYRIFOS as many countries throughout the world did many years ago.

This should have been done long ago and allowing Dow Chemical to submit its own studies to refute EPA studies is highly questionable. The labels for chlorpyrifos products state it should not drift off-site from where it applies. So why have we found it in our schools, waterways, etc. ?

UPHOLD A COMPLETE BAN ON CHLORPYRIFOS.

Potential environmental and health impacts of crop R&D? I don't see anything in the JFFG scope of work that addresses that sort of speculation:

Based on an examination of available literature and data sources, the JFF group will, to the best of its abilities, undertake a broad examination of where GM and other production scale crops are grown on Kaua‘i, the historic and current use of pesticides on Kaua‘i, the historic and current use of pesticides on Kaua‘i, the prevalence of acute and chronic health conditions occurring on Kaua‘i at levels that are above state- or nation-wide rates, and any evidence of environmental contamination that can reasonably and empirically be associated with the use of pesticides.  

Why do I have the nagging suspicion — validated by Roy Yamakawa's resignation from the panel and my own review of the first draft report — that the JFFG has drifted off-course?

Musings: Rampaging Tweakers

Diesel pick-up trucks, trailers, welders, generators, batteries, compressors, tools, livestock, fruit — virtually anything that tweakers (meth addicts) can sell, scrap or recycle for cash is being stolen from Hawaii farmers.

In talking with farmers around the Islands, they all echoed common complaints about rampant agricultural theft, trespassing and what they see as police departments not especially concerned about such crimes.

One Oahu farmer told of driving to his field in preparation for harvest, only to find the batteries stolen from his fork lifts. By the time he changed out the batteries, he'd lost a half-day of production. Big Island farmers spoke of thieves jacking up farm equipment to rip off $11,000 worth of tires, and blatantly knocking down an entire wall of a building in order to nab the ATVs stored inside.

The farmers are vulnerable because most do not live on their land, giving thieves high on ice the entire night to carry out their burglaries. But even those who do live on-site are not immune. One Oahu woman told of chasing a guy from her backyard in broad daylight. When she called police, they scolded her, saying "don't you dare run after the guy."

Others spoke of calling the cops, only to be told the police had other priorities. Or if the cops do take a report, the farmers are told it's nearly impossible to prove that stolen fruit belongs to them. One farmer was able to match the top cut from one of his pineapples to the whole fruit, only to have an officer shrug and say it wasn't sufficient evidence.

Banana, luau leaf, lychee and longan are some of the most frequently targeted crops, with the hot produce sold to vendors who peddle the wares at farmers' markets. Though the markets typically have rules to prevent the sale of stolen property, they aren't enforced, farmers say.

In short, farmers are losing big time, with one Puna District grower suffering losses of $60,000 in uninsured property this year alone.

With many farmers already surviving on the margins, the thefts represent a significant threat to their viability. But though we often hear of cops cracking down on thefts from rental cars and vacation rental properties, the plight of farmers is generally ignored.

As a result, many of them have stopped reporting the crimes.

Farmers were unanimous in fingering druggies, some of whom are former employees who know the operations, and then return to steal. This is linked to another common problem that farmers face: a shortage of farm labor has them often hiring guys who never graduated high school and can't get any other jobs, but have no work ethic or interest in steady employment.

“It just goes on and on and on,” one farmer said.

“It's always been occurring, but it's just getting worse and worse,” added another farmer.

Farmers also report reoccurring problems with trespassers, who come onto their land to hunt, vandalize or just hang out. Locks are broken, gates are knocked down, fences are cut. Some farmers are beginning to instal security systems, but that also represents an outlay of time and money that many do not have.

In response, legislators are considering House Bill 1996, which creates a two-year pilot program on the Big Island to focus on investigating and prosecuting agricultural theft and vandalism.

The bill, which has passed the House Finance Committee, calls for partnering with the county of Hawaii to hire an enforcement officer within the prosecuting attorney's office or any other law enforcement agency to:

Identify the number of convictions for agricultural theft and agricultural vandalism;

Identify best practices for prosecuting perpetrators of agricultural theft and agricultural vandalism;

Identify areas where agricultural theft and agricultural vandalism are most prevalent;

Identify best practices for preventing agricultural theft and agricultural vandalism; and

Make recommendations for a statewide program to address agricultural theft and agricultural vandalism no later than Dec. 31, 2017.

The bill, if ultimately adopted — and most important, funded — could prove helpful in addressing the problem. Still, it's just another bandaid on the open, weeping sore that is Hawaii's ice epidemic.

I remain bewildered that certain politicians and activists are focusing so much attention on the perceived threat of Island agriculture while ignoring the documented danger of crystal methamphetamine addiction.

Speaking of real and perceived threats, a poorly researched article by Associated Press reporter Cathy Bussewitz is making the national rounds — including a pathetic rehash by Hawaii News Now. 

Titled “Battling outbreak, Hawaii faces small staff, pesticide fears,” it tells of how some organic farmers on the Big Island are refusing to allow state officials to spray for mosquitoes spreading dengue fever:

But state efforts to combat the outbreak — and prevent the related Zika virus from making inroads on the island — could put these farmers out of business. Posting "no spray" signs on their properties, they're pushing back on the use of pesticides to kill the mosquitoes that transmit both infections.

On Old Ways Farm, organic farmer Steve Mann tends to his herbs with mosquito netting dangling from his straw hat. Neighbors have been infected with dengue, but Mann wouldn't allow his home or farm to be sprayed with pesticides.

"It's not organic, and that would cancel our certification for a period of three years," Mann said. "That might well put us out of business."

What Bussewitz fails to report is that the organic rules have an exemption for such situations. Section §205.672 states:

When a prohibited substance is applied to a certified operation due to a Federal or State emergency pest or disease treatment program and the certified operation otherwise meets the requirements of this part, the certification status of the operation shall not be affected as a result of the application of the prohibited substance: Provided, that: (a) Any harvested crop or plant part to be harvested that has contact with a prohibited substance applied as the result of a Federal or State emergency pest or disease treatment program cannot be sold, labeled, or represented as organically produced.”

So Mann could indeed sell his crop, though not as organic produce, and his certification would not be in jeopardy.