Requiem for the Honey Bee
Sonny Star had an intimate chat with Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced, the other day and described itself as "encouraged" that he was "leading the charge at the congressional level to get special funding to fight (Honey Bee) colony collapse disorder," but that Congress should get on with the task.
This was the finest bit of witless or cynical buffoonery yet from this newspaper, but you know Sonny.
Any species of wildlife in an endangered condition is dead meat in Cardoza's hands.
Let us speculate how it's going to work. First, independent bee scientists already have a pretty good idea about what is happening, but all the news is bad and much of it relates to a number of other ecosystems crashing in the Valley and elsewhere due to the utterly destructive win-win, public-private relationships between pesticide corporations that are now seed corporations and corporate and university biotechnology.
Migratory birds have been dying for years in the Valley due to pesticides, herbicides and now, probably GMO crops. We have no idea the extent of the ecological catastrophe unleashed by these corporations and their university partners, led by the University of California. And it is not a subject of research likely to get a dime of federal research funds as long as the Biotechnology Industry Organization exists.
Cardoza tipped his hand recently in the agricultural subcommittee he chairs when he added a section to the Farm Bill that outlaws local and state governments from passing laws against genetic engineered crops in their jurisdictions -- a flat payoff to biotechnology corporations and a finger flip in the face of progressive agriculture throughout the nation.
In Merced County, we are deeply experienced in ecological disaster due to the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge. However, Sonny's clipping files will hold almost nothing about the mid-1980s disaster that continues to take wildlife in a toxic soup of heavy metals. Nor has the solution to the problem been found, although a last-ditch atttempt to take advantage of Bush administration corruption is now underway, led by Cardoza's good friends at Westlands Water District.
Initially, Cardoza, then an assemblyman, wanted to look like he was playing nice with agriculture and natural resources. He supported the county's application for the Williamson Act in 2000, while working tirelessly behind the scenes to corrupt the permitting process of UC Merced. He supported the Natural Communities Conservation Plan-Habitat Conservation Plan for eastern Merced County, which would have permitted all the takes of endangered species UC and developers could have asked for, at bargain-basement prices. It was only when the NCCP-HCP was defeated by a coalition of local farmers and environmentalists that the Shrimp Slayer took the gloves off on behalf of the contributors to his career in Congress. Since he has been in Congress, he has introduced two bills to eliminate the critical habitat designation in the Endangered Species Act. Acting as the rear end of the famed Pomboza with former Rep. RichPAC Pombo, Buffalo Slayer-Tracy, he next introduced a bill to gut the entire ESA.
Let us speculate further how this is going to work. If the Honey Bee goes, the almond industry goes. If the almond industry goes, there is going to be a great deal of farm land on the market at the bottom of the real estate cycle. Although Cardoza will fail utterly by design to get any meaningful research on colony collapse disorder, he will cry to the skies for emergency funds to bail out the poor almond growers. So landowners with almond orchards will very quietly receive their disaster checks from the feds and sell their land to developers.
This will fit marvelously with the Grupe-Spanos California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, the San Joaquin Valley Blueprint, the bullet train, the eastside freeway, a peripheral canal and an eastside canal -- all aimed at turning the San Joaquin Valley into a giant urban slurb.
Valley farmers/landowners are sunk in such lagoons of hypocrisy and corruption that at one county-sponsored meeting on the problem nearly a decade ago, the representative for the local building industry association looked across the table at the representative of environmental organizations, threw up his hands and asked her why the Hell the BIA and the environmentalists were the only organizations in the room trying to protect agriculture.
There is another pork angle: the new biowarfare lab to excite Cardoza's greed: UC/Bechtel/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory wants to establish near Tracy on Site 300, where the lab tests bombs containing depleted uranium. The biowarfare lab is being promoted as a possible replacement for the Plum Island USDA Animal Disease Laboratory. Cattle and poultry organizations have been brought on board because the biowarfare lab promises to be studying diseases like foot-and-mouth and Avian flu. Strong evidence suggesting Plum Island security lapses resulted in the release of ticks laden with Lyme Disease, and released W. Nile Fever and possibly Newcastle's Disease into its neighborhood, has met a solid wall of denial for reasons of "National Security." But, what the heck, it makes sense to bring these pathogens incredibly lethal to the huge, nearby cattle, dairy and poultry industries, right?
Agriculture does not control agriculture anymore than Cardoza represents agriculture. However, a pork angle exists and no doubt will be exploited. Another win-win, public-private, emergency-funded program, involving all the usual suspects led by UC will be congregated to engineer a Frankenbee to replace the Honey Bee, which is probably toast. The public will pay for the biotech fix, it will take years, by which time it won't matter anymore except for whatever damage the Frankenbee might cause other ecosystems.
It is even possible that, if UC Merced doesn't get exactly what it wants out of federal resource agencies, "for reasons of National Security" it could begin work on something to extirpate the endangered species in the way of the historical UC mission to expand in Merced. UC Merced already has an animal lab, said to be studying human diseases at an undisclosed level of biosecurity. Meanwhile, cattle, dairy and poultry industries downwind from the Tracy biowarfare lab had better play nice with developers on the UC Board of Regents, or something could happen, because biowarfare lab security isn't always perfect.
Valley agriculture has been through disasters before. Each time, it has picked itself up and gone forward, erasing any memory of the last disaster. But, these days, the historical baseline for Valley agriculture is defined by finance, insurance and real estate, a graph without any reference to Nature. One very rarely hears from farmers or ranchers descriptions of a growing season.
However, there is another historical baseline, the ecology of the Valley, which some do remember. Those people note that every advance in the so-called "development" of the Valley in the last four or five decades has been matched by the crash of ecosystems, the endangerment and extinction of species, and the disappearance of generations of farmers who spoke in terms of seasons and of politicians who would defend agriculture.
Silent Spring is high-balling down the tracks.
Badlands editorial staff
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Agriculture doesn't control agriculture.
Silent Spring is coming.
Kesterson showed the way.
What an irony that Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced, should be This is a man whose entire political resume has been a fight against endangered species. Even his fight against the Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter, in the state Assembly, was a fight to irradicate an agricultural pest, not to save the most valuable, commercially exploited pollinator in the nation.
It appears, in Merced at least, that the issue is totally economic, concerning the almond crop. If the argument remains in that piddling political frame, the honey bee is history, because the almond crop occurs mainly in only three or four congressional districts out of 435 districts. Incidently, the almond industry would be history, too. The collapse of the population of the nation's major pollinator is a much larger issue than that, but how are other members of Congress going to feel about a member who has introduced three bills to weaken the Endangered Species Act for the benefit of the special interests in his district coming to them to ask them to save a species for the economic benefit of another special interest in his district?
I can't imagine a worse congressman to represent the interests of the honey bee or the almond industry dependent on it. After years of expressing the utmost contempt for habitat critical to the survival of species adapted to living in and near vernal pools, including species of bees that only live near vernal pools, how can Cardoza reinvent himself as the champion of an insect?
An early indication of the strength of the Shrimp Slayer's charge to save the Honey Bee is a section in the current Farm Bill added by the subcommittee he chairs. The section would outlaw state and local anti-genetic engineering laws and ordinances, a great boon to Monsanto and the other members of the powerful Biotechnology Industry Organization. There is already a reputable line of independent scientific research that Honey Bee colony collapse is related to GMO crops. Cardoza's promotion of GMO ethanol-corn varieties and his promotion of UC Merced's biotech future all suggest he would not support research into the relationship between GMOs and the Honey Bee.
If, in fact, the most fruitful line of research is that the Honey Bee is the "canary in the waving fields of golden GMO grain," US agriculture is in big trouble. Does anyone remember in the entire FDA and USDA permitting process for GMOs any discussion about something this drastic before that seed was spread across every major agricultural area in the US and Canada?
In any event, it would take a member of Congress with a touch of heroism to suggest the possibility publicly, and that ain't Cardoza. There may not even be a pork angle for University of California and UC/Bechtel/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory because Penn State seems to be the national center for bee research. However, perhaps UC could get federal funding to genetically engineer a Frankenbee to replace the Honey Bee some day.
It may be essential that the government take draconian action, as if as has been said, this disorder is the foot-and-mouth disease of the Honey Bee. Much of these efforts involve NOT doing things that are being done, rather than doing more for example. Perhaps NOT feeding commercial bee colonies GMO corn syrup might help. Perhaps, NOT stressing colonies with trips across America to California almond orchards would help. Perhaps, if contagion is proved to be an issue, more than half the Honey Bees in the nation should NOT congregate here to pollinate almonds.
While these lines of thought might make sense scientifically and agriculturally, they don't make sense politicially or economically, at least not for the 18th congressional district. This could put Cardoza in the position of harming the almond economy of his district for the greater good -- saving a species vital to all agriculture. If, as bee scientists say to dramatize their arcane research, ever few mouthfuls of food you eat is the result of bee pollination, the Speaker should put the task in the hands of a
Bill Hatch
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6-5-07
Bee deaths at crisis point...Our View
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/opinion/story/13655974p-14249127c.html
In 2005 alone, honeybees pollinated $15 billion of U.S. crops, with a third of that amount coming in California. Based on economics alone, it's essential that government get involved to help fight colony collapse disorder... Merced County is one of the largest almond-producing counties in the world, and any shortage of bees during key pollination times would be detrimental to this region's economy. It's officially a crisis — and the federal and state governments need to get involved to make sure enough money is freed up to fight the problem before it becomes a catastrophe. We're encouraged that Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, is leading the charge at the congressional level to get special funding to fight colony collapse disorder. But we were discouraged to learn that Congress probably won't act on the matter until September, which wastes valuable research time. Beekeepers need help and they need it now. It's up to political leaders to get it.
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SEC. 123. EFFECT OF USDA INSPECTION AND DETERMINATION OF NON-REGULATED STATUS.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no State or locality shall make any law prohibiting the use in commerce of an article that the Secretary of Agriculture has —
1 inspected and passed; or
2 determined to be of non-regulated status.