There is much more at stake than has been exposed so far by local news coverage of the spraying for Gypsy Moths planned for the Crown Hill area this summer.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture wants to spray 16.5 acres in the Crown Hill community with pesticide Foray 48B which contains the bacteria Btk.

Local citizens created the NO SPRAY ZONE group to protest such spraying and for the last few months, they have been presenting their case to state and local officials.

The Ballard spraying two years ago, orchestrated by the WSDA, was in response to the discovery of one Asian Gypsy Moth in the area in July 1999 and one moth egg mass found on a Russian ship earlier that year. The egg mass on the ship was destroyed and the ship fumigated. The WSDA declared an "infestation" and carried out the spraying program. Nowhere else in the world to any officials or scientists declare the discovery of one insect an infestation.

The Crown Hill "infestation" is based on the discovery of eight European gypsy moths, four egg masses and five empty cocoons in the nine-square-block area during the spring of 2001. Calling this an infestation is a stretch of the imagination.

The WSDA feels this issue concerns only 102 homeowners in the spray zone. But a far greater number of people, animals, and insects are affected. It is well known that less than 10 percent of material sprayed winds up on the target. The rest becomes airborne, affecting a much larger area.

To think that the offending moths will be in the spray zone to eat the poisoned leaves during the few days after the spraying is the ultimate example of scientific arrogance. Those moths have a huge range of flight.

The genetically modified bacteria they plan to spray, Btk, kills all caterpillars, even beneficial ones, and many other insects when they eat the leaves coated with it.

In approving the Ballard spraying, the Governor and WSDA ignored the mounting evidence that Foray 48B and its prime ingredient, Btk, are harmful to human and animal health and that no long-term studies have been done to establish the product's safety.

They seem poised to ignore those concerns again in Crown Hill, which has a high percentage of senior residents and children, people who often show higher than usual sensitivities to chemical products and insecticides.

We cannot allow even the slightest hint of adverse health effects from the application of Btk to be ignored nor can we allow the people in the path of the spraying to be considered incidental to the protection of the products below.

- JACKIE ALAN GUILIANO, Ph.D., Broadview teacher and author, North Seattle Community College