The use of airplanes to spray insecticides has increased dramatically. At the same time, the average citizen's attitude toward poison has changed. Instead of seeing it as extremely dangerous, something to be kept in a careful place and used in limited ways for specific purposes, most people are now comfortable handling poisons as if they were relatively safe. People have begun, however, to have misgivings about aerial spraying. There are two massive aerial campaigns that are largely responsible for this change of attitude--the campaign against the gypsy moth in the northeastern states and the campaign against the fire ant in the southern states. Both insects were accidentally imported into the United States. Before the campaigns of the late 1950s, no one saw either insect as a major threat. When the campaigns were halted after widespread destruction, no dent was made in the populations of the targeted insects.
They gypsy moth is native to Europe. It was accidentally released into the United States in 1869 and gradually it spread throughout the northeastern states. It spread, but it was also contained by a variety of methods. Thirteen parasites and predators were imported as a means of combating the spread of the gypsy moth by natural means. This method was successful in containing the moths. It was only a year after pronouncing the success of the natural method that the Agriculture Department announced a plan to eradicate the gypsy moth entirely. It began a chemical war on the gypsy moth in 1956, spraying nearly one million acres of land. Complaints of damage started pouring in. Conservationists expressed concern over the Department's plans to spray huge areas. In 1957, the Department announced it would spray three million acres. Officials shrugged off all complaints.
The Long Island area, a densely populated region, was one of those areas included in the spraying campaign. The officials announced that it was necessary to spray densely populated areas despite the fact that the gypsy moth was a forest dweller. In 1957, the Department of Agriculture and Markets sprayed DDT-in-fuel oil on these highly populated areas. People were sprayed, livestock was sprayed, bodies of water were sprayed. The rate of death among livestock and wildlife was phenomenal. A citizens' group tried to bring a court injunction to stop further spraying, but they were denied the preliminary injunction. When the injunction reached the Supreme Court, the court said that since the spraying had already happened, the injunction was moot. The suit did succeed in focusing public attention.
One of the most alarming areas of concern had to do with the dairy industry. One farm provides a good case in point. The farmer had requested the Department not spray her farm and had agreed to let inspectors see her farm and spray selected areas. Nevertheless, her farm was sprayed twice. Milk samples revealed DDT 14 parts per million. The fields where the cattle grazed were also tested and shown to be contaminated. The country health department was notified, but never issued orders that the milk be quarantined.
Truck gardeners also suffered from the mass spraying. All the vegetables tested had huge amounts of DDT on them. Growers couldn't sell any of their crops. Nevertheless, aerial spraying continued. People filed suits against the agency. Beekeepers got together to file a suit. One beekeeper lost 800 colonies after one spraying.
The gypsy moth campaign was carried on with complete lack of responsibility. The government agencies hired private contractors to spray the land and paid them by the gallon. Therefore the plane operators sometimes sprayed areas more than once to get rid of as much of the chemicals as possible. One company wasn't even registered in the state. So when people tired to sue for damages, they often couldn't find whom to sue. After 1957, the program was abruptly halted, but the government never recognized its mistake. The gypsy moth population wasn't even curtailed.
The second major chemical campaign was conducted in the southern states against the fire ant. The fire ant had been accidentally imported from South America. By 1928, it had spread throughout the south, but for the first 40 years of its time in this country, it attracted little attention. It was considered a nuisance because it builds large mounds of one foot high. Sometimes these mounds get n the way of farm machinery. In only two of the southern states was the fire ant listed as important insect pests.
When insecticides began to be developed, concern also began about the fire ant. In 1957, the United States Department of Agriculture launched a massive propaganda campaign against the fire ant, with movies, government released, and stories that built up a hatred of the fire ant and made people think it was a major threat. The government announced that it would treat twenty million acres in nine southern states. Trade journals remarked that the insecticide companies were going to make millions of dollars. Never has any government campaign been so condemned by all but those making a profit from it. No one thought it was a good idea. The government won support for the project based on false claims. Agencies said the fire ant was a serious threat to agriculture, a statement proven to be untrue. It was also misrepresented as a threat to ground birds and even people. The state of Alabama's Agricultural Experiment Station noted that damage to plants by the fire ants was extremely rare and that no reports of damage to livestock had ever been reported. In fact, fire ants perform some beneficial functions. They eat bollweavils, a dreaded enemy of cotton growers, and they aerate the soil, allowing it to absorb rain and produce healthier root systems for plants.
The propaganda movie produced by the Department of Agriculture depicted the fire ant killing people with its sting. While the sting is painful, it's certainly not as painful or dangerous as that of bees and wasps. Only one possible death resulting from the sting of a fire ant has ever been reported. The Department also said fire ants killed game birds, another of its false claims.
The insecticide caused much more damage than the fire ant ever could. The chemicals used were Dieldrin and Heptachlor, neither of which had ever been used in this way. No one knew their affects, but they did know that both poisons were many times more toxic than DDT. They even increased the dosage of these chemicals over what they had previously used of DDT.
All the states' conservation departments issued urgent protests, as did ecologists and entomologists. None of the protests was heard. In the first year, 1958, a million acres were sprayed. As the program continued, biologists started reporting facts about the destruction. In some areas, there was a complete destruction of wildlife. There was also massive losses of livestock and domestic pets. Bird life--including quail and wild turkey--was wiped out in many areas. The Agriculture Department dismissed all reports as unsubstantiated.
One wildlife biologist began an intensive study. He asked people in the area of his study about the results of the spraying. Poultry farmers reported massive deaths and widespread infertility. Pork farmers reported the same. Cattle and their calves died and those that survived became infertile. The Department of Agriculture consistently denied livestock losses resulted from the spraying. One veterinary in Georgia reported the heavy losses following the spraying. Cattle, horses, goats, chickens and birds began to show up with an often-fatal disease of the nervous system. Those animals that had been stabled, who were not exposed to the sprayings, had no such symptoms. The veterinary asked what was being done to protect children who had drank milk from the local dairies. His question wasn't answered. After a few years, the Department of Agriculture now lists Heptachlor and Dieldrin among the chemicals that make forage plants unsuitable for feeding to dairy cattle. Yet the control division of the same Department promote the use of these chemicals.
Only after Heptachlor was sprayed did anyone begin to look at research that had already been conducted on it. That research showed that after a short period in the tissues of animals or plants or in the soil, Heptachlor becomes more toxic and transforms into another chemical called Heptachlor Epode. Despite these findings, the Department of Agriculture pushed for annual appropriations for fire ant control. This government department conducted this massive campaign without even the most elementary research into the effects to be expected. In 1959, the Department offered to give these chemicals to Texas landowners who would sign a release absolving the government of responsibility if the chemicals proved to be destructive. In the same year, the state of Alabama reused to appropriate any more funds for the project.
The control program hadn't even accomplished anything. One report out of Louisiana claimed that there were more fire ants after the spraying than there had ever been before. There have always been effective and inexpensive programs of control. Since fire ants built mounds, it's easy to find them and treat them locally. One solution applied in Mississippi cost the state only 23 cents per acre. The massive chemical control program cost $3.50 per acre.
Here, Carson concentrates on two major air-spraying campaigns as a way of illustrating the effects of insecticide spraying. She details the insecticide campaign against the gypsy moth in the northeast and that against the fire ant in the southern states. In choosing the method of providing illustrative examples of the results of insecticide campaigns, Carson enables the reader to see the details of what she has so carefully built up as a general truth--that insecticide campaigns are ineffective and extraordinarily and globally damaging.
Carson continues her strategy of providing a wide range of authorities. She quotes from scientific and government sources and she also quotes from farmers and homeowners. In this range, Carson ensures that her case will be heard. If a reader isn't convinced by one authority, she or he might be convinced by another.
Clapsaddle, Diane. "TheBestNotes on A Long Way Gone".
TheBestNotes.com.
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