Subscribe to Receive the Daily Report

Friday, February 13th, 2015

‘Neonic’ Poison Found Throughout City

Author:     Jean Yamamura
Source:     Santa Barbara Independent
Publication Date:     Monday, February 9, 2015
 Link: ‘Neonic’ Poison Found Throughout City
Stephan:   Neonicotinoids have passed off the stage of media attention, but they have not gone away. This is both bad and good news. Bad for Santa Barbara, California, and other cities where industrial agriculture is practiced in the surround area. Good news in that those same cities are finally being forced to address this issue. Perhaps finally the death -- in all sense of that word -- grip of the chemical companies is loosening, at least at the local level.
In Santa Barbara, California they have discovered that neonicotinoids have polluted the city's surface water creeks and streams. Credit: Santa Barbara Independent

In Santa Barbara, California they have discovered that neonicotinoids have polluted the city’s surface water creeks and streams, and are part of the reason their bee population is in severe decline.
Credit: Santa Barbara Independent

A grave concern is growing over the use of neonicotinoids, a type of insecticide known to affect the central nervous system of invertebrates, most alarmingly of bees. In its first tests for the poison, the city’s Creeks Division found a “neonic” known as imidacloprid after the rains of February 2014, according to city creek reports. In fact, the monitors found the pesticide so consistently across their four creek sites (Arroyo Burro, Mission, Laguna, and Sycamore) that they suspected laboratory problems. Until this year. In 2015, post-storm tests again found imidacloprid in the city’s four major streams and also in spot checks of urban sidewalks and streets.

Neonics form the lethal ingredient in more than 400 U.S. products, according to […]

Read the Full Article