Our tour begins with a beautifully landscaped front yard

Imagine this audacious plan: we return our grid of manicured yards into watershed and wildlife-friendly spaces. From a bird or butterfly’s perspective, it would be a transformation from sterile segmented turf fields to bounteous habitat full of nectar plants, insects, hiding places and nesting spaces.  This "Bay-Friendly"
gardens initiative is underway around the Bay Area under the sponsorship of Stopwaste.org. Last weekend some generous, certified “Bay-Friendly” garden owners opened their yards for tours.

A red fox squirrel scampers through the garden

We were able to purchase a tour booklet and tickets to gain entry to meander around and view the seven principles of "Bay-Friendly" gardening used in very different ways.  As their website states, "It’s an approach to landscaping with room for lots of personal preferences and interpretations." The gardens were beautiful, creative, and a great way to bring the natural world into people’s every day lives.

What struck me was the amount of insect and wildlife activity in the featured gardens.  These gardens were busy with insects visiting flowers on the sunny Sunday afternoon.  Squirrels scampered through the trees and a variety of birds were flitting about and calling from the shelter of trees and shrubs.  Like little wildlife havens, the yards were alive with an abundant diversity of plants and wildlife compared with other nearby yards of traditional turf grass and ornamental plants.

Garden creekside retreat featuring water permeable surface and artistic seating area

"Bay-Friendly" gardening also calls for the limited use of pesticides. Toxic chemicals, along with trash pollution, pose big problems to our bay and creeks.  Diazinon and chlorpyrifos are two commonly used insecticides.  According to a report by TDC Environmental, the two are “of great concern, because elevated levels of the two pesticides have been linked to findings of toxicity in wastewater treatment plant effluent, storm water runoff, urban creeks (including all San Francisco Bay area urban creeks), estuaries (including San Francisco Bay), and the Sacramento River.  Much of this toxicity occurs in urban areas, apparently reflecting urban releases—rather than agricultural releases—of diazinon and chlorpyrifos.”

Thimbleberry provides food for native birds and insects

"Bay-Friendly" gardens seem to need fewer pest control measures because the owners strive to create healthier soil conditions, choose plants that are best suited to our climate and location in the garden which, in turn, encourages beneficial insects.  Ultimately this combination keeps the pest populations in better balance.  When control measures are called for, there are resources available to help you choose those least toxic to the environment. Our Water, Our World website has some great resources including a downloadable pocket guide.

The "Bay-Friendly" garden website is a great resource, too, for both home gardeners and landscaping professionals.  There’s an interactive page showing some examples of good gardening practices. There is still one more tour you can attend in Marin County on May 19 to gather ideas for your own "Bay-Friendly" garden.  We’ve also been working on creating a "Bay-Friendly" landscape around the Crab Cove Visitor Center.  Maybe you’ll see us on the Alameda County garden tour, once we get certified, in the next couple of years!

Additional Links:

Pesticide pollution prevention ideas

Sunset Magazine landscaping ideas with less lawn

Pesticide exposure is linked to Parkinson's disease. Image courtesy of santiago nicolau.

Over the past five years several studies have linked pesticide exposure to a greater risk of Parkinson's disease. Now new research confirms and extends these findings demonstrating that more exposure, as well as exposure to additional chemicals, increases risk even further.

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that attacks a group of dopamine neurons in a small part of the brain called the substantia nigra. As the neurons degenerate, the patient loses the ability to initiate motion and can eventually become “frozen” within the body. Other symptoms include shaking, slow movement and other cognitive problems. Both actor Michael J. Fox and boxing champion Muhammad Ali have the disease.

Until recently the cause of Parkinson's was unknown. Recently, however, UCLA professor of epidemiology Dr. Beate Ritz found an increased risk of the disease among people living near farms where pesticides are used. Specifically the research found a link to the pesticides maneb and paraquat.

The latest study, which took place in a rural farming community in the California Central Valley, confirmed the link between these pesticides and also an additional fungicide called ziram. Additionally, people who were exposed to all three chemicals had a greater risk than those exposed to any of the pesticides in isolation.

Ritz's team also examined the effect of risk based on occupation. They found that while being near farms increases risk, working within the fields themselves poses an even greater risk, providing an independent measure of the dangers of exposure.

To try and elucidate the mechanism by which ziram may be damaging neurons, Ritz collaborated with UCLA neurologist Jeff Bronstein, who used a cell culture model to show that ziram inhibits the breakdown of protein alpha-synuclein in dopaminergic neurons. When alpha-synuclein accumulates, it causes selective cell death in these neurons. When administered to rodents in the lab, ziram created symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease.

The case is getting stronger that working with or around pesticides directly increases risk of Parkinson's disease. The obvious next question is what happens when we eat food from farms where these pesticides are used.

This study is published in the current online issue of the European Journal of Epidemiology.

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Pregnant mothers with the highest exposure to pesticides had kids with lower IQ at age 7. Image courtesy of C. G. P. Grey.

Three studies published last week in Environmental Health Perspectives concluded that pesticide exposure in pregnant women is linked to lower IQ scores in their children at age 7. This is pretty scary news for expectant mothers, but what does it mean practically?

Pesticide exposure can come in many forms. In one of the studies done at UC Berkeley, scientists estimated pesticide exposure in the agricultural town of Salinas (Monterey County, CA) by measuring organophosphate metabolites in the mother's urine during and after pregnancy. While these women had slightly higher than average pesticide exposure due to their proximity to farming centers, their levels were not out of range of national averages.

Interestingly, the effect of pesticide exposure on intelligence was only significant before birth; childhood exposure to pesticides did not appear to have an impact on intelligence scores.

The other two studies were conducted in more urban environments in New York City. In these studies done by researchers at Mount Sinai Medical Center and Columbia University, pesticide exposure was determined by measuring either urine metabolites or umbilical cord levels of the pesticide chlorpyrifos, respectively. Intelligence scores were significantly lower in children whose mothers had been exposed to the most pesticides while pregnant, indicating that these results are consistent across populations and not limited to farming communities.

In urban populations, pesticide exposure often comes from eating crops that have been treated with pesticides. People can also come into contact with pesticides in home gardens, schools and other public buildings with landscaping.

The good news is that use of organophosphate pesticides have declined steadily over the past decade, declining approximately 50 percent since 2001. Also, though choosing organic produce will help decrease pesticide exposure through food, consumers shouldn't feel they need to switch to 100% organic to protect their children.

Every year the Environmental Working Group publishes the “Dirty Dozen,” a list of the conventional produce likely to contain the highest amount of pesticides. It also publishes a list of the cleanest conventional foods, “The Clean 15,” with the lowest pesticide levels. The researchers found that the impact of pesticides on intelligence scores is dose dependent, meaning any reduction in exposure can be beneficial.

While making these decisions it is important to realize that eating a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables is one of the most important thing you can do for the health of your developing baby. You should not drastically restrict the different kinds of produce you consume while pregnant. Being smart about which organic foods you purchase, and carefully washing the conventional produce you continue to buy can make a big impact on your exposure.

Are you worried about pesticide exposure? How do you handle it?

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Peregrine Falcon. Photo: Glenn Nevill at kqedquest.

This time of year, you may see birds of prey, with their wings outstretched, circling overhead. It is nesting season, and raptors will nest in trees, on cliffs and, in our urban environment, on the ledges of tall buildings. But the shared history of humans and raptors is far older than the concept of urban wildlife. Humans have been practicing falconry—caring for and hunting with raptors—for close to 4000 years. This week’s Science on the SPOT story, Peregrine Falcons Up Close, is about a falcon named Bella, a retired falconry bird who now lives at the San Francisco Zoo.

In falconry, a human cares for a bird of prey, and trains it to hunt. The bird hunts on behalf of the human. This relationship has created some controversy, but first, a bit more about how falconry works.

To learn more about the practice of falconry, I spoke to my friend Rikki Shackleford, an apprentice falconer. Rikki got interested in falconry when he was working at an environmental education school. The school was caring for a Red-tailed Hawk that had been hit by a car. Unsure of how to care for the bird, Rikki contacted a local falconer. Rikki got hooked.

Falconry is tightly regulated at both the state and federal level. To own a bird, you need a license, and you need to apprentice with an experienced falconer for two years. Once you’ve completed your apprenticeship, you can get a general license and own up to three birds, of almost any species. With a master license, you can own up to 5 birds. After you’ve had a master license for 7 years, you can own an eagle. The California Hawking Club and the North American Falconers Association have more information about the licensing and practice of falconry.

Red-tailed Hawk. Photo: Ron Wolf at kqedquest.

Rikki has a Red-tailed Hawk, named Nut, which he trapped in the wild last year. There are strict rules about how and when falconers can catch birds. Only passage birds—sexually immature birds less than a year old and on their first migration— can be caught. And falconers can only catch certain species. Many species, including endangered birds, are off-limits. However, falconers can get rare birds, like Peregrine Falcons, from captive breeding programs. Rikki intends to free Nut when she is three years old, when she’s old enough to breed. Because she was caught in the wild, and learned to hunt on her own before she hunted with Rikki, he can return her to the wild. Birds from captive breeding programs cannot be released. When captive-bred birds get old and can no longer hunt effectively, they can go back into captive breeding programs, or be cared for a by a zoo, like Bella.

Rikki flies Nut every day at a local park, and she hunts a few times a week. Each time Nut catches prey, she brings it back to Rikki. He rewards her with food—most of the time, prey that she has previously caught. The idea that the raptor is hunting for the human is controversial—anyone who is against hunting would probably be against falconry. And the concept that a wild animal is kept in captivity can definitely ruffle some feathers. Rikki counters these arguments: Nut would hunt without him, he says, and would probably hunt more often, because she can’t store the leftovers in the freezer. And Rikki contends that his relationship with Nut is the same as any relationship a human has with an animal—a dog, a cat, a horse—it’s just a little less common. However, Red-tailed Hawks haven’t been domesticated for generations like dogs and cats; Nut was born wild.

A Peregrine Falcon named Gracie flies by the Bay Bridge. Photo: Glenn Nevill at kqedquest.

While there are many objections to the practice of falconry, the Peregrine Falcon has falconers to thank for its continued existence. Peregrine Falcons were on the edge of extinction in the 1970s, because the pesticide DDT made their eggshells perilously thin. However, falconers had healthy Peregrine Falcons in captive breeding programs; offspring from these captive-bred falcons were carefully raised without human contact and were introduced to the wild. Because of these efforts and the ban of DDT, Peregrine Falcons were removed from the Endangered Species List in 1999.

Learn more about falcons in the Science on the SPOT story, Peregrine Falcons Up Close, and the QUEST story Falcon Fascination. Also, check out the falcon Nest Cam at San Jose City Hall.

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Luis Medellin and Karl Tupper set up a drift catcher in Lindsay, CA.

My radio story on pesticide drift looks at how residents in the citrus town of Lindsay are monitoring pesticides in the air and in their bodies. They are using a device called a Drift Catcher, modeled after technology used by the California Air Resources Board and the Department of Pesticide Regulation.

The pesticide drift catcher has a vacuum pump that sucks air into a glass test tube, where pesticide residues are trapped in a resin. Community members change out the test tubes and send them to a lab, where scientists crack them open, extract the residues with an organic solvent, and then analyze those extracts through gas chromatography.

The Lindsay study measures Chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that can cause headaches, blurred vision, and muscle weakness when people breathe in the air from a recently-sprayed orchard or field. Studies also show prenatal exposure MAY have effects on children's cognitive and motor skills.

Environmental lawyers are using preliminary data from the Lindsay drift catchers in a petition asking the EPA to create pesticide buffer zones around schools, child care centers, and hospitals.

Listen to the Catching the Drift – Part Two radio report online.

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Editor's Note: This week we have the first of two special reports on pesticide drift.

In this week's Quest radio piece, I talk to two pregnant organic onion workers who got sick after an apple farmer sprayed pesticides on a nearby orchard. Following a nearly three month investigation, the Kern County Ag Commissioner issued citations finding both the apple grower and the organic company at fault (see the citations here and here). Workers told me that even after the drift started, the organic farm's supervisor encouraged them to keep bunching onions, telling them to put handkerchiefs over their mouths to block out the smell of the insecticides.

Whenever a big pesticide drift accident like this happens, it raises important questions: How often do these kinds of incidents occur? Are things getting better for people in communities near where pesticides are sprayed?

That's hard to tell, because of the way the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) and County Ag Commissioners keep track of the data. There's no single enforcement code to categorize incidents as "agricultural drift affecting humans."

DPR does keep a statewide database of acute illness related to pesticides, as documented in worker’s comp or physician's records. Pesticide activists say those numbers are low, because many victims don't see a doctor. And doctors don't always know how to recognize symptoms of pesticide illness, or that they are supposed to report those cases.

And here's another twist: back in 2000, DPR changed its criteria for how it evaluates pesticide illness. So you can't compare the number of incidents from the 1990s with incidents today. All that makes it very difficult to determine if growers and regulators are really doing a better job keeping the public safe from chemicals drifting off the farm, especially after the passage of bills like the 2004 law sponsored by State Senator Dean Florez.

While that law clarified rules for emergency responders and required growers to pay medical bills for uninsured victims, it doesn't seem to have led to a dramatic drop in pesticide drift incidents.

In 2006, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have sped up pesticide drift investigations and increased penalties. Instead, he directed DPR to streamline the enforcement guidelines for counties. Ag Commissioners can now issue a maximum fine of 5,000 dollars for each person sickened by pesticide drift.

That's a penalty some advocates, like Californians for Pesticide Reform think is far too low to act as a deterrent.

Meanwhile, County Ag Commissioners are facing budget cutbacks that may shrink their enforcement teams. Many agriculture commissioners already have just six or seven pesticide enforcement inspectors to police thousands of farms.

The Department of Pesticide Regulation says it can't enforce the law unless drift incidents are reported. The department has launched a new campaign to educate fieldworkers about pesticide drift, printing up wallet-sized cards with a toll-free hotline number in English and Spanish.

Listen to the Catching the Drift radio report online.

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I often look at the chemical ingredients in what I buy. I shop at farmers markets for organic produce and use green cleaning supplies. So, it caught me off guard when a friend remarked, "you are so aware of what you eat, why aren't you just as curious about what you drink?" Well, we drink organic coffee but not organic wine. I was worried about sacrificing taste and I just didn't think most vineyards were heavily sprayed with pesticides. Then I learned that wine grapes are the second most sprayed crop in the state. This didn't seem like it could be that good for the farm workers, the Earth, or the consumer. Several studies have found trace amounts of pesticides in wine. They may be at extremely low amounts, but what kind of impact could pesticide residues have overtime?

Armed with a new green cause, I set out to find more information about eco-wines. I learned that organic wine is just one type of green wine — there is also wine made with organic grapes. It turns out I had been drinking some of these wines and enjoying them. The thing is, you can't call it "organic wine" if the wine has added sulfites, a naturally occurring compound. Most winemakers add sulfites to help preserve the wine and make it more stable. If a wine is made from organic grapes but contains sulfites, the world "organic" can only be mentioned as part of the ingredient claim on the back of the bottle. No wonder I didn't know I was drinking wine farmed organically.

It turns out northern Sonoma County and Mendocino county are hotbeds for green wine. In the course of reporting this story, I visited several of these wine makers. Bonterra Vineyards, below Ukiah, has been farming organically since 1987 and now farms one of their ranches, McNab, biodynamically. Their red blend is nicely balanced and tastes very good.

Biodynamic is a novel form of organic farming practice with its roots in France. A biodynamic vineyard is a self-sustaining ecosystem — making organic compost, removing chemicals from the soil and farming with the cycles of the Earth.  Biodynamic has its own international certification. (Here is a list of their certified wines). Just up the 101 from Bonterra is Parducci Wine Cellars. This family run company is farming organic grapes and in some cases, biodynamically. Parducci also claims to be one of the most sustainable wineries in the country.

Sustainable is a squishy term. Sustainable wineries may be running off solar power or doing creek restoration to save spawning salmon but they are not necessarily organic and they are not certified. However, the California Sustainable Winegrowing Program is working toward an industry certification. The idea is to raise the entire industry's practices and help vintners make more eco-friendly choices that often include using less chemicals in the vineyards.

Back to sulfites. This ended up being the main reason for the stigma still associated with green wine. Twenty years ago, green wines were uneven and there were not that many choices. Now, several of these eco-wines are winning high points from the industry. Organic wine can only contain naturally occurring sulfites, under 10ppm. Wines farmed organically must keep the added sulfites below 100ppm. Conventional wine can contain sulfites as high as 300ppm. When I was reporting this story, several folks asked me if I was going to explain why they get headaches from red wine. Isn't it the sulfites? Actually, it is not known why some people get headaches from drinking red wine. It could be the histamines. It doesn't look like it's the sulfites. Less than 1% of the population, according to the FDA, is sensitive to sulfites. The reaction is a respiratory one.

Anyway, if you enjoy wine, I encourage you to think beyond red and white but to consider green, too. To find out more, listen to our radio story and check out our links. Also, green wine pioneer, Paul Dolan together with Parducci has created a green wine handbook which is very helpful.

Listen to the The Politics of Green Wine radio report online.

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