SacBee

Crop-dusters nothing to fear, officials told

November 29, 2001 Posted: 05:30:06 AM PST

By MICHAEL MELLO BEE STAFF WRITER

MERCED -- A rogue pilot headed to San Francisco for a chemical spray attack would be "a pile of dust before (he) crossed Interstate 680," a crop-duster said Wednesday.

Dennis Noble, owner of Noble Dusters, said a crop-duster flying at 120 mph would need 30 minutes to get from Livermore to San Francisco. "An F-15 (fighter jet) can do it in five," he said.

More important, Noble said, state crop-dusting regulations are likely to prevent such an attack from ever taking place. The regulations were in place before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Noble addressed business colleagues, farmers, two Assembly members and FBI representatives. They gathered in the Merced County Board of Supervisors chamber for a legislative hearing intended to calm nerves and assure the public that the agriculture aviation industry is not a threat.

"We don't need any new regulations. We can't sneeze without someone knowing about it," Noble said.

Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews, D-Tracy, called the hearing and will forward comments to the Legislature, which is formulating new emergency response guidelines for the state. Fears about chemical and biological threats led authorities to ground crop-dusters for three days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Matthews' aim is to keep that from happening again.

"It's important for the public to understand why (the industry) was grounded and why it was allowed to resume business so quickly. It is a very cautious and well-regulated industry," Matthews said.

Prior to the hearing, Noble gave a demonstration at his airstrip near Merced to show that there is nothing to fear from crop-dusters.

Spray nozzles are not fine enough to adequately disperse chemical or biological agents, he said, and normal pesticides are not likely to make people sick with one dose.

Also, licenses are required for possession of pesticides, and each application that a crop-dusting company makes is reported to county and state authorities.

"I think people saw today that the standard of California law exceeds that of other states," said Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced. "Here we have the Department of Justice working hand in hand with the FBI. People can feel safe and secure that they're on top of the situation."

Paul Wenger, a Modesto farmer and second vice president of the California Farm Bureau, said farmers depend heavily on plane-applied chemicals, and another grounding could be disastrous.

"It's important to have every resource available to our state's farmers, and available when they need it," he said. "Our regulatory bodies must be careful not to cripple a vital part of our agricultural industry on a knee-jerk whim."

Noble said the September grounding was necessary, and because the grounding happened late in the season, major crop damage was avoided.

"If it had happened in July or August, it would have been a disaster. Some crops would have been a total loss," Noble said. "We were lucky."

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2001

Answers

Morning Mistress Git;

Thank you for posting this article. Have you ever ponder why TPTB are always insisting that cop dusters are almost impossible to use for terrorist purposes? But then tell us that they are WATCHING them all very carefully!

Thank you again...

"As for the Game...It is Done"!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2001

Somewhere I gathered that crop dusters were not the type of plane used for, say, aerial spraying of mosquitoes. It's the mosquito type spraying equipment that I think would be the issue. Although I think that is aerosolized and crop dusting is powder?

I'm currently reading "Germs" by Judith Miller. For the time being, I'm assuming it was carefully and accurately researched. Just passed a section where it was describing the attachments you would use to spray anthrax from a plane. (And I can't help thinking that one of the more basic mosquito pesticides, BT, is the same genus as anthrax, so maybe it could be handled in a similar fashion.)

So, I'm not so sure about crop dusters, per se, but I consider it a euphemism for something that does seem to be quite feasible.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2001

Crop-dusting a city is only one avenue that terrorists could use, or maybe could have used before.

A crop-duster is not considered unusual in the agricultural areas, so if some terrorist got ahold of one and was spraying some agent that was detrimental to the growth of the crop, that could be devastating to the US depending on what the crop is.

then there are the small towns around the food belt. Any dusting of those with something that kills would descimate the growers in the region and their support personel, which would again have a devastating effect on the US regarding food and prices, etc. Not to infer that the resulting deaths wouldn't, of course.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2001