We were on KSRO http://www.ksro.com/ 1350 am Talking about Watertrough Childrens Alliance. You can click the mp3 link below to listen to our segment!

We will be on KOWS http://kows107-3.org/ Tomorrow night May 31st from 7-9 with Arnold Levine.  Please tune in to listen about last nights Public Forum and more about the work we have been doing!  

You can stream it live through your computer or tune in locally.

Click here to go to article: _
February 21st, 2008

New rules announced for pesticide applications around schools, homes and labor camps 

PLAINVIEW, CA—After over two years of calling on local authorities for greater protection from airborne pesticides, communities celebrate the Tulare County Agricultural Commissioner’s announcement of new buffer zone rules. As spray season gets underway, communities across Tulare County welcome these changes and call for even stronger protections to protect the health of communities from toxic airborne pesticides. 

The new county rules—or “permit conditions”—require a buffer zone of one-quarter mile prohibiting aerial applications of restricted use pesticides around schools in session or due to be in session within 24 hours, occupied farm labor camps and residential areas. Gary Kunkel, the Tulare Country Agricultural Commissioner, signed the rules into effect on January 1, 2008. 

“The times are changing about when, where and how pesticides can be applied,” said Gustavo Aguirre, Assistant Director of Organizing at Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment. “The ‘business as usual’ approach of poisoning community members and polluting the air is no longer acceptable.” 

Community members launched efforts to establish buffer zones because of the serious health risks posed by pesticide exposure, ranging from short-term effects such as dizziness, vomiting and rashes to long-term effects including asthma, cancer, birth defects, damage to the developing child and neurological harm. Children are more vulnerable to the dangers posed by pesticides because their bodies are still developing. Over 50% of all public schools in Tulare County are within one-quarter mile of agricultural operations, putting the county’s children at high risk of exposure. 

The Cutler-Orosi School Board, the Allensworth School Board and over 1750 organizations and individuals have endorsed the call for buffer zones in Tulare County. Of the 12 schools in the Cutler-Orosi Unified school district, 11 are within one-quarter mile of fields. Visalia Unified is the only Tulare County school district with more schools—fourteen of them—situated less than one-quarter mile from fields. 

Community efforts to protect themselves from airborne pesticides have included conducting surveys documenting the general public’s exposure to pesticides, sampling for pesticides in their air and in residents’ bodies, and presenting local authorities with a petition endorsing the establishment of buffer zones around sensitive sites such as schools.

Towns such as Plainview that are next to alfalfa or cotton fields where aerial applications are common will benefit most from the new rules. The rules apply only to restricted use pesticides, or those that applicators must obtain a permit to apply because they are among the most hazardous to the health of humans and the environment. 

“This is a great victory for communities who regularly and unwillingly breathe pesticides in their day to day lives,” said Irma Arrollo, Director of El Quinto Sol de América, a local Lindsay community group. “Regular people can change things when they get together. This is just a first step to protect the health of our families from pesticides. It’s an excellent start.” 

These new Tulare permit conditions—the same as those in Kern and Kings counties—are the strongest buffer zones in the San Joaquin Valley. Other San Joaquin Valley counties either have weaker or no general buffer zone rules in place around schools, labor camps and residences. 

“Drifting pesticides onto people is illegal, but inevitable in the way we currently farm,” commented Teresa DeAnda, Central Valley Representative of Californians for Pesticide Reform. “The writing is on the wall that pesticide air pollution is no longer acceptable. We need to support growers to grow crops without using toxic pesticides.” 

The Safe Air for Everyone (SAFE) Campaign aims to prevent pesticide air pollution in California and support a safe and sustainable farming system that protects the health of farmworkers, their families, other directly affected communities and the environment. 

This is not the first time there has been concern with these schools and pesticide usage. Read on to find out more:

New report cites widespread health risks from local agricultural pesticides

By Janet Wells

WHEN JACKIE Screechfield dropped off her 13-year-old daughter at Apple Blossom School one day last spring, she noticed a plume of spray coming from a tractor in one of the apple orchards surrounding the Sebastopol middle school. "I could smell a kind of a sharp odor that goes right to your head, and I saw the spray coming off the tractor and right towards campus," Screechfield says. Could it be, she wondered, connected to whatever was making her daughter and other kids at the school sick that week?

Within minutes the scene turned from a common Sonoma County sight--a farmer rumbling along in a orchard or vineyard--into a major incident with parents, the school superintendent, ambulances, fire trucks, the sheriff's deputies, and the county agricultural commissioner swarming over the school.

Samples taken that day from Screechfield's car, as well as sites around the school, tested positive for organophosphates, a class of insect poison whose health effects include headaches and nausea at low exposures, and numbness, seizures, coma, and death at high exposures. Children are usually hit harder than adults.

From an agricultural standpoint, the pesticides found weren't particularly alarming types or amounts, and are not classified as restricted by the state. But the incident, coupled with her daughter Samantha suddenly developing severe allergies at the end of that week, certainly raised a lot of questions for Screechfield, who spent several months last summer participating in a study monitoring the air around California for evidence of pesticide residue.

The study, released by the Environmental Working Group last week in a 44-page report, "What You Don't Know Could Hurt You: Pesticides in California's Air," found pesticides drifting in the air after spraying in 62 percent of the 26 samples taken in Sonoma County.

The report also estimated that Sonoma County contributes more than a million pounds a year of smog-forming chemicals that evaporate into the air after application of pesticides. The most prevalent pesticide used in the county is sulphur, a common fungicide acceptable for use even in organic farming to combat bunch rot and other grape mildews. But the report also found airborne traces of phosmet and carbaryl, both insecticides.

"This study validates our concern that pesticides often drift beyond property lines to poison the air of our neighborhoods and schools," Screechfield says.

The report is highly critical of the state's Department of Pesticide Regulation, calling for Gov. Gray Davis to "clean house" at the department and transfer authority over airborne pesticides to the California Air Resources Board. "All other pollution in the air is regulated by the Air Resources Board, which not only has more expertise, but also has shown a much more aggressive stance in protecting the public," says Bill Walker, California director of the Environmental Working Group.

"Agriculture exerts such influence that the Department of Pesticide Regulation essentially acts as an advocate for agriculture and an apologist for people who want to use pesticides."

Veda Federighi, spokeswoman for the Department of Pesticide Regulation, bristles in response to such charges. "The idea that we're not regulating pesticides and we're not protecting people, nothing could be further from the truth," she says. "The Environmental Working Group based this [report] on fewer than one hundred samples from the air. We do hundreds every year.

"We don't allow pesticides to be used unless they are used safely," she adds.

Walker agrees that the monitoring study is not comprehensive or authoritative. "We think that's the state's job," he says. Walker points out that the state pesticide agency has never taken air samples of airborne pesticide residue in Sonoma County. Between 1991 and 1995, according to the report, the agency did monitoring 50 times in 14 locations--about one test for every 84,000 pesticide applications in the state.

State spokeswoman Federighi counters that, with the use of technology, there is no need to go to every county in the state. "The area we select for monitoring is the county with the highest use for that pesticide. We pick the month of peak use. That represents the worse case. Then we use computer modeling to estimate what might be found in other areas," she says.

"We know how the air behaves in Sonoma County. We need data on how pesticides behave generically."

She adds that the department is not surprised that the study found detectable traces of pesticide in the air in Sonoma County. "All have been well below health concerns," she says. "The biggest point of disagreement between us and [the Environmental Working Group] is that EWG is saying there's no level of pesticide that's safe. What we're saying is the dose makes the poison. If the exposure is low enough, there is no health effect."

Judy James, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, agrees that farmers are not overusing chemicals.

"Pesticides are expensive and cumbersome and difficult as far as regulations are concerned. Most farmers don't want to use more than is absolutely necessary," she says.

But small doses don't necessarily mean safe doses, according to the report, and it is crucial for the public to receive advance notification of pesticide use--something that is not mandated by state or county regulations. The report calls for 72-hour written notice to all homes, schools, and businesses within 1,000 feet of a field before application of any toxic pesticide.

"It would be a physical impossibility," says Mike Smith, the county's assistant agricultural commissioner. "How would you notify everybody? There's no way of monitoring the whole county to accomplish this."

Rick Theis, executive director of the Sonoma County Grape Growers Association, echoes that opinion. "Do people call up their neighbors when they put Sevin on their roses? That's probably more dangerous than sulphur," he says. "These things are made to be applied in a way that essentially is not a threat to neighbors."

IN A COUNTY where the suburban population is increasingly bumping up against agriculture, pesticide use boils down to a "good neighbor policy," Smith says. "We encourage people to communicate with each other."

Screechfield hopes that policy will work. In talks with the farmers who cultivate land surrounding Apple Blossom School, parents acknowledge that last year was particularly difficult for farmers, with heavy rains necessitating use of high amounts of sulphur and other pesticides to avoid mold and fungus on grapes.

The farmers agreed to notify the school of sprayings, and to do any school-day sprayings before 6 a.m., and the school has purchased a water blaster to wash down playground equipment.

"It's hard for the farmers. A lot of the fields are addicted to the pesticides, are used to having fertilizer and spray," Screechfield says. "We're trying really hard not to create a hostile environment, instead looking for ways for them to move into more sustainable ways of farming, and ways they can move into it without economic hardship."

The county Agricultural Commission leaves it up to individual growers to decide whether to employ more organic-style farming methods, which use fewer toxic chemicals. Both the Sonoma County Grape Growers Association and the Farm Bureau are pursuing programs and funding to decrease the use of traditional pesticides.

"The problem is there are not a lot of alternatives right now," James says. "Until we have viable alternatives to pesticides, we don't want to ban them. They are tools, and can be good tools."



A copy of "What You Don't Know Could Hurt You: Pesticides in California's Air" can be obtained by calling 415/561-6698.

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/01.21.99/toxics-9903.html

A bad tradeoff: yep, Paul Hobbs is at it again
BY SHEPHERD BLISS

Over 400 people signed a petition last week against Paul Hobbs Winery and its plans to convert an apple orchard into a vineyard surrounding five schools in rural Sebastopol.

Hobbs is an international wine baron who owns vineyards in at least half a dozen countries, and who has a history of clearcutting without permits and then paying fines afterward. He is among those responsible for changing the Redwood Empire into "wine country."

Though the orchard-to-vineyard conversion in Sebastopol has been in process for around a year—as some school officials have apparently known—parents didn't find about it until last week, when workers in hazmat suits showed up.

"Nobody wants their child exposed to something that could hurt them," said mother Christine Dzilvelis who, along with others in the new Watertrough Children's Alliance, is concerned with pesticide drift, asbestos, lead and arsenic poisoning in the soil and water contamination.

"As the director of a preschool on the Apple Blossom campus," writes Barbara Stockton, "I am utterly appalled that his development might occur."

"We have children at Apple Blossom and Orchard View schools," wrote Michelle Muse upon signing the petition. "Our children will be within feet of herbicide and pesticide applications. This is not acceptable."

Mothers and allies met last week with various officials, including agriculture commissioner Tony Linegar, who has the power to deny a permit for the vineyard conversion, which is still being reviewed.

Hobbs—who took over a portion of neighbor John Jenkel's land in a contentious and highly criticized maneuver in 2011, and then cut down even more trees along a designated scenic corridor—is often called a "bad apple" of Sonoma County's wine industry. But the obvious issue rose from Amy Taganaski, who has two children at Apple Blossom School: "How can the school continue to be called Apple Blossom if there are not apples to be found nearby?"

Shepherd Bliss operates a farm near the proposed vineyard, teaches college, and can be reached at 3sb.comcast.net.





http://www.bohemian.com/northbay/apples-for-grapes/Content?oid=2423129

By Shepherd Bliss 
WaccoBB.net

Half a dozen mothers from Sebastopol and its countryside quickly rallied hundreds of people to their side to challenge Sonoma County’s Paul Hobbs Winery. He wants to convert a 40-acre apple orchard into a vineyard that would use pesticides; it borders five schools on Watertrough Road, including Apple Blossom and Orchard View. Together they have around 700 children. 

The mothers only found out in late April about Hobbs’ plan and in less than a week got over 400 signatures on their petition “Stop alcohol firms from endangering children and the environment.” The conversion has been in process for around a year--as some school officials apparently knew—but parents did not find about it until recently, when workers in hazmat suits showed up to demolish a house and barn.

“We are deeply troubled by the cumulative, chronic, and acute health effects from the use of pesticides, fumigants, insecticides, rodenticides, and other toxic chemicals,” the petition notes. 

Parents complain that this fast-moving conversion has had no public input yet and is reaching its final stages. They see it as primarily a health issue. The parents are especially concerned about the possible presence, after decades of pesticide use in the orchard, with the presence of lead arsenate in the soil and the damage it is known to do to children.

Hobbs is an international wine baron with a history of clear cutting forests without permits and then paying small fines from his extensive wealth. He owns vineyards in at least half a dozen countries and sells wine for an average of around $60 a bottle. 

The petition was signed mainly by locals, but residents of Norway, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Poland and Saudia Arabia also signed the online version. At least one signer is a local elected official, John Eder of the Sebastopol City Council. In 1999, the Sebastopol City Council passed a resolution to avoid using pesticides on City-owned property. 


Some signers of the current petition request that people boycott wine made by Hobbs, which includes his Cross Barn label.

Sonoma County Agriculture Commissioner Tony Linegar met on May 1 with half a dozen adamant mothers, as well as a former Sebastopol mayor, an attorney, a scientist, and a teacher. The meeting lasted for well over two hours. Linegar agreed to form a working group on the problem and meet with them again May 13.

The first public news of this conversion appeared at WaccoBB.net. The conversation on the thread there has included over a hundred posts and remains lively: 
http://www.waccobb.net/forums/showth...-School-!!!-!!

MOTHERS COMMENT ON VINEYARD CONVERSION

“We represent many people who are upset by this vineyard conversion. We do not want to be poisoned,” mother-of-two Nicole Baum said. She hopes that this incident might lead to changing some laws, especially as more people move into the countryside.

“Nobody wants their child exposed to something that could hurt them,” added Christine Dzilvelis. “My daughter loves the orchard. It is peaceful and pretty.” It also provides nutritious food—“an apple a day keeps the doctor away”--rather than alcohol.

Dzilvelis and others in the new Watertrough Children’s Alliance are concerned with pesticide drift, asbestos, lead and arsenic poisoning in the soil, and water contamination in the Atascadero Green Valley watershed.

“As the Director of a preschool on the Apple Blossom campus,” writes Barbara Stockton, “I am utterly appalled that this development might occur.” 

“My motivation for challenging this vineyard is the science that shows the short- and long-term negative effects of pesticides on children,” commented Estrella Phegan, mother of a five-year-old. “If even one children was impacted with increased asthma, and many more will be, I want to make sure that would not happen here. We Moms are the children’s voices. Keeping our children safe at school is basic.”


Photo: Amber Risucci
“We have children at Apple Blossom and Orchard View schools,” wrote Michelle Muse upon signing the petition. “Our children will be within feet of herbicide and pesticide applications. This is not acceptable.”

Supporters of the mothers are sending letters to the daily Press Democrat and the weekly Sonoma West, which published articles on the pending vineyard during the first week of May. “We work to bring awareness to our community of the risk of losing our apple heritage, and with it some of our food security. Wine grapes are not food!” wrote Paula Shatkin of the Slow Food Russian River chapter, which is part of an international organization started in Italy with hundreds of thousands of members.

“Apples are part of Sebastopol’s cultural heritage, part of our sense of community, and they are family friendly. Children cannot pick or eat wine grapes. Families cannot preserve them or make cakes and pies out of them,” Shatkin added.

Sonoma County does have many sustainable grape growers who are environmentally friendly and use organic, biodynamic, and other integrated pest management practices. 


Sun Ridge, a Waldorf charter school based on the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, is one of the five schools contiguous with the planned vineyard. At their annual May Festival at their downtown campus, attended by a couple of hundred people, the vineyard was a subject of conversation among parents, as well as some children.

“I’m upset about not only the health risks to children but also to birds and bees, as well as the loss of open space where wildlife can live and visit,” commented six-year-old Ely’s father Thomas Cooper. “Even young kids at Sun Ridge are upset by pesticides,” commented Jina Brooks. “Waldorf schools are about sustainability and this vineyard would be the opposite.” 

“Sonoma County is apples. The annual Apple Blossom Parade is our tradition,” commented eleven-year-old Olivia Litwin. “Apples taste better when they are from here. Apples are good for you and you can make lots of tasty things with them.”

“I got involved with this struggle because I know we can do better for everyone involved—the kids, the farmers, others in the world,” added Dzilvelis. “My daughter loves being at Orchard View School. We would have to leave if circumstances prove not to be safe.”

“We just got a grant to teach eco-friendly things about communicating with the land, rather than taking away from it,” mother Amber Risucci noted. “This is a whole eco-system that we are trying to protect. Many parents have organic gardens and feed our kids as best as we can. Why would we then send them to schools next to large corporate vineyards that negate what we do at home? We try to live as people whose food nourishes us, rather than harms us.”

INDUSTRIAL VINEYARDS AS CHEMICAL WARFARE

Setting up a new conventional vineyard is like chemical warfare against the soil and other living creatures nearby. Only a few would be pests to the vines, but in the attack the protected chemical warriors kill many beneficial insects and other critters to create their sterile mono-crop. Then the stakes go orderly into the ground in regimented, industrial rows. 

This is not nature’s way. Nature will then try to recover by sending up a cover, labeled weeds, to which the chemical warriors return to de-nude the ground again. One would not want to be nearby, especially if you are young, fragile, and vulnerable.

The hazards of agricultural chemicals are revealed by the following:

• The West Fertilizer Company near Waco, Texas, accidental explosion of chemicals on April 17 this year killed 15 people, mainly firefighters, and leveled 80 homes.

• 168 people were killed in 1995 by the deliberate igniting of agricultural chemicals at the Oklahoma City Federal Building, including 19 children under 16 years old. 324 buildings were damaged and 680 people were wounded.

• The European Union recently banning certain pesticides because they have been implicated in the massive bee colony collapses, which threatens the pollination of one third of humans food supply.

“How can the school continue to be called Apple Blossom if there are not apples to be found nearby?” writes Amy Taganaski, who has two children there. It is not the right place for a vineyard, contend the mothers and their growing number of allies.

Nor the right winery. Hobbs has been described as the “bad apple” of Sonoma County’s bloated wine industry. 

Hobbs’ Public Relations Manager Tara Sharp claims that the winery plans to be “good stewards of the land.” Its track record is otherwise. Hobbs “zeal for deforestation” was detailed by journalist Will Parrish in a June 2, 2011, article in the Anderson Valley Advocate (AVA). 

Sonoma County Supervisor Efren Carrillo published a blistering critique of Hobbs in 2011. “Hobbs has shown a blatant disregard for Sonoma County, its resources, his fellow vintners and community sentiment” Carrillo is quoted as saying on the Sonoma County Gazette website. “His wines are unpalatable as they carry strong tones of environmental harm with overwhelming notes of arrogance.”

This current struggle, according to former Sonoma County Planning Commissioner Rue Furch, may “help us move the county to a more sustainable agricultural future.”

The petition can be found at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/263/347/984/stop-corporate-alcohol-firms-from-endangering-children-and-the-environment/#sign

The Watertrough Childrens Alliance recently set up the following website:
http://watertroughchildrensalliance.weebly.com/

(Shepherd Bliss operates a farm near the proposed vineyard, teaches college, and can be reached at 3sb.comcast.net)




http://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?97934-Article-Mothers-and-Allies-Challenge-Wine-Industrialist&p=166070#post166070

By MELODY KARPINSKI
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 5:35 p.m.Last Modified: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 5:58 p.m.
A plan to convert a Sebastopol apple orchard into a vineyard is causing concern among parents whose children attend several schools bordering the property.


Many parents learned of the project last week when a house and barn on the Watertrough Road property were demolished, said Christine Dzilvelis, whose daughter attends nearby Orchard View School.

“Word spread like wildfire and within two or three days we had dozens and dozens of families on board (opposed) to this,” said Dzilvelis.

Paul Hobbs Winery purchased the property in 2012 and applied to develop the vineyard in March. The property is situated across from several schools including Apple Blossom School, Tree House Hollow Pre-school, Orchard View School and SunRidge Charter School.

Parents started an online petition seeking to halt the vineyard April 25, garnering more than 170 signatures by Tuesday.

“Nobody wants their child exposed to something that could hurt them,” said Dzilvelis. “This is hundreds of students and not just one school.”

Agriculture Commissioner Tony Linegar said the permit for the vineyard project is still under review, but the winery plans to use methods that would actually reduce the amount of pesticide substances drifting off the property.

“The type of equipment used for this conventional orchard leads to much more potential for drift,” Linegar said. “The fact that a vineyard is going in exponentially reduces the potential for pesticide exposure.”

Tara Sharp, a spokeswoman for Paul Hobbs Winery, said the winery's goal is to be “good stewards of the land.”

Paul Hobbs Winery has come under fire in the past for not obtaining the proper permits for some of the work it has done on other properties purchased for vineyard use, including clear-cutting trees.

The vineyard will be maintained sustainably, and the winery is drafting a written agreement with the school district to perform no work during school hours, Sharp said.

Parents remain unconvinced.

“I think there's a lack of communication between the agricultural community and the residents within the area,” said Nicole Baum, the mother of a SunRidge School kindergartner.

Baum said part of the reason her family migrated north from Southern California was to find an environment with cleaner air.

Twin Hills Union School District superintendent Barbara Bickford confirmed the district is in talks with both the agricultural commissioner and the winery to discuss neighbors' concerns.

“I am very confident we will continue to provide a safe and healthy environment for our students and teachers,” said Bickford.

The winery will be using wettable sulfur which is considered a “soft” pesticide, resulting in significantly less product going into the ground, said Sharp.

The winery also plans to install organic trellised apple trees, and hopes to work with educators to allow students the opportunity to help harvest the apples, Sharp said.

“Hobbs understands how important the orchard and the identity of the apples is to the school's namesake,” said Linegar. “I think it'd be a great learning experience for the kids.”

Linegar will meet with the school district and parents at 5 p.m. this evening at his office to discuss concerns over the vineyard project.

“We're just concerned parents,” said Estrella Phegan, who serves on the pre-school board and is the mother of a pre-schooler. “We're trying to find out (whether) what we have now is better or worse than what we will be getting.”


http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20130430/ARTICLES/130439958?p=1&tc=pg

Posted: Wednesday, May 1, 2013 3:02 pm

by David Abbott Sonoma West Editor[email protected] | 0 comments

THUSD parents up in arms about proposal

Orchard View School may have to change its name soon, as the 40-acre apple orchard surrounding the Twin Hills Union School District (THUSD) campus is in the process of becoming a vineyard.

News of the conversion, prompted by the demolition of the buildings on the Watertrough Road property, has caused a stir among school parents, leading to an online petition to try to stop the project.


“There’s a firestorm brewing,” Christine Dzilvelis said. “There are 1,000 school kids here and the orchard borders three schools. ... People hate it. It’s fraught with problems and they’re trying to push it through hard and fast.”


The THUSD campus area includes Apple Blossom School, Tree House Hollow Pre-school, Orchard View School and SunRidge Charter School.


Dzilvelis has a daughter attending Orchard View and is spearheading the drive to keep the grapes out. To that end, she has joined with a group of parents to create an online petition, which has garnered nearly 200 signatures as of Wednesday.


The petition, titled “Stop corporate alcohol firms from endangering children and the environment,” has a signature goal of 5,000.


Dzilvelis said that parents have been surprised by the turn of events, but representatives from Paul Hobbs Winery, which purchased the property in late 2012, say that they have done everything they can to let the community know the change is happening.


“When we went into escrow, we reached out to Twin Hills superintendent Barbara Bickford and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to be doing this and want to be good neighbors,’” Hobbs’ Marketing and Public Relations Manager Tara Sharp said. “We’ve been up front and honest. This is not a covert action.”


Sharp added that part of the outreach included going from house to house with blackberry pies purchased from Kozlowski Farms to let neighbors know and to introduce themselves.


But apparently nobody really noticed until the buildings came down.


“We first learned about it a few months ago,” THUSD Superintendent Barbara Bickford said. “As far as the district is concerned, we are aware of the concerns of our parents. … We’re confident our schools will continue to be safe and healthy.”


The plan is to convert 30 acres of the 40-acre parcel to winegrapes, leaving 10 acres as they are, although the final layout is not yet complete.


Additionally, Hobbs will build a new fence with an “espalier” of apple trees and there will be a 30-foot buffer zone between the fence and the grapes. He also plans to spend more than $100,000 rehabilitating the soil on the property that has been abandoned for at least a year, although spraying continues.


With the removal of the buildings, Hobbs removed large amounts of asbestos and lead.


Hobbs has also offered to reach out with educational opportunities for students and to move some of the mature trees to the campus if the school district is interested.


But parents are skeptical of Hobbs’ intentions, as the local vintner has had some high-profile dustups over vineyard conversions in other parts of the West County.


His long-running issues with former neighbor John Jenkel led to the conversion of Jenkel’s Graton property into vineyards and in October 2011, Hobbs cleared Davis Christmas Tree Farm in Graton, leading to a public castigation from 5th District Supervisor Efren Carrillo.


According to Carrillo’s  District Director Susan Upchurch, his office has fielded dozens of calls from concerned parents and his staff has confirmed that proper permits are in order. The permits involved in the crop conversion are ministerial, not discretionary, and fall under the auspices of the Agricultural Commissioner.


According to the Ag Commissioners office, as long as the vineyard application conforms to the county’s Vineyard and Orchard Site Development Ordinance (VESCO) standards, the project will be allowed to go forward.


“They’ve submitted the original plan but we sent it back and asked for modifications. The second set is being studied,” Ag Commissioner Tony Linegar said. “It’s a ministerial process, so as long as they meet VESCO standards … they don’t need to go through a CEQA process.”


The ministerial process allows “permitted use” approved or denied based on compliance with “fixed, measurable standards” (VESCO).


“It’s like: here’s a box. If it fits into the box, it’s a go,” Linegar said.


Linegar said that the conversion from apples to grapes may actually lessen the use of pesticides and other chemicals and may also reduce water use and the chances for erosion.


“The types of equipment used for apple trees tosses (pesticides) into the air,” he said. “The types of pesticides used for the coddling moth — the worms you find in an apple — are more toxic than what’s used on vineyards.”


In May 1998, an apple orchard in the area was fined for the “drift” of pesticides that found their way to Apple Blossom School. County officials found diazinon residue on the outside of the school.


Reports in Sonoma West at the time stated that the orchard in question belonged to George Menini, although a document from the Ag Commissioners’ office reports a fine of $400 to Gilbert Perez of Pleasant Hill Ranch at 1411 Pleasant Hill Rd., nearly one mile from the site.


But Linegar said that will not likely be an issue with a vineyard.


“Hobbs will be using wettable sulfur and Roundup. The way those are used is not prone to drift,” he said. “There won’t be dusting or use of pesticides when school is in session. ... He understands the relationship with apples and is going out of his way to work with the community.”


THUSD Trustee Maben Rainwater wants assurances that Hobbs is actually going to follow through with the promises he is proposing though.


“As a parent and trustee, we need to have a very good idea of the implications of what the farming practices are going to be,” Rainwater said. “They say it’s going to be 90 percent organic. It’s one thing for them to say that. We need to make sure this isn’t hearsay.”


He also wants to be sure that water issues will be addressed and that Hobbs will not use chemicals to kill off the trees.


But Sharp said concerns about overuse of chemicals are unfounded, as Hobbs wants to grow the best grapes possible to make excellent wines.


“We farm sustainably because it’s the best thing for the environment and the grapes,” she said. “Our goal is to grow the best grapes and you can’t do that with heavy chemical use.”


A group of concerned parents will be meeting with Linegar on Wednesday (after press time) to air concerns and try to stop the project.


“So many people are suspicious of wine grapes and Paul Hobbs,” Dzilvelis said. “My daughter loves (the orchard). ... There are birds in the spring and quail. It’s a very peaceful and pretty place. There are big concerns with drift and water issues and it seems like it’s on track.”




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