Hochul should sign bill to protect birds and bees

Rachel Carson, a pioneer of the modern environmental movement, fought against pesticides and their damaging impact for much of her career. Her landmark 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” relied in part on evidence from two organic farmers on Long Island, who fought against the aerial spraying of the toxic pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT, on crops.

Despite Carson’s heroic efforts, the battle against other types of damaging pesticides and insecticides continues today. 

New York’s proposed “Birds and the Bees Protection Act” is designed to stop the spread of pesticides known as neonics which can be devastating for pollinating insects, like bees, which, in turn, impacts pollinator-dependent crops like apples, tomatoes and cherries. Neonics also have been traced to mass losses of birds and birth defects in deer, and have been found in steadily increasing amounts among pregnant women. 

This bill, which has passed both houses of the State Legislature, would prohibit the use of about 80% of the neonics entering New York. It’s aimed primarily against neonic use on lawns, gardens and some crops like corn and wheat, and is meant to encourage safer alternatives. 

Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has presented herself as an environmental champion in her short time in Albany, should sign this bill immediately so its benefits can be felt across Long Island’s greenery as soon as possible. Certainly, the timing of this bill couldn’t be more urgent. In May, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that neonic use is driving more than 200 species of bees, butterflies, dragonflies and other creatures toward extinction.

Undoubtedly, it is important for farmers, homeowners, and even golf courses to find ways to control pests that can eat away at produce and grass. But the threat of neonicotinoid insecticides and similar pesticides is too great to ignore. Rainfall runoff can wash away these chemicals sprayed on lawns and farms, which often wind up in our waterways and endanger our drinking water supply.

Imidacloprid, one of the widely used commercial forms of neonics, is the most common pesticide found in Long Island groundwater testing by state officials — with 890 detections in 179 locations, according to local activist Adrienne Esposito of Citizens Campaign for the Environment. “Neonics may be the most environmentally damaging pesticide since DDT, and action must be taken now,” she says.

Hochul should look to the common-sense wisdom of Carson’s “Silent Spring” in taking firm action in support of this bill. As Carson wrote about pesticides, “If we are going to live so intimately with these chemicals eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones — we had better know something about their nature and their power.”

It is up to public servants on the front line of public health, like Hochul, to make sure they do everything in their power to protect us from such invisible threats as neonics. She can do so by signing this bill.