Chapter 11 Ten Disasters From Heaven

Spraying over croplands and forests was initially a small area, but the range of spraying from the air has been expanding and the amount of spraying has continued to increase.The spraying has turned into what one British ecologist recently called a "horrific rain of death" on the face of the earth.Our attitude towards these poisons has changed slightly.If these poisons are once placed in containers marked as a danger of death, we should use them now and then with great care, knowing that they should only be applied to those objects to be killed, and nothing else should be allowed to touch the poison.However, due to the proliferation of new organic insecticides, and the large surplus of aircraft after World War II, all precautions for using poisons have been forgotten.While today's poisons are more dangerous than any poisons ever used, they are being used in surprising ways.People sprayed poisonous pesticides aimlessly from the sky.In areas that have been sprayed, not only are the insects and plants to be eradicated aware of the poison, but other creatures—humans and nonhumans alike—get a taste of the poison.Spraying was carried out not only on forests and cultivated land, but also on towns and cities.

There is now considerable unease about spraying millions of acres of land with toxic chemicals from the air, and two mass spraying campaigns in the late 1950's only heightened the skepticism.The goal of these spraying campaigns was to eradicate gypsy moths in the northeastern states and fire mites in the southern United States.Neither of these insects is native to the area, but they have existed in this country for many years without causing a disaster that requires ruthless measures against them.Yet suddenly, decisive action was taken against them, guided by a no-means-anything ideology for good results (a philosophy that has long guided our Department of Agriculture's Pest Control Section).

This plan of action to eradicate the gypsy moth reflects how much damage can be done when reckless mass spraying replaces localized and measured control.This fire ant eradication program is a clear example of action taken after the need to exterminate the infestation has been greatly exaggerated.In the absence of scientific knowledge of the dose of poison required to destroy the pest, people act recklessly.As a result, neither of these two programs has achieved its intended purpose. This gypsy moth, native to Europe, has been in the United States for nearly a hundred years.A French scientist, Robert Chaurot, set up his laboratory in Medfield, Massachusetts. In 1869, he was experimenting with hybridizing this moth with the silkworm moth.A few moths accidentally flew away from his laboratory one day.Little by little the moth developed throughout New England.The main thing that allows the moth to expand is the wind; the moth is very light in its larval (or caterpillar) stage, and it can ride the wind to fly very fast and far.Another reason is the transshipment of plants with a large number of moth eggs, by means of which the moth survives the winter.The larvae of the moth, which for several weeks each spring damage groves of oak and other hardwoods, are now found in all the middle states of New England, and occasionally in New Jersey.This moth was brought in in 1911 due to the import of Dutch spruce.The moth has also been found in Michigan, though its route of entry into the state has not yet been determined. In 1938, a hurricane in New England brought the moth to Pennsylvania and New York, but non-attractive trees in the Edirondacks prevented the moth from traveling west.

The task of confining the moth to the northeastern United States has been accomplished by various means.In the nearly 100 years since the moth entered the continent, there have been concerns about whether it would encroach on the vast hardwood forests of southern Appalachia, but those fears have not materialized. Thirteen species of parasites and predators were imported and successfully colonized New England.The Department of Agriculture itself puts its trust in these imports, which have reliably reduced the frequency and severity of gypsy moth outbreaks.Using this natural control method, coupled with quarantine measures and local spraying, has achieved results as described by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1955: "The distribution and damage of pests have been significantly suppressed."

Barely a year after the above announcement, the Department of Agriculture's Plant Pest Control Branch has embarked on a new program.The program blanket-sprays millions of acres a year under the slogan of "killing" the gypsy moth. ("Eradication" means complete and complete eradication and eradication of the species in the pest's distribution area.) However, this plan has repeatedly failed; Educating people over and over again about the need to "kill" the same pest in the same area. The Department of Agriculture's chemical warfare campaign against the gypsy moth began with great determination. In 1956, nearly one million acres were sprayed in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, and New York.In the spray area, people have complained that the medicine is seriously harmful.Conservationists grew more uneasy as the pattern of spraying large areas began to take hold.When plans were announced to spray three million acres in 1957, conservationists became even more agitated.State and federal farm officials shrug off individual complaints they dismiss as frivolous with a characteristic shrug.

The Long Island area was included in the 1957 moth spraying area, which mainly includes towns and suburbs with large populations, and some coastal areas surrounded by salt marshes.Nasha County on Long Island is the most densely populated county in central New York State and south of New York. The "threat of vermin infestation in the New York City metropolitan area" has been used as an important excuse to justify the spraying program, but this seems utterly muddled.The gypsy moth is a forest insect, and of course it does not live in cities, and it is impossible for them to live in meadows, cultivated fields, gardens and swamps.However, in 1957 aircraft employed by the USDA and the New York State Department of Agriculture and Commerce "sprayed down a predetermined amount of oil-soluble DDT evenly. DDT was sprayed on vegetable plots, dairy farms, fishbowls, and salt marshes. As they spread across suburban neighborhoods, the sprays soaked the clothes of a housewife who was struggling to cover her garden before the rumbling plane arrived. The insecticides were also sprayed On children at play and on passengers at the railway station. At Setekt a fine race horse died ten hours after drinking water from a ditch in a field that had been sprayed by an airplane. Cars were sprayed with the oil mixture, flowers and shrubs were wilted. Birds, fish, crabs and useful beneficial insects were all killed.

A group of Long Islanders led by world-renowned ornithologist Robert Cushman Murphy appealed to the courts in an attempt to block the 1957 spraying.The protesting residents had to endure the scheduled DDT spraying after their initial demands were dismissed by the court.However, in the future, they still persist in their efforts to obtain a long-term ban on spraying. However, since the spraying has already been carried out this time, the court can only consider this complaint "to be discussed".The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court refused to accept the complaint.Attorney William Douglas strongly disagreed with the court's decision not to reopen the case, saying that "the warnings about the dangers of DDT by many experts and officials illustrate the importance of this case to the public."

The lawsuits brought by Long Island residents have at least drawn public attention to the growing trend toward mass use of insecticides, and to the power and tendency of the Insect Control Administration to disregard residents' individual sacred property rights. During the spraying of the gypsy moth: contamination of milk and produce came as an unfortunate accident to many.In New York State, what happened on 200 acres at Warren Ranch in North Outer Westchester County speaks volumes about the contamination.Mrs. Warren had specifically asked Department of Agriculture officials not to spray her land; but it was impossible to avoid pastures when spraying forests.She has proposed using land to deter the gypsy moth and spot spraying to stop the moth from spreading.Despite assurances that the pastures would not be sprayed, her land was sprayed directly on two occasions and was affected twice by drifting pesticides.Milk samples from purebred Gallis cows at Warren Pasture showed 14% DDT in the milk 48 hours after spraying.Feed samples taken from the fields where the cows grazed were of course also contaminated.Although the county health department was notified, there was no indication that the milk could not be sold.This situation is a classic example of a lack of customer protection that is unfortunately all too common.Although the Food and Drug Administration requires milk to be free of dripping pesticides, this restriction is not only not strictly enforced, but is only applied to goods exchanged between states?State and county officials can comply with federal pesticide standards without pressure; but they seldom do so if local ordinances do not match federal regulations.

Vegetable gardeners have also suffered, with some vegetables having leaves so charred and speckled they appear unmarketable.Vegetables contain a large amount of residual toxins. A pea sample was analyzed at the Agricultural Experiment Station of Knar University to reach a DDT content of 14 to 20 parts per million, and the maximum allowable value is 7 parts per million.Therefore, growers either have to suffer huge economic losses, or understand that they are in a situation of selling products with excessive residues and poisons.Some of them researched and collected losses. As the aerial spraying of DDT increased, so did the number of people appealing to the courts.Among these complaints are those filed by beekeepers in certain areas of New York State.Even before spraying in 1957, beekeepers had been exposed to the serious dangers posed by the use of DDT in orchards."Up until 1953, I took for granted everything that the USDA and the College of Agriculture said," says one beekeeper bitterly. But in May of that year, the man lost 800 swarm.The damage was so widespread and severe after the state's widespread spraying that 14 other beekeepers joined him in suing the state for $250,000 in damages.Another beekeeper, whose swarm of 400 bees were incidental targets in the 1957 spraying, reported that in wooded areas, the field force of bees (worker bees that go out to collect nectar and pollen for the hive) ) has been 100% killed, and 5% of the worker bees have died in the less sprayed farms."It's very frustrating to walk out in the yard in May and not hear the bees buzzing," he wrote.

These plans to control the gypsy moth have been marked by many irresponsible actions.Since a spraying plane is paid not by the number of acres it sprays, but by the amount of spray, there is no need for the pilot to make an effort to conserve pesticides, and many fields are sprayed not once, but many times.In at least one instance, the aerial spraying contract was made with an out-of-state business with an out-of-state address that did not comply with the legal requirements of state officials for registration to be held liable .In such a delicate situation, residents who suffered direct financial losses in apple orchards and beekeeping could find themselves at a loss as to whom to sue.

After the disastrous spraying of 1957, the plan of action was quickly scaled back, and a vague statement was made of an "evaluation" of past work and inspections of pesticides. The area sprayed was 3.5 million acres in 1957, reduced to 500,000 acres in 1958, and then reduced to 100,000 acres in 1959, 1960, and 1961.In the meantime, the Pest Control Division was bound to receive distressing news from Long Island that the coypus moth had reappeared in large numbers.The Department of Agriculture lost much of the public's trust and good will with this costly spraying campaign - which was supposed to eradicate the gypsy moth for good but did nothing. Before long, the Department of Agriculture's plant pest controllers seemed to have temporarily forgotten about the gypsy moth, as they were busy embarking on an even more ambitious project in the South. The word "extermination" was still easily printed from the Ministry of Agriculture's mimeograph; this time the handouts promised that the fire mite would be exterminated. The red mite is an insect named for its red spines.It appears that it entered the United States from South America through the port of Mobile, Alabama.The insect was found in Alabama soon after World War I.By 1928 it had spread to the outskirts of Port Mobile, after which it continued to invade, and now they have entered most of the southern states. In the forty-plus years since fire mites arrived in the United States, it seems they have received little attention?It is only because the fire ant builds enormous nests, forming mounds more than a foot high, that it is considered a nuisance in the states where it is most numerous.These nests hinder the operation of agricultural machinery.But only two states list the insect as one of the top 20 pests and place them at the bottom of the list.There appears to be no official or private concern that the fire mite is a threat to crops or livestock.With the development of chemicals with broad virulence, there has been a sudden change in official attitudes towards fire mites.In 1957, the USDA launched one of the most dramatic large-scale operations in its history.The fire ant suddenly became the target of a combined onslaught of government propaganda, movies and thrilling stories portraying the insect as a predator of Southern agriculture and a killer of birds, livestock and people . A large-scale operation was announced; in this operation, the federal government cooperated with the afflicted states to finally dispose of 20 million acres in the nine southern states. In 1958, when the fire ant extermination program was underway, a trade magazine reported proudly: "Amid the increasing mass extermination programs carried out by the USDA, American pesticide manufacturers seem to be Opened a path for a thriving business." There has never been a program so thoroughly and justifiably cursed by virtually everyone except, of course, those who got rich in this "boom" as this spraying program.This is a striking example of an unimaginative, poorly executed, and deeply harmful experiment in mass insect control.It was an experiment that was very expensive, ruined lives, and distrusted the Department of Agriculture, and yet it is incomprehensible that all funds were poured into the program. Propositions that were later discredited initially won congressional support for the plan.Fire mites have been portrayed as a serious threat to Southern agriculture, destroying crops and wildlife; they attack young birds that nest on the ground.Its spines are also said to pose a serious threat to human health. How do these arguments sound?Statements made by official witnesses who were trying to cash in were inconsistent with those in key Agriculture Department publications. In 1957, the Fire Mite was not mentioned much in the "Insecticide Bulletin" devoted to the control of insects that infested crops and livestock—a surprising "omission"; if the Department of Agriculture believed its own In terms of publications, even in the 500,000-word book of the 1952 Encyclopedia of the Ministry of Agriculture (the annual publication contains all insect content), there is only a small paragraph that mentions red mites. The Department of Agriculture's unwritten opinion states that fire mites destroy crops and injure livestock.The state of Alabama has the most personal experience with this insect, and its Agricultural Experiment Station has conducted careful studies to the contrary of the Department of Agriculture.According to the Alabama scientist, the fire mite is "rarely harmful to crops."Dr. F. S. Allante, director of the Entomological Society of America in 1961 and an entomologist at the Alabama Technological Research Institute, said that their department "has not received any reports of mite damage to plants in the past five years... Livestock damage has never been observed." Those who have been observing mites in the field and in the laboratory say that red mites eat mainly a variety of other insects, most of which are considered harmful to humans. .It has been observed that fire mites are able to feed on cotton weevil larvae from cotton, and that the nesting activity of fire mites plays a good role in loosening and aerating the soil.These studies in Alabama were confirmed by a Mississippi State University expedition. These studies are far more convincing than the evidence from the Department of Agriculture.And the evidence from the Department of Agriculture, apparently, is either based on oral interviews with farmers who easily confuse one mite with another, or it's based on outdated research.Some entomologists believe that the feeding habits of the mite have changed as a result of their increasing numbers, so that observations made decades ago are now of little value. The argument that mites pose a threat to health and life has been forced to undergo a major revision.The Department of Agriculture made a propaganda film (in an effort to drum up support for its pest control program) in which some horror scenes were built around the fire ant's sting.The sting is, of course, a nuisance, and one is repeatedly reminded to avoid it, just as one normally avoids a wasp or bee sting.Severe reactions may occasionally occur in sensitive individuals, and there are reports in the medical literature that a person may have died from the fire mite's venom, although this has not been proven.In 1959 alone, the Office of Vital Statistics reported 33 deaths from bee and wasp stings, yet no one seems to have bothered to "exterminate" these insects.Furthermore, the local evidence is the most convincing, and although red mites have been inhabited in Alabama for 40 years and are concentrated here in large numbers, Alabama health officials state that "the state has never had a report of a single Death due to the bite of an exotic red mite." And they considered the cases caused by the bite of the red mite to be "sporadic."Fire mite mounds on lawns and playgrounds may make children there vulnerable to stings, but that hardly excuses poisoning millions of acres.This situation can be easily solved as long as these nest mounds are processed. Hazards to game birds have also been determined arbitrarily and without evidence.The single most vocal voice on this issue is of course Dr. M. F. Baker, director of the Wildlife Research Unit in Auburn, Alabama, who has worked in the area for many years.Dr. Baker, however, took a view entirely contrary to that of the Department of Agriculture, declaring: "In South Alabama and Northwest Florida, where we can hunt many birds, the bobwhite quail population coexists with large numbers of migrating red mites. Ala The red mite has been present in southern Bama for nearly 40 years, yet the prey population has been stable and has increased substantially. Of course, if this migratory red ant is a serious threat to wildlife Otherwise, these situations are simply impossible.” As one of the consequences of using insecticides to eliminate red mites, what happened to wildlife?That's another story entirely.The drugs used were dieldrin and heptachlor, both relatively new drugs.There is little experience with either of these drugs in the field, and no one knows what effect they will have on wild birds, fish, or mammals when used on a large scale.However, both poisons are known to be many times more toxic than DDT. DDT has been used for about ten years, and even at the rate of one pound per acre, kills some birds and many fish; and dieldrin and heptachlor are used in far greater doses—in Two pounds per acre are used in most cases, and three pounds of dieldrin per acre is used to control the white-sided beetle as well.In their effect on bird power, the prescribed use of heptachlor per acre is equivalent to 20 pounds of DDT, and dieldrin to 120 pounds of DDT. Urgent protests were lodged by most of the state's conservation departments, the National Conservation Service, ecologists, and even some entomologists, who appealed to then-Agriculture Secretary Yezra Benson to delay the plan until at least Wait until some studies have been done to determine the effects of heptachlor and dieldrin on wild and domestic animals and to establish the minimum doses needed to control fire mites.These protests were ignored, and the poisoning program began in 1958.One million acres were treated in the first year.It is clear that any research work in this case has only the nature of repairing the past. As the program progressed, facts began to accumulate from state and federal Wildlife Services and some university biologists who demonstrated that after spraying in some sprayed areas The resulting damage will be extended to the complete destruction of wildlife.Poultry, livestock and household animals were also killed.The Ministry of Agriculture wiped out all evidence of losses under the pretext of "exaggeration" and "misinterpretation".However, the facts continue to accumulate.In one example in Handy County, Texas, kangaroos, armadillos, and a large number of raccoons have virtually disappeared after pesticides were applied in agriculture.Even in the second fall after medication, these things are still few and far between.The few raccoons found in this area have residues of the pesticide in their tissues. This fact has been clearly confirmed by chemical analysis of the tissues of dead birds found in the areas where the treatment had been carried out, having ingested the poison used to destroy the red ant. (The only birds that survive in any significant numbers are the house finches, and there is evidence elsewhere that they may be relatively resistant.) In an open field in Alabama that was sprayed in 1959, half the birds were killed Dead, 100 percent of those birds that lived on the ground or in low perennial vegetation died.Even a year after spraying, there were still no songbirds, and large nesting areas became quiet, with no more birds coming in the spring.In Texas, starlings, black-throated buntings and larks have been found dead near nests, many of which have been abandoned.When samples of dead birds were sent to the Fish and Wildlife Service for analysis from Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Florida, 90 percent were found to contain dieldrin and a heptachlor Residual poison, the total amount is more than 38 parts per ten thousand. The wild sandpipers that forage in northern Louisiana during the winter now have in their bodies the poison against the red cricket.The source of this pollution is clear. Wild sandpipers eat earthworms in large quantities, and they use their elongated beaks to search for earthworms in the soil.Residues of earthworms were found in Louisiana between June and October, and their tissues contained 20 parts per million of heptachlor, and a year later they contained more than 10 parts per million.The lethal consequences of indirect poisoning of wild sandpipers are now seen in the marked change in juvenile to adult ratios first observed in the season following red ant treatment. Most unsettling to southern hunters was some news concerning the bobwhite quail.The ground-nesting and foraging birds have all been wiped out in sprayed areas.For example, in Alabama, the Joint Wildlife Research Center conducted a preliminary survey of quail populations on 3,600 acres of sprayed land. There were 13 flocks of 121 individuals in the area. .For two weeks after spraying, only dead quail were seen.All samples were sent to the Fish and Wildlife Service for analysis, and they were found to contain pesticides in amounts sufficient to cause their death.What happened in Alabama was repeated in Texas, which lost all their quail by treating 2,500 acres with heptachlor.Ninety percent of the songbirds died with the bobquat, and chemical analysis again detected the presence of heptachlor in the tissues of the dead birds. In addition to quail, wild turkeys have also declined sharply as a result of the fire ant eradication program.In one area of ​​Wilkex County, Alabama, although 80 turkeys were found before the application of heptachlor, none were found the summer after the application except for heaps of unhatched turkeys. Not a single turkey was found, except for a dead egg and a dead poultry.Wild turkeys are likely to suffer the same fate as their domestic counterparts, and farm turkeys in chemically treated areas also produce few chicks, few eggs hatch, and few surviving chicks.This did not occur in adjacent untreated areas. These turkeys were by no means alone in their fate.In one of the most famous and respected wildlife biologists in the United States, Dr. Clarence Ketum gathered some farmers whose fields had been sprayed, and they, besides talking about "all the birds of the woods," seemed to be In addition to the spraying of land that had disappeared, most farmers reported losses of livestock, poultry, and family animals.Dr. Ketem reports that one man "was very angry with the sprayers, saying that his cows had been killed by the poison and that he had to bury or otherwise dispose of the 19 dead cows, and he knew that there were other Three or four cows also died from this drug treatment. The calves also died just because they ate milk after birth." Those interviewed by Dr. Ketem were baffled by what happened in the months after their land was treated with the drug.A woman told the Dr. that "after she had sprayed the ground around her, she let out some hens," and that for reasons unknown to her few chicks hatched and survived.Another farmer "was a pig breeder, and during the whole nine months after the poison was spread he had no piglets to feed. The piglets were either born dead, or died soon after birth." A similar The report was provided by another farmer, who said that there should have been as many as 250 piglets in 37 litters, but only 31 survived.This man is also completely incapable of raising chickens since his land was poisoned. The Agriculture Department has consistently denied that the livestock losses were linked to the fire ant eradication program.However, Dr. O. L. Porterwitt, a veterinarian of Bain Bridge, Georgia, who was called in to treat many of the affected animals, concluded that the cause of death was due to insecticides.Cattle, goats, horses, chickens, birds, and other wildlife can suffer from the often fatal neurological disease within a period of two weeks to several months after the application of a drug to eradicate fire mites.It only affects those animals that have been in contact with contaminated food or water, while captive animals are not affected.This has only been seen in areas dealing with red mites.Laboratory tests of the diseases also refuted the USDA's opinion.The symptoms observed by Dr. Portervett and other veterinarians are described in authoritative works as intoxication by dieldrin or heptachlor. Dr. Portervett then described an interesting case of heptachlorism in calves of the first two months.This animal has undergone thorough laboratory research.A significant finding was that 79 parts per million of heptachlor was found in its fat.But this happened five months after the application of the heptachlor.Did this little calf get heptachlor directly from eating grass?Or did it get heptachlor indirectly from its mother's milk or even before it was born?"If heptachlor comes from milk, why aren't special measures taken to protect our children who drink local milk?" Pottwait asked. Dr. Portervett's report raised a major problem with milk contamination, and the areas included in the fire ant eradication program were mainly fields and crops.So what about the cows on these lands?On sprayed fields the grass inevitably carries some form of heptachlor residues, which must appear in the milk if the cows eat them.Long before the fire mite control program was implemented, it was experimentally demonstrated in 1955 that the poison heptachlor could be transferred directly to milk.The same experiment was later reported on dieldrin, also a poison used in fire ant control programmes. The Agriculture Department's Yearbook now also lists heptachlor and dieldrin among those chemicals that render grass unsuitable for feeding dairy or carnivorous animals.Yet the Department of Agriculture's Pest Control Division is still vigorously pursuing programs that spread heptachlor and dieldrin to many grassland areas in the South.Who is protecting consumers so that they will see no residues of dieldrin and heptachlor in milk?The USDA would not hesitate to reply that it has advised farmers to remove their cows from sprayed pastures for 30 to 90 days.Given the small size of many of the farms and the scale of the control program—many of the chemicals were sprayed by airplane—it is hard to believe that the Department of Agriculture's advice will be followed or accepted.This prescribed period is also insufficient from the standpoint of residue stability. While the Food and Drug Administration frowns on any pesticide residues in milk; in this case, it has limited authority.In most of the states covered by fire ant control programs, the dairy industry has declined, its produce cannot be sold out of state, and the federal extermination program has created a problem that endangers the milk supply. It's up to the states to figure it out.Investigative material sent to Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas health officials and other concerned officials in 1959 revealed that no experimental studies had been conducted, and it was not even known whether the milk had been contaminated with pesticides. At the same time, some research into the special properties of heptachlor was carried out not so much after the fire mite control program was started, but before it was implemented.Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that even years before the hazards posed by the federal government's extermination campaign were discovered, studies that had been published at that time had been reviewed and attempts had been made to alter the conduct of the control program.It is a fact that after a short period of time in the tissues of plants and animals or in the soil, heptachlor changes into a more toxic form of the epoxide, which is generally thought to be destroyed by weathering. produced oxides.The Food and Drug Administration found that female rats fed 30ppm heptachlor accumulated the more toxic epoxide in their bodies after only two weeks. It has been known since 1952 that this transformation can occur. In 1959, the above-mentioned pesticide transformation was only described in biological literature, but it was not very clear.That's when the FDA took action to ban any residues of heptachlor and its epoxides from food.The ban put a damper on that control program, at least temporarily; while the Department of Agriculture continues to press for annual funding for fire ant control, local agricultural managers have become increasingly reluctant to persuade farmers to use chemical pesticides, which might To make their corn legally unsalable. In short, the Department of Agriculture blindly pursued its program without conducting the minimum investigation of prior knowledge of the chemicals used; and even when it did, it ignored the facts it found.Preliminary studies attempting to discover the minimum levels of chemicals required to achieve pest control must have failed.After using the drug in large doses for three years, the proportion of heptachlor application was suddenly reduced in 1959, from 2 pounds per acre to 1.25 pounds, and then reduced to 0.5 pounds per acre. The rate applied in two sprays over a six month period was 0.25 lbs.An Agriculture Department official described the change as "a revised program with an aggressive approach" that shows that small doses are still effective.Had such reporting been known long before the pest eradication program was initiated, a considerable amount of damage could have been avoided, and the taxpayer would have saved considerable money. In 1959, the Department of Agriculture may have attempted to allay growing dissatisfaction with the program; thus offering to supply the chemicals free of charge to Texas landowners who would sign off on federal, state, and local responsible for the loss.That same year, the state of Alabama, alarmed and angry at the damage done to the chemical, refused funds for the further implementation of the plan.一位官员对于整个计划进行了特征性的描述：“这是一个愚蠢、草率、失策的行动，是一个对于其他公共和私人的职责实行霸道的十分明显的例子。”尽管缺少州里的资金，联邦政府的钱却不断地流入阿拉巴马州，并且1961年立法部又被说服拨出了一小笔经费。同时，路易斯安娜州的农民们对于此计划的签订表现了日益增长的不满，这是十分明显的，因为对付红螨的化学药物的使用会引起危害甘蔗的昆虫大量繁殖。归根结底，这个计划明显地一无所获，这种可悲状况已由农业实验站、路易斯安娜州大学昆虫系主任L·D·纽塞姆教授在1962年春天作了简明的总结：“一直由州和联邦代办处所指导的'扑灭'外来红螨的计划是彻底失败的，在路易斯安娜州，现在虫害蔓延的地区比控制计划开始之前更大了。” 看来，一种倾向于采取更为深思熟虑、更为稳妥办法的趋势己经开始。据报道“佛罗里达州现在的红螨比控制计划开始时更多。”佛罗里达州通告说，它已拒绝采纳任何有关大规模扑灭红螨计划的意见，而准备改用集中小区域控制的办法。 有效的、少花钱的小区域控制办法多年来已为人们所熟知。红螨具有巢丘栖居特性，而对个别巢丘的化学药物处理是一件简单的事。这种处理，每英亩约花1美元。在那些巢丘很多而又准备实行机械化的地方，一个耕作者可以首先耙平土地，然后直接向巢丘施放农药，这种办法已由密西西比农业实验站发展出来了。这种办法可以控制90一95%的红螨，每英亩只花2.3美元。相比来看，农业部的那个大规模控制计划每英亩要花3.5美元——农业部的计划是所有办法中花钱最多、危害最大、而收效最小的一顶计划。