The No Spray Coalition has played a crucial role in shaping what is quickly becoming a national debate. The City has ordered a rebidding from companies to massively spray NYC in 2001 from helicopters, fixed wing aircraft and trucks using Malathion and other toxic pesticides. Tens of millions of dollars have been set aside for the purchase of pesticides. The use of pesticides is being planned again, without justification, and despite the fact that, historically, West Nile epidemics throughout the world have subsided and vanished on their own. Last year, we saw only a handful of cases, mostly centered in Staten Island in a city of more than 8 million people.
Indications are that the public health threat , if there ever was one, is over.
In 1999 the Nospray Coalition filed a Federal lawsuit to stop the spraying, which we believe is a direct violation of evironmental law. Representing the Coalition in the courts are the NY Environmental Law and Justice Project, and the Pace Environmental Law Clinic. A federal judge has enabled the lawsuit to go forward under the Clean Water Act, despite aggressive opposition by the City's attorneys. That appeal is to be heard in a few weeks. The main lawsuit has now progressed through the courts to the point where we are ready to take final depositions from numerous people who were involved in the spraying, including City and State officials, helicopter pilots, people who were directly sprayed and witnesses who observed the many violations of the labeling instructions and environmental law.