This is the appeal to a higher Court of Judge Martin's decision last year to limit to the Clean Water Act our lawsuit against NYC's indiscriminate spraying of toxic pesticides over people and the environment. Law student par excellence Chris Rizzo, of PACE Law Clinic, will be arguing our case, which begins at 10 am. If we win an overturn of Judge Martin's limitations, we'll immediately file for a temporary injunction to stop this year's spraying. If we lose, the case still continues under the Clean Water Act, but it gets stretched out and narrowed.
Numbers are VERY VERY VERY important inside the court.
We are about to be sprayed again, this time by Malathion and Naled, as well as by Pyrethroids. We have an admittedly outside shot at winning our appeal in mid-April to expand the lawsuit beyond the Clean Water Act, which has already been accepted by the Court. We were repeatedly sprayed by helicopters and trucks in our homes, in public parks, while shopping, while playing in schoolyards, while eating in outdoor restaurants and while traveling to and from work and school. Public health experts, mosquito control specialists and scientists who specialize in studying the effects of pesticide exposure are now increasingly warning that this unprecedented use of chemicals on a densely packed urban population would not only be ineffective for mosquito control but pose a far greater health risk than West Nile Virus. Despite overwhelming evidence of the hazards of indiscriminate pesticide use, the government now plans now to extend the broadcast spraying for West Nile-carrying mosquitoes to urban areas as far west as Detroit, Michigan.