FILLMORE : Mining May Reduce Beneficial Insects

Gravel mining operations could kill beneficial bugs and force Fillmore-area farmers to use pesticides on citrus groves, the manager of an area insectary said.

Monte Carpenter, who works for the cooperative Fillmore Citrus Protective District, told the Valley Advisory Committee Wednesday that dust from mining operations within five miles of groves would pose a serious threat to tiny bugs that protect nearly 9,000 acres of trees.

An official from Ventura County’s planning division said at the same meeting that the issue was not included in an environmental study under way on mining projects proposed in the Santa Clara River bed.

The panel was told by planner Robert Laughlin that the relation of dust to beneficial insects could be added to the environmental report during a public review period. The report will be complete in June, he said.

Carpenter explained that dust protects damaging insects from the beneficial insects. If helpful insects could not work efficiently, Carpenter said, ranchers would need chemicals that kill good bugs along with the bad, leaving groves open to attack by a host of pests.

Pesticides are used on only about 1% of the district’s total acreage each year, Carpenter said. Extensive use of chemicals could destroy years of work that have created a favorable environment for useful insects, he said.

Mining companies say dust problems are exaggerated. A Sespe Rock Co. spokesman, who asked not to be identified, said Santa Ana winds cause more dust in a day than his company generates in a year. Sespe Rock has proposed expansion of its Sespe Creek facility and a new 500-acre site in the Santa Clara River.