Steve Clark

The gypsy moth, a voracious tree predator, has been found in several parts of Crown Hill by the Washington State Department of Agriculture. The Agriculture Department, which has waged an almost 30 year war to eradicate the moth, was concerned enough to hold an open house on Thursday night, at Whittier Elementary School.

The insect has wrecked havoc on trees in the Northeastern United States since its introduction. It is not native to the United States and variations come from Europe and Asia. Agriculture officials found 7 of the moths between NW 80th and 85th Streets, between 8th and 12th Avenues Northwest, after laying pheromone laced trapped earlier this summer.

Department officials stressed that there has not been a decision on what steps it will take to deal with the moths, but also that if action was taken, eradication of the moths was preferred to other options could lead to a permanent settlement of the moths in Washington State.

"If we're going to hit them, we like to hit them early and hard," said Brad White, the program manager for the department's Plant Protection Division.

Agriculture has several techniques for combating the moths, including a variety of pesticides, a viral pathogen, mass trappings and introducing sterile males into the population. One of the insecticides, Btk, kills the moths when ingested. Btk has an established history as a pesticide and a version of it is used in the nation's genetically modified corn crop, to make the product less palatable to insects. The delivery method of the pesticide is a chemical called Foray 48B. That substance, manufactured by Valent Biosciences in Illinois, has been controversial. Its exact composition is a trade secret and there has been some apprehension about the lack of material on the long-term health affects of exposure to Foray 48B.

Ballard has been sprayed with pesticides to combat gypsy moths on previous occasions, most recently in 2000 and 2002. The spraying in 2000, which covered 725acres, was dispensed by helicopter in early morning sorties. In 2002, about 16 acres of Crown Hill were sprayed with the same pesticide by exterminators on foot. Those previous eradication efforts proved to be unpopular, in one case prompting a protest letter from Seattle City Council members.

"I think that that one was more controversial was that there were schools in the spray zone and the state did a very poor job of communicating what would happen," said Andrea Faste, a nearby resident who attended the open house.

Arial spraying for gypsy moths is relatively common, with more than 800 acres of West Seattle sprayed in 1997, and more than 1000 acres of Beacon Hill sprayed in 1996. Still, the department of Agriculture's Hill acknowledged that previous sprayings had prompted criticism.

"The treatment is the smallest part of the process but it's what people see," He said.

To combat negative perceptions, the department held the open house, with several experts in attendance, handouts and large displays. The audience for the outreach was small, with fewer than a dozen people attending during the first hour.

"I thought it was unfortunate that they didn't get more people curious about what they'll do. I guess it was a sign of the times that people think there's nothing they can do. That's a mistake," Faste said.

Another attendee, Robin Haglund, a Virginia native, saw first hand what the moths could do in her home state to a stand of oak trees.

"They were wiped out. The land value's gone too because the trees are gone. It's all scrub now."

Gypsy moths do most tree defoliating in their caterpillar form which lasts approximately two months in the summer. The moth has a twelve-month life span, and about nine of those months as an egg mass, about the size of a quarter. It's in this state that gypsy moths are often inadvertently transported into non-invested areas, stuck to furniture moved across country.

There are two principle families of gypsy moths, Asian and European. Both types eat the leaves of deciduous trees though the Asian moth will also attack conifers. Agriculture officials have not yet had an official designation to which strain of gypsy moths were found in Crown Hill, though evidence points to the European variety.

Agriculture officials will decide on a course of action, including the possibility they will take no action, before the end of the year. If they decide to employ pesticides to eradicate the moths, that spraying would take place in the spring.