The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to cancel DCPA—aka the pesticide dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate; aka a weed-eating herbicide often used to treat broccoli and onion fields that’s associated with certain birth defects.
But officially canceling DCPA ain’t easy. It’s not like a clarion call to boycott your neighborhood racist coffee shop on TikTok. Or the right-wing “take down” of Bud Light for daring to highlight a trans woman in a commercial. (I see you all out there still drinking Bud Light.)
Canceling a pesticide involves paperwork. It would take months and months. The manufacturer could contest the decision. It’s time and resource intensive. It’s a whole thing, you know? And yelling in all-caps on X/Twitter isn’t an option.
Instead, the EPA reached into its back pocket to do something it hadn’t done in 40 years. The federal regulator issued an emergency suspension order, suspending its use indefinitely. Nobody can use DCPA. Bam! Canceled (but not officially).
Now, all of the growers on the Central Coast—from Monterey to Santa Barbara counites—who’ve increasingly relied on DCPA to help prevent weeds from infecting their broccoli fields with pests have to figure out a plan B.
I bet Lompoc City Councilmember Gilda Aiello (formerly Cordova) wishes she could have canceled the folks who tried to cancel her. It seemed like she had a target on her back for a while. She’s so over it that she’s bowing to the cancellation.
Aiello isn’t running for reelection due to “a few unfair attacks brought on me by a group of individuals who wanted to have me removed.” Well, it worked. Intimidation, organized attacks, they unfortunately work. It’s a bummer.
This group accused her of living outside of her district and of personally benefitting from her seat on the council—both of which she proved wrong. These folks were also upset about how Explore Lompoc, which Aiello sits on the board for, was spending tourism money—dollars they said the council didn’t keep close enough accounting of. That’s a legitimate concern.
Now, one of her alleged cancelers is running unopposed for her seat: former Lompoc Planning Commissioner Steve Bridge. And he’s ready to run the city like a business! Good luck, Bridge. That’s what got Lompoc and former City Councilmember Jim Mosby into trouble a few years ago (well, that and his big mouth). Lompoc isn’t a business. It’s a city providing services to and governing its residents.
They’re different.
You know what else is different? Buellton. The land of art deco—well, not yet. Maybe in the future, as the city attempts to hammer out the infill development it’s looking for on the Avenue of Flags and elsewhere.
One such development? A bowling alley that’s been in the works for a decade and changed hands multiple times. The new owners of the land asked the city for a development incentive, aka dollar bills, y’all. Buellton’s never done anything like that before, but is considering it.
It’s just the kind of venue the city’s “for lack of a better word, desperately wanting to bring” to the city, City Manager Scott Wolfe said.
Plus, the city needs to be more development friendly, Councilmember Elysia Lewis said, who added she was interested in the options that could help.
That art deco requirement could go, I think.
The Canary loves the past, but lives in the future. Send present tense statements to [email protected].
