Sharpshooter by Nadia Gordon

basically pay their salaries and then some, so the board listens. The program they’re pushing would mean door-to-door nerve poison delivery, residential included. They’d spray every yard, garden, farm, and park, in addition to all the vineyards. It’s amazing that there hasn’t been more of a protest about it. People around here seem to be okay with the idea of having their homes dipped in nerve poison so that the big wineries can stay in business.”
    “People don’t think it’s a real threat. I mean, I don’t actually believe that the county would try to spray my place,” said Monty.
    “Believe it. They did it in Sacramento and Fresno already. And it didn’t do a damn bit of good, by the way. The bug is as entrenched there as it ever was. Did anybody bring that up at this last meeting?”
    “Ben Baker did,” said Charlie. “Then the spray lobby pointed out that Fresno and Sacramento didn’t get to it in time and that’swhy it didn’t work. It actually strengthened the argument to do it at the very first sign of infestation.”
    Wade looked incredulous. “That’s great. So some guy dressed like an astronaut in a biosuit is going to pull up with a tanker truck of nerve poison, knock on your door, and say, ‘Throw a tarp over the dog because your yard is about to be doused.’ It amazes me they’re even considering it. We’re not talking about a threat to the general public here. This is not an outbreak of West Nile Virus. This is a little leafhopper that just happens to spread a disease that just happens to kill grapevines and not much else.”
    “Even the Beronis won’t get that through around here,” said Rivka.
    “I wish you were right,” said Wade. “But don’t forget that very big money is at stake. Every wine-related job in the valley is on the line. We’ve got the bumblebees and the ladybugs on one side and a six-billion-dollar wine industry on the other. I can take a pretty good guess at who is going to win that argument.”
    They were quiet and Wade went back to his plate, hunching over it and stacking his fork with chicken, pasta, and potatoes.
    Charlie spoke. “The big wineries are scared. They saw what happened in Southern California and they know the glassy-winged sharpshooter could be the end of them. I was down in Orange County last week and it’s pretty spooky stuff. They treated some of the vines that are still alive down there with white kaolin clay, trying to save them. Frankly, it hasn’t worked and it does almost as much damage as Pierce’s disease because it impedes photosynthesis and you get a lot of defoliation. But at this stage, it’s their only hope.” He looked at Wade. “Imagine your entire vineyard covered in white chalk. It looks like a ghost world.”
    Wade chewed and swallowed. “Better that than carbaryl. That stuff goes everywhere. Drifts half a mile from where theyspray it, sinks into the soil and the water, gets taken up in the roots of every bush, tree, and blade of grass. Kills the bees and all the other beneficials. It’s bad stuff, I don’t care what they say about how it’s as safe as chewing gum. That said, Pierce’s disease will wipe me off the map. There is probably a place for pesticides in this fight, but not at the first sighting and not the whole valley.”
    “The county needs to put their energy into inspecting the incoming plants,” said Monty. “It seems like the most logical approach is to keep the bug out in the first place. If they can keep the garden suppliers from delivering the sharpshooter right to our door, Charlie’s friends up in Davis might have enough time to cook up a solution. The Department of Viticulture and Enology has saved our butts before. Give them time and they’ll engineer a vine that’s resistant to Pierce’s disease or has a sharpshooter repelling gene in it. They’re already planning to release a wasp that eats glassies in the meantime, right?”
    “It’s not quite ready yet,” said Charlie,