Save Beekeeping in Massachusetts!
Cliff Youse
Save Beekeeping in Massachusetts!
Add Mass Bee to the Massachusetts Mosquito Control for the Twenty-First Century task force.
We need your help! Legislation passed last week related to aerial mosquito spraying (S.2757/H.4851 - An Act to Mitigate Arbovirus in the Commonwealth). We have been extremely active in getting needed amendments made to the legislation before it was passed last week and signed by the Governor this past Monday. Unfortunately, the version of the bill that was passed, did not specifically include a Massachusetts beekeeper as one of the members of a 16-member Task Force charged with developing recommendations and future legislation for mosquito management and control when this newly signed bill sunsets after two years. Section 3 of the newly signed bill specifies that one of the seats on Task Force is to be “a representative of a statewide organization representing beekeepers or groups concerned about pollinators”.
We need to make sure that a representative from the Massachusetts beekeeping community is selected for this seat on the Task Force. To that end we have sent a letter to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA), and copied Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH), Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR), legislators and others, asking them to direct Mass Bee to select a Task Force representative from its membership. However, our single letter to the legislators is not enough. More voices need to be heard to show that the beekeeping community is strong and wants a seat at the table. Our voices need to be heard quickly – the seat on the Task Force will be selected sometime in the next three weeks. We are asking that you too send in a letter to the legislators. You can either prepare and send a letter yourself, or you can use the template we have drafted.
Please go to https://pollinatorstewardship.salsalabs.org/massbee/index.html for details on how to proceed and thank you for your support!
Regards,
-Cliff Youse
Laurie Arnone
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Visit us at our website: http://www.bostonbeekeepers.org & on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BostonBeekeepers
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