A plan to spray Santa Cruz County with synthetic pheromones must be postponed until an environmental review is completed, a county judge ruled Thursday. The spraying, an attempt by agriculture officials to curb the invasion of the crop-gobbling light brown apple moth, was to begin in Santa Cruz County in June and expand to seven other Bay Area counties in August. But many of the 7 million residents of to-be-sprayed areas have been protesting mightily, pointing out that previous spraying in Santa Cruz coincided with numerous complaints of eye and respiratory irritation.
