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John Henry Woodward’s radar gun clocked the top riders at speeds of more than 50 miles per hour. Due to wet roads the speed was somewhat less than the predicted 60-70 miles per hour.
Though the race was covered by NBC’s Sportsworld, bad weather grounded the helicopters which were to provide aerial coverage of the race down the mountain, and apparently the Rappahannock portion of the race ended up on the network’s cutting-room floor.
Following the finish of the race, its organizers said that Virginia offered real challenges for the riders, and in early December the Tour moved its race headquarters to Richmond. Apparently, Rappahannock County has not seen the last of the Tour de Trump.
Apples and Alar
The county’s apple growers faced a difficulty worse than the stiff competition from Washington state after the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes broadcast a report which alleged that some orchardists are treating apples with Alar, a growth-inhibiting chemical which it claimed left carcinogenic residues on the apples.
Though the county’s growers stopped using the chemical several years ago after reports of its possible effects first surfaced, they still found themselves bedeviled by the Alar controversy.
60 Minutes, meanwhile, was accused of doing a hatchet job with the report, broadcasting irresponsible allegations while ignoring other evidence mitigating the dangers of Alar.
Explaining that the chemical was used primarily to enhance the appearance of the fruit, orchardist Alex Sharp placed much of the blame for the use of chemicals squarely on consumers. If shoppers didn’t demand perfect, unblemished fruit, Mr. Sharp said, many of the chemical applications would not be necessary.
But the chemicals used, he added, pose no harm to the public, and any residues on the apples are either washed off by rain before harvest or rinsed away during the grading and sorting process in the packing house.
By summer, with the state’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services reporting no Alarcontaminated apples in its samples, Americans were again eating apples. Dow Chemical Co., the manufacturer of Alar, voluntarily removed the product from use.
Gypsy moths
The invasion of gypsy-moth caterpillars may supplant the landfill as Rappahannock’s perennial Top Ten story during the next few years.
The pest continues its relentless push southward, with the entire western part of the county, from Amissville to Nethers Mill, reporting large infestations of the leaf-eating caterpillars.
Much of the Blue Ridge range was defoliated again this year, and oaks and apple trees seemed particularly hard hit — though as forage becomes scarce the moths, in their caterpillar stage, will devour almost anything green.
The southern third of the county has been included in the federal Ap
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