Santa Clara County deployed agricultural staff door-to-door on July 13 to collect Costco grapevines that may harbor the glassy-winged sharpshooter, which spreads Pierce's disease and could devastate the region's $400 million agricultural economy. As of July 14, 1,180 of roughly 1,300 plants sold remain unaccounted for — and Costco has issued no formal public recall notice.

Santa Clara County deployed agricultural staff door-to-door on July 13 to collect grapevine plants sold at Costco that may harbor the glassy-winged sharpshooter — an invasive insect that spreads Pierce's disease, which is fatal to grapevines and can move from a backyard planting straight into commercial vineyards.

As of July 14, 1,180 of roughly 1,300 plants sold at Northern California Costco locations between April 21 and May 21 remain unaccounted for, according to Anna K. Miller, director of the county's Division of Agriculture, with about 120 retrieved by that date per KION Central Coast. "This is very urgent — we've never mounted an operation to this extent," John Sorfleet, the county's deputy agricultural commissioner, told the Mercury News. "We intend to collect every plant as part of this recall."

The county's agricultural economy is directly exposed. Santa Clara County is home to about 50 wineries concentrated around Morgan Hill, San Martin, and Gilroy, within an agricultural sector the county values at $400 million annually. County officials have stated publicly that local wine production could "collapse" if Pierce's disease became established. GWSS also damages almonds, citrus, and other commercial crops, per the CDFA, extending the threat well beyond wine.

The regulatory picture is lopsided. The California Department of Food and Agriculture confirmed GWSS on the recalled stock and issued public alerts. The county is bearing the cost of collection and disposal — delivering bags and zip ties to doorsteps at no charge. Residents who no longer have their plants can contact the county at 408-918-4662 or SCC.GWSS@cep.sccgov.org.

Costco's documented response is narrower: a letter to affected purchasers entitling them to an in-store refund, referenced in the Mercury News. No formal public recall notice from Costco appeared in California or federal regulatory records reviewed for this story. Burchell Nursery of Fresno County — identified in state reporting as the supply source — has not faced publicly documented enforcement action in available filings.

County staff have described a two-phase plan. The first is the current door-to-door sweep. The second, per Sorfleet speaking to NBC Bay Area, involves placing GWSS traps "at regular intervals throughout the county to detect any insects that would have come off of the grapevines and gotten out in the community." The second phase being planned at all is an acknowledgment that the pest may already be loose.

Three things remain unresolved: no updated collection count has been released since July 14, leaving the 1,180 figure potentially stale; Burchell Nursery's regulatory exposure, if any materializes, is an open question; and the trap-network data — the only real read on whether GWSS has already reached agricultural land — won't exist until the monitoring phase is operational.