Spraying Zone for Medfly Is Expanded

Three more communities will be sprayed from the air Monday night with the pesticide malathion in an effort to halt the spread of the Mediterranean fruit fly east and southeast of downtown Los Angeles, officials announced Friday.

Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner Paul Engler said a decision to spray a 13 1/2-square-mile area, encompassing East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights and City Terrace, was made after the discovery of a fourth Medfly Thursday outside of a 22-square-mile zone that had been sprayed earlier.

Engler told reporters that two boom-equipped helicopters, spraying a sweet-syrup malathion-protein bait in 200-foot swaths, are expected to cover the new area between 9 p.m. and midnight Monday.

Residents were advised to stay indoors as the helicopters pass over, to wash with soap and water if they are exposed to the bait, to cover vehicles parked outdoors or wash them as soon as possible if they are hit with droplets.

Engler again expressed confidence that that the small amount of malathion, a commonly used home, garden and orchard pesticide, in the spray will not harm people or their pets, although those with fish ponds were advised to cover them.

The spray zone is bordered on the south by Washington Boulevard; on the west and north by Santa Fe Avenue, Mission Road and Valley Boulevard, and on the east by Monterey Pass Road, 1st Street and Eastern Avenue.

Engler said that a few days after the spraying, millions of sterile male Medflies will be released in a massive effort to induce the flies to breed themselves out of existence over a 60 to 90-day period.

Engler defended what he termed the “long-term, non-chemical approach” to eradication, as opposed to the repeated aerial sprayings employed in a Medfly outbreak in the early 1980s.

So far, according to Dorthea Zadig, the state Agriculture Department’s representative on the eradication team, the cost of fighting the current outbreak is nearing $1 million, only a fraction of the nearly $100 million it cost to fight the statewide 1981-82 infestation.

Engler considers the Medfly to be the “biggest threat to California agriculture” because it infests more than 200 varieties of produce, reproduces rapidly and survives in different climates.

To help control an infestation, authorities routinely impose a quarantine on fruits and vegetables in infected areas. About 76 square miles were quarantined around the current spray area. That total will be increased by about 20 square miles with the addition of the expanded spray area, according to Engler.