The State - News from Oct. 20, 1987

A Mediterranean fruit fly has been found in Orange County, about 20 miles from the major treatment area in Los Angeles County. The California Department of Food and Agriculture said the new find was in Westminster, southeast of the Commerce-South Gate area that has been under treatment since August, and should add impetus to the state’s effort to win passage of a federal law to allow reasonable access to first-class packages mailed from the tropics that may illegally contain fruit, fruit flies or fruit fly larvae. After the single Medfly discovery in Westminster Oct. 13, state authorities said the density of traps in the area was escalated from five per square mile to 100 to determine the extent of the fly population. If a breeding population is found to exist, they said, the area will probably be treated like the one in Los Angeles, where 75 million sterile medflies are being released each week.