Local News in Brief : Last Sterile Medflies Will Be Released
The last of 300 million sterile Mediterranean fruit flies will be released by agricultural workers in the San Fernando Valley on Oct. 4, authorities said. But the battle to eradicate the crop-destroying pest will not end until November, when an agricultural quarantine in the Valley will likely be lifted.
Medflies go through three life cycles a year, and the third will end toward the middle of November, said Thomas Palmer, project coordinator for the state Department of Food and Agriculture.
Officials want to see empty traps for three cycles before they lift the quarantine. No fertile Medflies have been found in county traps since July, when two were trapped in Reseda and Northridge.
Helicopters sprayed a 16-square-mile area of the Valley with the pesticide malathion on July 25 and a quarantine was established two days later, prohibiting the transportation of produce out of a 62-square-mile area.
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