Aerial Attack Scheduled on Valley Medflies

The pesky Mediterranean fruit fly has spread its wings to the Northeast San Fernando Valley, authorities said Thursday, requiring aerial spraying of malathion Monday over 17 square miles to battle what has become the worst infestation in Los Angeles County by the crop-destroying pest.

The latest infestation presented agricultural officials with a new problem: a shortage of sterile Medflies, raised at a state-run facility in Hawaii, to breed the insect out of existence.

As a result, agricultural officials have begun shopping around Guatemala and Mexico for sterile flies. Short of finding enough, “additional aerial spraying may be necessary,” said a spokesman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

Officials said three Medflies have been found since Oct. 25 within a few blocks of each other in Sylmar. That brought to 126 the number of Medflies found in the county this year, said officials, who so far have ordered aerial spraying of 63 square miles and released 100 million sterile flies to fight four infestations.

“Absolutely,” said Bob Atkins, the county’s deputy agricultural commissioner, “this is by far the worst situation we’ve had in L.A. County.”

Efforts to eradicate the Medfly from around Dodger Stadium are nearly complete. Eradication efforts are also under way in neighborhoods in and around West Covina and Whittier and in San Bernardino and Santa Clara counties.

The Medfly poses a danger to the state’s multimillion-dollar agricultural industry because females lay their eggs in more than 260 kinds of fruits and vegetables, rendering the produce unsalable.

Spraying in the Valley is tentatively scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. Monday over an area bounded by the 118 and 210 freeways and Balboa Boulevard, and including San Fernando and Sylmar and parts of Granada Hills, Mission Hills and Pacoima.

Beginning today, an army of uniformed California Conservation Corps workers will begin distributing 150,000 flyers to residents advising of the spraying. Officials say the procedure is safe but advise residents to cover cars and bring pets’ water dishes indoors.

County Agricultural Commissioner Leon Spaugy said that, as with the other infestations, he has no clue to the cause of the latest discovery.

“As soon as I find out who’s doing it, I’m going to hang him from the highest tree,” he said.

The state Department of Food and Agriculture plans to begin offering a $10,000 reward, donated by the agriculture industry, for information leading to the conviction of a person “who sneaked in fruit and thereby caused an infestation,” information officer Gera Curry said.

The Medfly gained prominence in California in 1981 when then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. was blamed by farmers for aggravating an infestation in Santa Clara County by delaying aerial pesticide spraying. Eventually, the state spent $100 million to eradicate the pest, and growers lost an additional $100 million in sales because of a quarantine.