More Medflies Found; Spray Area Doubled

More fertile Mediterranean fruit flies were reported Tuesday to have been detected in the San Gabriel Valley, prompting at last two state scientists to express concern that Los Angeles County faces a full-blown infestation of the notorious pests.

The finding of three more of the crop-damaging flies forced agriculture officials, who already are battling infestations in five sectors of the county, to double the scale of a pesticide spraying operation planned for Thursday and to escalate a campaign to persuade the public to honor quarantine boundaries.

For the first time Tuesday, two members of a five-member state scientific panel, which advises farm officials on how to battle the Medfly, broke ranks with county and state agriculture officials and their colleagues, saying the infestations in Los Angeles County might be linked and demanding a more aggressive attack.

The infestations are “indicative of a larger problem that we have not been able to identify,” said UC Davis entomologist Richard Rice, one of the two panelists calling for stronger action. “Something has gone wrong somewhere, and we need to find out why.”

Rice and James R. Carey, also a UC Davis entomologist, said that Los Angeles County needs to double the application of pesticides sprayed on infested neighborhoods and expand the ongoing program of trapping to better determine the extent of the infestation.

The majority of the panelists and L.A. County officials charged with leading the fight, however, maintained a more placid view of the situation.

The view of County Agricultural Commissioner Leon Spaugy and others is that the five outbreaks in the last four months are isolated incidents caused by the illegal smuggling of fruit. He and other experts said they remain convinced that one-time spraying of infested sectors and other tactics are sufficient.

All participants in the debate are well aware of the Medfly disaster of 1981, in which a small infestation in Santa Clara exploded into a statewide outbreak, leading to international quarantines, the loss of $100 million to growers and, some have suggested, irreparable damage to the political career of then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.

Medflies lay their eggs in a wide variety of produce, making it unsaleable.

While Los Angeles County’s once-significant role as an agricultural region has diminished, it still serves as a vital hub for the state’s most important industry. An estimated $1.75 billion in agricultural products that could be affected by a Medfly infestation passes through the county each year.

“I’m not ready to accept that,” Spaugy said when asked about the possibility that he faces a countywide infestation. If the infestations were part of a countywide outbreak, he said, hundreds of flies would show up in the 7,821 traps hanging from back-yard fruit trees throughout the county. So far, 134 Medflies have been trapped.

Three of the trapped flies were discovered late Monday in the San Gabriel Valley; the find was announced Tuesday after the fertility of the pests was confirmed.

As a result, the sector to be sprayed with the pesticide malathion Thursday night was doubled in size to 23 square miles to include parts of Alhambra, El Monte, San Marino, Temple City and all of Rosemead, San Gabriel and South El Monte.

The new spray zone brings to 88 the number of square miles that will have been sprayed in Los Angeles County since August. In 1981, a total of 39 square miles were sprayed in Los Angeles County. About 230 square miles in the county are now under quarantine, which prohibits taking home-grown fruit out of an infested area.

Los Angeles County expects to spend $8 million to $10 million this year “just on eradication of the Medfly alone,” Spaugy said. The unprecedented number of infestations--five in the county this year--have affected neighborhoods around Elysian Park, the northeast San Fernando Valley, West Covina and Whittier.

Most experts interviewed said that Los Angeles is vulnerable to Medfly infestations because of the large amount of cargo and high numbers of people traveling through its airports, harbors and train stations. They also pointed to the county’s large population of immigrants who bring with them fruits from infested countries. But no one can say for sure why the problem is so bad this year.

“Why all of a sudden?” asked Bob Atkins, the county’s deputy agricultural commissioner. “Why don’t we see it in different areas in California?”

The two UC Davis entomologists said the pest may be gaining a foothold in the region.

The numbers “say to me that there is serious problem and that they are at least temporarily established,” Carey said. “My gut feeling is that if they were random infestations, flies would be popping up in other areas. But these are all in the L.A. Basin.”

Other regions of the state, such as San Diego, Kern County and the San Joaquin Valley, also have large immigrant populations, Carey said.

He and Rice also disagreed with the suggestion by their colleagues that the flies are being spread by people.

“I can’t convince myself that we can’t have that much contraband fruit all of sudden arriving at the same time,” Rice said.

The latest infestation in Rosemead and El Monte at least has persuaded most officials involved in the eradication effort that more needs to be known about the root causes.

“We need to talk about what might be done to determine whether or not there is an ongoing, long-existing endemic population,” said Derrell Chambers, one of the state scientists and director of a federal research facility in Guatemala.

The expert panel, which is consulted before each aerial malathion spraying, will meet with state and county officials in January to devise a scientific trapping experiment.

Also, state and county agriculture officials said they have bolstered inspection programs throughout the region, with roving squads of fruit fly police that are descending on quarantine areas to check that stores and street vendors are protecting clean fruit with plastic covers.

Last weekend, agricultural officials posted guards at a grocery store in Koreatown for two days to stop the sale of fruit. The store, despite repeated warnings, continued selling fruit in a quarantine area without installing a front door, said Dee Sudduth, senior agricultural biologist for the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

“We had the guards there to keep the customers out of the area,” Sudduth said. “The customers will just ignore you and grab stuff and run. We had one guy who snagged a persimmon and made a dash to the cash register, and they stopped him and sent him back.” Sudduth said that agricultural officials also destroyed 1,600 pounds of apples and persimmons at the store.

There is a $25,000 fine for anyone found guilty of causing a Medfly infestation. “But that necessitates building a case, which is difficult to do,” Spaugy said.

State officials planned as well to step up their public information program, including sending out a mass mailing in English and Spanish to hundreds of thousands of residents in infested neighborhoods, urging them to report any fruit leaving quarantine areas. “Your cooperation will save millions of tax dollars,” the notice says.

County officials hope to take advantage of a new federal law to plug up one of the possible “pathways” for the pest. The new law, sponsored by a former congressman from the agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley, allows postal authorities to inspect first-class mail coming from such places as Hawaii and Puerto Rico, where the Medfly is found.

At Los Angeles International Airport, federal inspectors fill about “six large garbage cans” a day with confiscated fruit detected by specially trained dogs and X-ray machines.

Inspectors question all travelers from foreign countries and Hawaii and conduct random baggage searches.

DATES OF SPRAYING

1.Aug.10: 15-square-mile area encompassing Echo Park, Elysian Park and Silver Lake

2.Oct.3: 24-square-mile area encompassing Baldwin Park, La Puente and West Covina

3.Oct.4: 9-square-mile area around Whittier

4.Nov.6: 17-square-mile area in San Fernando, Sylmar and parts of Grenada Hills, Mission Hills and Pacoima

5.Nov.9: 23 square miles encompassing Rosemead, South El Monte, El Monte and parts of Monterey Park, San Marino, Arcadia and Temple City