Air and Ground Assault Against Medfly Intensifies

Helicopters doused a wide swath of the San Gabriel Valley with pesticides Thursday night in an effort to eradicate the latest in a string of Mediterranean fruit fly infestations in Los Angeles County.

A ground assault against the bug also intensified Thursday as patrols were dispatched to enforce quarantines and inspectors stripped thousands of pounds of fruit from back-yard trees.

Agricultural officials announced Thursday that two more of the crop-damaging Medflies were found in traps in San Gabriel and two in Valinda--bringing the total number of detected wild flies to 141, the highest number in Los Angeles County history. Two fertile Medflies were also reported to have been trapped in Santa Clara County, in a neighborhood that had been infested last month and treated with pesticides.

Authorities said, however, that they were not alarmed by the new finds. The Medflies, they said, had been trapped in sectors already under quarantine, and existing eradication tactics are expected to kill the fly populations in these zones. Officials declined to order additional aerial pesticide spraying.

“These finds further confirm that we are taking the right actions in the right treatment areas,” said Bob Atkins, Los Angeles County deputy agricultural commissioner. He said the four flies were trapped “within houses” of the other trappings and do not indicate more widespread infestations.

San Gabriel was one of eight communities in a 24-square-mile area that officials sprayed with the syrupy pesticide malathion Thursday night. Three helicopters hovered 500 feet above the area between four and six hours beginning at 9 p.m.

Five Medfly outbreaks have occurred in the last four months in Elysian Park, the West Covina area, Whittier, and the northeast San Fernando Valley. The notorious Medfly lays its eggs in more than 250 varieties of produce and vegetables, ruining it for market.

Earlier this week, two members of a state scientific advisory panel voiced concern that the high number of recent infestations point to a widespread county problem and called for increased aerial pesticide spraying and additional trapping.

Agricultural officials disagree. They believe that the infestations are isolated incidents. People--homeowners, immigrants and travelers--who illegally smuggle bad fruit out of quarantine zones are to blame, they said.

About 100 state and federal agricultural inspectors have been brought in to police the streets and seize suspected bad fruit from vendors in quarantine zones.

“As long as we have quarantines, we cannot take any chances that fruit will be transported out of the area,” said David Keim of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “We are seizing any and all fruit that we suspect has been exposed to the Medfly.”

Under state law, it is a misdemeanor to remove home-grown fruit from a quarantine zone, but no one has ever been charged with the offense.

On Thursday, at what is the height of the fall citrus harvest, county officials were stripping fruit trees at more than 400 homes located within 250 yards of Medfly finds in Whittier.

“We are not taking any chances,” said Juan Mercogliano, the state entomologist supervising the removal of ripe oranges, grapefruits, lemons and persimmons and other fruits from back-yard trees.

Workers dressed in white jumpsuits and gloves stuffed fruit into double plastic bags, sealing their haul with duct tape. The loads were quickly driven to a landfill in Puente Hills and immediately buried.

About 100 pounds of avocados, figs and oranges were removed from the back yard of Andrea Brown, who gladly surrendered her harvest but believes the program is inadequate.

Pickers, she pointed out, had left behind treetop fruit because their ladders were not tall enough. Further, she said, when her neighbors saw early this week that the crews were coming, many picked all their fruit.

“Who knows what happened to it,” Brown said. “I’m sad to see all my fruit go, but I want to cooperate. And if they don’t take the old fruit at the top of the tree, why bother?”

In neighborhoods surrounding Elysian Park, a Medfly quarantine zone, fruit fly police have been searching for largely immigrant fruit vendors who ignore strict regulations to protect their produce from open-air exposure.

Since October about 54,000 pounds of produce has been confiscated from vendors in all five quarantine zones, with about half coming from the 15-square-mile Elysian Park area, officials said.

Vendors are required to cover their produce with screen or plastic.

When Misha Ovespgau saw the federal inspectors coming he rushed to cover his exposed fruit. Ovespgau had parked his van on Gramercy Place near Hollywood Boulevard.

“I cover! I cover!” he shouted in broken English at inspector James Palisin.

Too late.

“Your oranges are not covered. Your tomatoes are not covered,” Palisin said, and with that he carted off about 20 pounds of produce.