State Announces Heavier Assault Against Medfly

The California Department of Food and Agriculture on Tuesday announced the particulars of its winter campaign against the Mediterranean fruit fly--including plans to spray the pesticide malathion over 277 square miles of infested territory, from Glendora to Sylmar.

Letters are being mailed to 699,000 affected residents this week detailing plans to spray nine different zones.

A change from the previously outlined treatment area was the expansion of spraying into areas around downtown Los Angeles, such as Maywood and Bell.

The winter spraying will be done on a 21-day rotating schedule, but state officials said that when spring arrives the spraying could be increased to once every seven to 10 days.

For the near term, however, officials said that, after Thursday, there will be no helicopter spraying of malathion until Jan. 2.

“We didn’t think it would be a good idea to spray people’s houses on Christmas,” said Veda Federighi, a spokeswoman for the Department of Food and Agriculture.

While the government was gearing up for a renewed assault on the crop-destroying pest, opponents were mobilizing to stop the spraying, which they contend jeopardizes public health, a charge the state strongly denies.

The Coalition Against Urban Spraying, an umbrella group comprising neighborhood and environmental organizations scattered throughout the Los Angeles area, began mapping plans Saturday to put pressure on local politicians. A research committee was established to counter government experts’ assurances of the safety of the pesticide.

“The opposition, up until now, is only a small dose of what they will feel,” promised David Bunn, a spokesman for Pesticide Watch and a coalition member.

The Los Angeles City Council has urged the state to consider alternatives to spraying. And the city attorney’s office is presently researching the feasibility of filing suit to ground the helicopters that spray pesticide-laced bait.

To counter such concerns, a top state agriculture official has written to a number of Southern California politicians staunchly defending the use of malathion.

“To avoid an eternal war against a voracious pest, we need to fight hard battles now,” Rex Magee, associate director of CDFA, wrote in a letter dated last Friday.

He argues that allowing the Medfly to become a permanent resident of California would cause crop losses as high as $200 million a year, threaten home vegetable gardens and cause other nations to boycott the state’s produce.

Magee also admitted that state authorities may have underestimated the extent of the problem when the flies were first trapped last summer in the Whittier area.

He said spread of the infestation may have been prevented if the area was sprayed two or three times in the beginning, rather than a single time, as had been done to eradicate previous small infestations.

Opponents have criticized the reliance on spraying, saying that people in fragile health could be harmed by the pesticide.

One potential improvement in the way the Medfly might be fought in the future was announced Monday in Hawaii. U.S. Department of Agriculture expert Dr. Roy Cunningham told a conference that a new chemical agent, called Ceralure, could be applied to telephone poles and trees from the ground to kill the bugs.

Ceralure would contain the insecticide, which would kill the Medfly when it landed on the globules of the mixture.

Los Angeles County agricultural officials already use a similar method to bait and poison Oriental fruit flies.

However, full-scale tests of the new compound have not yet been conducted and it could be several years before the lure could be used in the continental United States, according to Cunningham.

The new spray schedule begins Jan. 2, with the treatment of the Brea-La Habra and Glendora areas. Three weeks later, on Jan. 22, those same areas, now designated as Zones 1 and 4, respectively, will be sprayed again.

There are seven other zones, each to be treated on a similar schedule. They include Zone 2, Downey-Norwalk; Zone 3, Eagle Rock-South Pasadena; Zone 5, North Hollywood; Zone 6, Panorama City; Zone 7, Rosemead-Monrovia; Zone 8, South Gate, and Zone 9, Sylmar.

BATTLING THE MEDFLY Los Angeles County will conduct aerial spraying of malathion tonight.

Area: 26 square miles encompassing South Pasadena and parts of Alhambra, El Sereno, Monterey Hills, Pasadena and San Marino from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.

Information: Toll-free numbers for the agricultural commissioner: (800) 356-2894, (800) 225-1346.