NORTH COUNTY : More North County Medfly Dousing Due

State officials on Tuesday scheduled two more aerial pesticide sprayings in January for the North County neighborhoods that surround a guava tree in Brea where a Mediterranean fruit fly was trapped last month.

Parts of La Habra, Fullerton and Brea, covering about nine square miles in Orange County, will be doused by helicopter with a mixture of malathion and insect bait on the nights of Jan. 2 and Jan. 22, officials said.

It will be the third and fourth sprayings for most of the the Orange County region since late November. The area could be hit as many as a dozen times through the summer as part of the state’s new multiple-spraying policy, aimed at containing a problem that scientists say could be out of control.

The announcement of a schedule for sprayings through January held no surprises, but it could help to reduce some complaints from residents who said they were confused about the time and place for past treatments.

In a further effort to reduce confusion, state officials now plan to send out mailers to 699,000 residents around the Southland who live in spray areas, notifying them of the January schedule. That includes more than 30,000 homes and businesses in Orange County.

The Southland spray region includes 277 square miles in nine separate areas, most of which are residential. In Los Angeles County, the spraying will take place in North Hollywood, Glendora and the Downey-Norwalk area.

The schedule for spraying beyond January will depend on the weather. State and local agricultural officials said Tuesday that they expect to spray in the infested areas every 21 days during cold weather, stepping up the frequency as the temperatures rise and the Medfly life expectancy shortens. By spring, helicopters may be spraying malathion once every seven to 10 days.

Agricultural officials, acknowledging they may have underestimated the severity of the current problem, say the multiple sprayings are needed to avoid a repeat of the 1981 epidemic. The Medfly, which lays its eggs in more than 250 different types of produce, cost the state agriculture industry millions of dollars in lost goods that year. By some estimates, the infestation also cost then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. his political standing because of his failure to respond quickly.

In Los Angeles, meanwhile, an umbrella group called the Coalition Against Urban Spraying began organizing this week to try and persuade local politicians to abandon the spraying policy. They assert that the malathion treatments pose both safety and environmental threats.

Despite repeated expressions of concern from the public, state officials insist the malathion pesticide mixture, in the low doses used in the aerial applications, poses no health threat.