COLUMN ONE : Malathion Foes Begin to Swarm : Garden Grove protesters lead fight against spraying. The opposition grows suddenly from mere local griping into an organized political movement.

Will Johnson was flipping television channels a few nights ago when he came across a City Council meeting, in progress. Councilmen were telling residents that they had little control over the state’s expanded attack on the Mediterranean fruit fly.

Incensed by their “cavalier” attitude, he rushed to the meeting to voice his fears about what malathion spraying might do to his wife and 3-year-old daughter.

So unfamiliar with local politics was the 34-year-old mortgage banker that he had to ask a police officer how to get to City Hall. But he made it there in time to wait in line behind more than 20 other residents outraged over the same concerns. They eventually persuaded the council to decide to sue the state.

Just two months ago, the complaints about spraying were barely an annoying buzz around the ears of state officials engrossed in their aggressive air campaign to combat the 372-square-mile Medfly infestation--the largest in Southern California’s history.

At the time, the only public official who took a stand against spraying was Monterey Park Mayor Pat Reichenberger, who peppered fly eradication officials with a barrage of complaints. At one demonstration in Orange County last month, just two people showed up.

Most politicians and residents in the Brea-La Habra-Fullerton area--hit four times with malathion since November--also seemed to accept state assertions that the spraying was safe and essential to guard the state’s $16-billion agriculture industry.

But in just the last few weeks, public opposition to malathion spraying has grown from a grumbling neighborhood affair to an increasingly organized political movement.

Now the spraying’s expansion into 36 square miles around Garden Grove and Westminster has sparked overflow council hearings and a boisterous protest of some 250 angry Garden Grove residents. On Thursday alone, the Orange County county Medfly hot lines were flooded with more than 1,900 calls and cities here have mounted Southern California’s first legal challenges to the malathion policy.

The protests here have gone beyond the traditional environmental activists who have rallied around the issue: the expanded Medfly campaign has drawn fire from people whose previous claims to activism consisted largely of an occasional glance at a voters’ ballot for a familiar-sounding name.

Some of these people suggest the government might not be telling the truth.

“When the public officials say this stuff is safe, I just don’t believe them; there is a certain feeling of distrust,” said Mollie Haines, 30.

Said Michael Balmages, chairman of the Orange County Democratic Party, which is opposing the spraying, “Why should we trust officials who told us DDT, Agent Orange, alar and all these other chemicals were safe. . . . We have reason to be skeptical; we’ve learned that government officials lie to us.”

A “full-time mom,” Haines is heading up the recently formed Garden Grove Residents Against Malathion Spraying and has met with agriculture officials and elected leaders to stop a policy that could mean up to a dozen malathion applications over the area by summer.

She says she felt moved to combat the spraying out of concern for her family and frustration over a lack of information from those in a position to know.

In protesting the pesticide, residents in the 36-square-mile spray zone around Garden Grove “are saying that they’re not going to be exposed to this malathion for 15 years and then find out it’s bad,” Haines said.

Spraying opponents also ask if decisions on where to spray are dictated by politics and influence, rather than science. The say they wonder why officials don’t spray Disneyland, or Bel-Air, or Laguna Beach.

State officials fear that this increasingly visible movement of politicians and neighborhood protesters--and in Los Angeles, celebrities--could force an end to spraying and allow the pesky Medfly to spread throughout the state--a disastrous prospect that they say would result in up to $200 million in crop losses, higher fruit prices and millions lost because of quarantines on California fruit.

Isi Siddiqui, assistant director of the state Department of Food and Agriculture, conceded that every time the helicopters take off for their nighttime forays, the state inches closer to losing the hearts and minds of the public below.

“Our hope is that before it gets there, we will be able to eradicate this thing and get out of L.A.,” he said.

Siddiqui believes that the Southern California Medfly war will be over by June.

But for opponents of aerial malathion spraying--who maintain that the pesticide, even in minute doses, can cause neurological damage, diarrhea, rashes and host of other ailments--it has already gone on for too long.

Southern California demonstrations in the last month have drawn up to 150 people, talk of a fruit boycott to protest the spraying is building and a savvy coalition of grass-roots groups has even set up a toll-free malathion hot line: 1-800-GO-TOXIN.

City councils in Huntington Beach, Garden Grove, Westminster, Brea, Cypress, Monterey Park and Duarte, as well as the Los Angeles and San Marino school boards, have taken formal action in just the last two weeks demanding an end to malathion spraying or urging the state to rely on alternatives.

Garden Grove, Huntington Beach and Westminster filed suit against the state Thursday, seeking an injunction against spraying in their cities that night. A Sacramento judge rejected the request, but the cities vowed to continue filing suits until the spraying stops.

“I knew it was an uphill battle,” said Marilyn Wiczynski, Garden Grove’s deputy city attorney. “But we’re not going to stop.”

In what has been the most serious political attack to date, state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) unveiled two bills Tuesday that would effectively stop the state’s aerial campaign by banning repeated malathion spraying and requiring proof of the safety and effectiveness of the pesticide.

While the bills face certain warfare in the Legislature, Torres said at least it sends a signal to spraying supporters and state bureaucrats that the easy days of spraying are over.

“This marks the end of our quiet frustration and resignation,” said Torres, chairman of the Senate Toxics and Public Safety Management Committee.

The anger over malathion spraying is nothing new to California.

Veterans of the 1980-82 Medfly war in Northern California recall helicopters being shot at by disgruntled homeowners, Red Cross evacuation centers being set up to shelter spray zone refugees, and even some residents sobbing in the street for fear of what malathion might do.

That infestation--still the largest in the state’s history--spread to over 1,496 square miles in eight counties and required as many as 24 sprayings in some spots.

Siddiqui, a veteran of that earlier Medfly war, said 17 cities officially banned aerial spraying over their turf during that infestation. The state went ahead and sprayed anyway.

The city of San Jose went so far as to ban state helicopters from its airport. The state then shifted its takeoffs and landings to a Catholic cemetery and kept the location secret for security reasons.

“I’ve seen demonstrations with 5,000 people,” said Siddiqui, adding that he has received only about 175 letters complaining about the current spraying program--a minor outcry compared to the Northern California Medfly war.

But Siddiqui’s boss, Food and Agriculture Director Henry J. Voss, said he is always concerned that the opposition could stop the spraying. With at least six more months of spraying to go, Voss said, there is plenty of time for outrage to build.

“Every time we do this, the temperature goes up,” he said.

Some agriculture lobbyists and government officials concede that they may have failed to get out their message about the safety and necessity of malathion.

“I’ll have to put some of the blame on people such as myself for failing to counter all the rhetoric and emotionalism over this issue,” said David Moore, president of the Irvine-based Western Growers Assn.

“We’re getting pounded from all angles,” he conceded.

Orange County Agricultural Commissioner James Harnett, who has overseen local malathion efforts, said “It makes our job that much more difficult. What’s happening is we have a lot of very serious, very concerned people being scared by some very non-factual information.

“When we go to these public meetings” on malathion, Harnett said, “there’s this aura from the people that ‘we believe the critics, but we can’t believe the professionals, the government, the EPA.’ It’s really discouraging.”

The department maintains that malathion is safe in the minute doses used in aerial spraying. In fact, state officials say, it’s safer than a standard pet flea collar.

Although some reviews are ongoing, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Health have both cleared the use of malathion for aerial spraying, saying that the amount used--about 2.4 ounces per acre--poses no significant danger to humans, Siddiqui said.

Malathion is a pesticide commonly used by the agricultural industry and home gardeners to kill such insects as aphids, red spider mites, mealybugs, leaf hoppers, fleas and houseflies. The warning label on a bottle of malathion spray cautions users not to swallow or inhale the pesticide in concentrated form.

But its defenders say that it is one of the safest pesticides in existence and, when diluted to the level used in aerial spraying, is harmless to humans.

In 1981, B. T. Collins, then director of the California Conservation Corps, tried to drive that point home by drinking a glass of diluted malathion for reporters.

The mere mention of Collins’ performance today evokes sighs of pity from anti-malathion protesters. “God, I hope he wasn’t planning on having children,” one said recently.

The passage of nine years has only intensified opposition to aerial spraying, which took place in parts of Southern California in 1980, 1981 and 1982 and again in 1987, 1988, 1989 and now in spreading in 1990.

Opponents of aerial malathion spraying say that while people may be willing to accept occasional fly wars, four straight years have been enough to raise doubts about the efficiency and safety of the sprayings.

Since the discovery of a single Medfly in Los Angeles’ Elysian Park last July 20, about 50 cities have been sprayed, some as many as four times, according to eradication program spokeswoman Anita Brown.

Affected areas are now sprayed every 21 days, but that will jump to every 15 days in April, and then every seven days in June if the infestation continues. State officials figure that some cities may be sprayed as many as 12 times by the end of June.

“I think the state has got to come through and say that there is a deadline,” said Pasadena Mayor William Thomson. “If they don’t do that, we, like a lot of other cities, will reach the saturation point and say, ‘No more.’ ”

Few among the opposition community claim to have the expertise to say that malathion is dangerous; but at the same time, most say they have not seen enough information to be assured that it’s safe.

“We want to send a message to Sacramento that they’re coming in here with a shortage of answers and a cavalier attitude, and really creating this hysteria,” said Orange County Supervisor Harriett Wieder, who plans to meet with state and local officials.

Wieder is just one of several local politicians who have changed their positions on malathion in recent weeks. In an early vote, she favored the county’s emergency declaration in support of the state’s spraying policy. She abstained from the vote last week and said she will vote against the declaration when it comes up for renewal in less than two weeks.

Analysts say the political risks of lining up on the wrong side of the Medfly issue may be high, prompting quick declarations of opposition in recent weeks from municipal, county and state officials around Orange County.

Said Garden Grove City Councilman J. Tilman Williams, who has spoken out against the spraying: “The only issue I can think of that compares to this one was when were thinking of putting fluoride in the waters a few years ago, and that was really mild next to this.”

At least six cities have passed measures against spraying since Monterey Park Mayor Reichenberger began her campaign in November. Officials in Anaheim, Laguna Beach, West Hollywood, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Norwalk, Monrovia and Burbank are also considering various actions in the next few weeks.

As a sign of the building momentum, even cities that haven’t had a single drop of malathion fall on their soil, such as Pomona, have jumped in.

“If they can’t prove it’s safe, we don’t want to be guinea pigs down here,” said Pomona Mayor Donna Rice, who has already sent a letter of protest to the state.

HIGH-PROFILE HELP--Stars come out to help draw more attention to cause. A31