Eclectic Group of Opponents Finds a Common Foe in Medfly Spraying : Tactics: They have reputations for civil disobedience, but now they’re using conventional means to coalesce opposition to the use of malathion.

One of the San Fernando Valley’s leading anti-malathion activists once stole 100 news racks to protest the display of child pornography after her former fiance used the likeness of a family member to illustrate an erotic novel about incest.

Another prominent local opponent of aerial spraying is the financial backer of a radical animal rights group whose tactics include disrupting hospital meetings and blockading kennels.

Despite their different backgrounds, Burbank housewife Adelaide Nimitz, 51, and Encino actor Michael Bell, 51, share a common dedication to stopping the state’s aggressive air campaign against the 372-square-mile infestation of Medflies--this time through more prosaic means, such as rallies and letter-writing campaigns.

“Maybe 20 years ago I would have chained myself to a helicopter or something,” Nimitz said. “But when you do stuff like that you discredit the cause.”

“I have to be free to be the money man,” Bell said. “And, besides, my wife would never stand for it.”

Bell and Nimitz are in the vanguard of an eclectic group of Valley residents who have joined forces to raise public awareness of what they say are the dangerous health effects of repeated malathion sprayings. Their headquarters is in the dining room of Nimitz’s modest Burbank home, where volunteers gather daily to answer dozens of phone calls that come from across the Southland over a toll-free malathion hot line--1-800-GO-TOXIN--that Bell paid $600 to have installed.

“It’s driving me crazy,” Nimitz’s 19-year-old son, David, said recently, referring to the four phones, anti-malathion bumper stickers and hundreds of scraps of paper that have invaded his home like the infestation that has made the group so active.

Despite the disruption, Nimitz said, her home will remain “Medfly Central” until the spraying stops. “When I get a cause, I’m relentless,” she said. “Especially when I get calls from people who are crying because they’re so sick or outraged about this.”

Since the discovery of a single Medfly in Elysian Park last July 20, about 50 cities have been sprayed, some as many as five times, according to officials with the state and federal Cooperative Medfly Project, which is overseeing the eradication effort.

In the Valley, helicopters bearing malathion have doused at least 50 square miles, including Burbank, Glendale, Sylmar, North Hollywood, Panorama City and parts of Van Nuys, said Marlene Stinson, a spokeswoman for the Cooperative Medfly Project.

In the last few weeks, opposition to the spraying has surged, not in small part because of the efforts of Bell and Nimitz, who use the hot line to help rally support for demonstrations held by a wide network of neighborhood groups in the Southland opposed to the spraying.

“I’d say that ‘well-intentioned, but misguided’ is as good a way as any to describe them,” said Los Angeles Agricultural Commissioner Leon Spaugy, referring to the activists. “We recognize that the bait is a nuisance and that in their opinion it’s an invasion of privacy and causes a high amount of anxiety, but we go along with the health experts in the field of epidemiology, who say it doesn’t pose a significant health risk.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Health have cleared the use of malathion for aerial spraying, saying that the amount used--about 2.4 ounces per acre--poses no significant health danger to humans, said Isi Siddiqui, assistant director of the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

But the public is still extremely concerned about the effects of the pesticide and has little faith in the government to protect health, said Philip Jacobs, an epidemiology analyst for Los Angeles County. “Some of these citizens groups are doing their best to keep the public informed, but others just excite people with the wrong information,” Jacobs said.

But Bell said he and Nimitz will continue using the hot line to help organize rallies and to field calls from worried residents until the spraying ceases.

“They are the ones lying,” he said.

Bell does not live in a spray zone. His gated Encino estate, which is dotted with life-size bronze statues of deer, horses and other animals whose rights he has championed, is miles from the East Valley, where the spraying has occurred. But Bell said he became concerned about malathion in January after a friend telephoned in tears because she said her little girl was nauseated after the spraying.

Immediately galvanized into action by the call, Bell hosted an open house for 80 people at his Southwest-style home. The idea for a hot line was born at the gathering, and Bell, a successful voice animator who plays such cartoon characters as the Smurfs, offered to donate the initial $600 installation fee as well as to pay thousands of dollars in expected monthly bills.

“There’s a certain amount of responsibility that goes along with power,” Bell said. “The whole thing just doesn’t make sense. There haven’t been enough studies on malathion, and yet they’re spraying first and putting the burden of proof on the public to show it’s unsafe.”

Bell has been involved in political causes before. He said he funds Last Chance for Animals, an advocacy group that two years ago clashed with security guards at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where animal research was being performed. Bell was not involved in the incident, but said he has helped the group buy chains so members could tie themselves together at kennels to protest the sale of animals to research labs.

Bell also said he helped disrupt a meeting at a San Bernardino County hospital, where the group showed a film made by activists who broke into the hospital to record how animals were being treated there.

“If they were spraying me and my family, I can’t say what I would do under duress,” Bell said. “I might consider chaining myself to a helicopter or even warning the pilot and then shooting it down. But I wouldn’t do it as a political statement, but just for self-protection.”

On the other hand, Nimitz, who lives in a spray zone, said she has ruled out engaging in violence or acts of civil disobedience to protest the spraying. However, in 1981 she and other members of a Studio City crime prevention group rented a truck and took 100 news racks displaying sexually explicit material. They were arrested on suspicion of malicious mischief, but the charges were dropped.

About seven months earlier, Nimitz had sued Warner Books Inc. for publishing “The Next,” a novel that featured the likeness of a family member on the cover. The cover’s illustrator, Nimitz’s former finance, had superimposed the youngster’s image on a drawing of a man having sex with his aunt.

In 1983, Nimitz ran for City Council on an anti-crime platform against Joel Wachs, coming in fifth out of six candidates. That year she also won a $20,000 settlement from Warner Books Inc. on behalf of her relative.

“I was outraged about child pornography before any of that happened for a lot of reasons,” Nimitz said. “You don’t have to be personally affected to care. I’m not a chemically sick person, but I care about this spraying.”

The anti-malathion movement has attracted others, unlike Bell and Nimitz, who have never been politically active before. For instance, Nancy Grossi, a North Hollywood costume designer who describes herself as “one of those people who usually sits on the sidelines,” said she phoned the hot line after seeing the number on a TV news show. Since then, she has become an avid proponent of other alternatives to spraying--including the use of sterile flies--and has spent $400 to copy flyers that oppose the spraying.

“At first I wasn’t alarmed, but then I got flu-like symptoms,” Grossi said. “You can only sit there so long and say, ‘Someone else will take care of the problem.’ ”