Deukmejian Defends Malathion Safety

Gov. George Deukmejian made an unprecedented trip to Pasadena City Hall on Thursday to face opponents of malathion, but left without convincing city officials that aerial spraying of the pesticide is safe.

“I know in my heart that what we are doing is not harmful to the people,” Deukmejian told reporters after meeting privately with city officials. “I am convinced it is the right thing to do and that there is no health danger for people in the areas where the applications are taking place.”

But officials from the cities of Pasadena and Glendale remained unmoved by the governor’s appeal and called on Deukmejian to halt the spraying until further studies of malathion can be conducted.

“We disagree respectfully with the governor,” said Pasadena City Board of Directors member Bill Paparian, adding that the city will continue attempting to enforce its emergency ordinance passed Wednesday prohibiting the helicopter flights. “We have a responsibility to protect the health and safety and the well-being of the citizens of Pasadena.”

Until now, the governor has kept his distance from the debate over the state’s effort to eradicate the Mediterranean fruit fly. But faced with mounting opposition, he hastily scheduled his meeting with local officials and waded into the controversy.

Deukmejian said “literally hundreds and hundreds of studies that have been done” show that malathion is safe in the doses now being sprayed over homes in parts of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties.

And he said that the state will continue spraying malathion, despite growing protests from citizens and local officials.

“I certainly would not proceed with any program of this kind if I thought there was the slightest danger to any citizen,” the governor said. “ . . . The best evidence is that we have used this method of eradicating the pest in the past and there hasn’t been any adverse impact on the public. Instead we have saved our agricultural industry.”

In particular, the governor referred to the spraying of malathion in the early 1980s over Santa Clara County.

The biggest casualty of that spraying was then-Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., who held off the use of malathion until the crop-destroying insect had had a chance to spread throughout much of the county. The delay angered California’s powerful agriculture industry, which helped defeat Brown in his 1982 U.S. Senate bid.

Deukmejian, who has learned Brown’s lesson, predicted dire consequences if the Medfly is not wiped out. Farmers would be forced to use larger amounts of stronger pesticides on their crops, he said. Prices for consumers would rise. And other states and foreign countries would quarantine California produce, throwing farm laborers out of work.

“It is a pest that could do great damage to the entire agriculture industry,” the Republican governor said. “I’m not going to let it get away from us.”

“Maybe we didn’t get out early enough to explain to the people . . . that there was no danger” from malathion, he said. “Now a lot of people have been convinced that there is some concern and so they have become very emotional.”

Earlier Thursday, the cities of Los Angeles, Glendale and Burbank and the Natural Resources Defense Council filed two suits in Los Angeles Superior Court in an attempt to stop the spraying.

But the governor predicted that legal actions by the cities, or the passage of ordinances such as Pasadena’s, will have no effect.

“The city does not have the authority to prevent the helicopters from flying over,” he said. “There have been other lawsuits that have been filed in the past and the courts have consistently supported the position taken by the state.”