Malathion Foes Fear Anger May Be Waning : Medfly: Frustrated protest organizers say they may pursue more drastic measures, such as fruit boycotts and acts of civil disobedience.

The children brandishing signs, the dire speeches and the honks from supportive drivers passing by were reminiscent of the massive anti-malathion demonstrations here in weeks past. But on Thursday, a smaller crowd of only about 100 protesters battling the area’s third pesticide dousing told a different story.

“I just don’t know what happened,” Mollie Haines, an organizer of Orange County Citizens Against Malathion Spraying, said as she surveyed the crowd at the corner of Garden Grove and Harbor boulevards.

And so, disappointed organizers were left to wonder whether the initial public fury that greeted the state’s Mediterranean fruit fly campaign in Orange County has given way to reluctant acceptance by local residents.

Add to the low turnout a few no-shows at an earlier anti-malathion press conference and a relatively calm day at the county’s Medfly hot line and the result was a downcast mood among the once-buoyant anti-malathion camp.

A similar protest last month had drawn some 400 people, helping to cap a flurry of packed city council meetings, angry letters and legal challenges around the Southland that had put the state on the defensive over its $30-million effort to wipe out the Medfly.

“There’s almost a sense of lost hope,” said malathion critic Kent Salholm, a local chiropractor and Garden Grove Chamber of Commerce director. “When you try all these legal means and public protests and nothing works, it’s tough to keep people going.”

Frustrated Orange County protest organizers said they may now pursue more drastic measures, such as fruit boycotts and acts of civil disobedience during malathion applications, to try to stop the sprayings. They are also beginning letter-writing campaigns aimed at state legislators who have backed the Medfly campaign.

Some 40 people at a temporary shelter in Anaheim, however, weren’t worrying about the future of the anti-malathion movement. They were just happy to have a roof over their heads for the night’s aerial application.

“When they sprayed here before, I was sleeping out at Pioneer Park (in Garden Grove) and it was awful,” said 44-year-old Jeanne Davi as she sipped coffee and leaned on an old Army cot. “It was very hard to breathe, and my eyes were watering. I was all itchy, too.”

State officials, proclaiming the safety of the malathion applications, have consistently maintained that they have no obligation to provide homeless shelters during the sprayings. The Legal Aid Society of Orange County took the state to court over the issue but lost in federal court this week in a bid to force the openings of homeless shelters on spray nights.

But the Crystal Cathedral, working with the county and its homeless task force, stepped in after the court ruling and agreed to open the doors of a ministry building it owns in Anaheim.

“I’m just glad to have someplace,” said 27-year-old Jim York. “I’d be back out in the parks getting sprayed with this stuff if it weren’t for this.”

Helicopters from the Medfly project headquarters in El Monte hit Orange County as scheduled about 9 p.m. Thursday and began spraying nearly all of Garden Grove, about half of Westminster, and parts of seven other neighboring cities that are home to an estimated 400,000 people. The region’s next application is scheduled March 29.

Meanwhile, a second and smaller Orange County area that includes parts of Brea, La Habra and Fullerton has been rescheduled for its fifth spraying tonight after high winds scuttled plans earlier this week. The next application in that area is set March 26.

State officials have said that more than a million Southland residents in spray areas in Orange and Los Angeles counties can expect about 10 to 12 aerial applications in all, coming perhaps once a week by summer. But in recent weeks, state officials have hinted that new supplies of sterile Medflies, an alternative method for fighting the pest, may bring an earlier end to the sprayings in some areas.