Crop Region Quarantined for Medflies

In a significant escalation in the region’s battle with the Mediterranean fruit fly, state agriculture officials declared a quarantine Friday on crops grown within an 81-square-mile section of Riverside County.

The quarantine, which followed the trapping of a fruit fly in the midst of one of Southern California’s most bountiful orange-producing regions, marked the first time the 9-month-old infestation has directly threatened the state’s vast agricultural industry.

With the quarantine came the first tangible threat of a foreign embargo on some California produce. Also Friday, the trapping of two more flies in Los Angeles County was announced, further complicating state officials’ plan to conclude by May 9 the aerial applications of malathion over most infested residential neighborhoods.

The quarantine, expected by officials to be fully sanctioned Monday, encompasses a part of the Riverside County community of Woodcrest, where a Medfly was trapped Thursday in a commercial orange grove. Another fly had been discovered two weeks ago half a mile away.

A quarantine covering a 146-square-mile area of Orange County, from Santa Ana to Fullerton, has been in effect since January, a state official said. But signs announcing the quarantine were posted along county freeways only this week, including along the San Diego Freeway at Jamboree Road in Irvine, just south of the quarantine area.

The new signs, white with black letters, warn: “Entering Medfly Quarantine Area. No homegrown fruits or vegetables to enter area.”

Similar signs also warn those leaving the quarantined section that vegetables or fruit may not be taken outside the area.

Signs should have been posted much earlier, said Dee Suddoth, regulatory director with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, but officials used up all their supply of signs in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, “and we had to have more made.”

About 40 commercial growers, mostly producing tomatoes and peppers, plus some back-yard growers of citrus and avocados, have been most affected by the Orange County quarantine, she said.

But some of those growers are being allowed to sell their produce outside the quarantine area if they fumigate it or otherwise meet state rules certifying that it is free of pests, Suddoth said.

Since the quarantine was imposed, she said, a Whittier man has been fined $500 for twice selling his back-yard persimmons at a Fullerton farmers market, in deliberate violation of the quarantine.

State officials can impose fines up to $25,000 for “smuggling contraband” produce out of a quarantine area. But, said Gera Curry, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture, “if you simply tell us” that someone mistakenly took produce out of the area “and let us track it down, there will not be a penalty.”

Quarantine rules are complicated and can vary, so there was confusion Friday as to the specific impact of the state decision to enforce a quarantine in Riverside County.

Bill Sandige, program supervisor for interior quarantine for the state Department of Food and Agriculture, said growers within the quarantine zone will be allowed to sell fruit throughout the United States.

But he said several foreign countries--in particular Japan--will not accept any fruit from an infested area--no matter what post-harvest measures are taken to rid the crop of fruit flies.

“Japan won’t accept fruit from a quarantine area,” he said. “They will not do it.”

Hidemitsu Sasaya, agricultural attache at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, said Friday afternoon that he had not yet been briefed by state or federal agricultural officials about the Riverside quarantine and could not comment on how it will affect fruit exports.

“The Japanese have not taken any action in this area,” Sasaya said. “The quarantine is a U.S. and state decision. . . . The USDA made their own protocol, and the Japanese appreciate and respect it.”

Jim Wallace, Riverside County agricultural commissioner, said if the Japanese apply that policy to the Woodcrest quarantine, the results could be devastating.

“That could be the end of the world,” he said. “That’s (Japan) where the money is. It would be disastrous.”

Riverside County relies heavily on agriculture. An infestation could damage the county’s leading crops, among them oranges, dates, grapefruit and wine and table grapes. The citrus industry alone accounts for $175 million a year in gross sales.

Wallace said the quarantine, in one sense, comes at a fortuitous time for the industry. The year’s navel orange crop has already been picked, and the harvest of grapefruits and Valencia oranges will not peak until midsummer.

For fruit shipped from the quarantine zone to other parts of the United States, the strictest requirements will apply only to a one-square-mile infestation core. No fruit can be taken from that section until it has either been placed in cold storage or fumigated, post-harvest measures intended to destroy any larvae lurking in the fruit.

Wallace said the two alternatives will allow growers to market their crops, although at a higher cost.

Fruit growers in the remaining 80 square miles will be able to ship their fruit to other states, provided that they treat the crops with malathion or other pesticides before picking.

Agricultural officials, however, said Friday that they believe that the Japanese refusal to accept fruit from the quarantine zone would apply to all 81 square miles.

A formal quarantine order is expected to be issued Monday, but Isi Siddiqui, an assistant director of the state Department of Food and Agriculture, said that for all practical purposes, the quarantine has already begun.

“We’re determining the boundary lines now,” Siddiqui said Friday. “There’s no need for discussion. The quarantine is going to be in effect.”

There was hope that, in the lull between crops, the pest could be eradicated with malathion. The decision to spray groves and fields of commercial farms with malathion need not wait for state approval, unlike in residential neighborhoods. The farmers could theoretically begin spraying at once.

Even so, officials said it would take at least until July to eradicate the pest and lift the quarantine in time to harvest Valencia oranges and other later crops.

“If the farmers really get all the breaks, it’s nip and tuck whether eradication can be completed in time,” said Wallace, the Riverside County agricultural commissioner.

John Gless, owner of the property on which the first Riverside County fruit fly was found, said he will meet Monday with state agricultural officials to learn about their decision and map out plans.

“This is a shock,” said Gless, whose property line is about 100 feet from where the second fly was found. “Our reaction is disbelief that this could be happening.”

Gless, whose family-owned business grows oranges and grapefruit on several hundred acres, predicted that most of his Woodcrest operation would be included if an 81-square-mile quarantine is imposed.

“My hope is that if they kill the flies off in three generations, then we can harvest the Valencias late but still move them,” Gless said. “If we lost those Valencias, the economic consequences will be very heavy.”

As the Riverside County officials scrambled to assess the threat to agriculture, Los Angeles County Medfly eradicators were weighing options after the discovery of two more flies, this time in Walnut and Glendora.

A majority of the state’s panel of scientific advisers said Friday that they will recommend that Walnut, along with another possible infestation just south of Hancock Park, be sprayed up to two times with malathion, then treated with sterile flies, which are released by the millions in an effort to breed the fertile pests out of existence.

The Glendora discovery is just inside an area already being sprayed with malathion and may not force more sprayings, panel members said.

If the scientists’ recommendations are accepted, a total of five new spray zones will have been added to the aerial spraying campaign in just the last two weeks.

Times staff writers Lanie Jones and Stephanie Chavez contributed to this story.