Feinstein and Van de Kamp Call for Spraying Halt

Democratic candidate for governor Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday called for an end to aerial malathion spraying against the Medfly. And she said her Democratic opponent, Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, should cease carrying out any duties as attorney for the government in the matter.

Feinstein, former mayor of San Francisco, said the spraying has gone on long enough. And if she were governor, she continued, she would stop it now.

“Urban malathion has demonstrated in terms of city environment it is harmful,” she said.

Van de Kamp responded that if he were governor, he too would halt the spraying.

“It hasn’t worked and it’s time to stop,” he said.

But he said he would continue to represent the pro-spraying policies of Republican Gov. George Deukmejian in court “because he has the legal right to implement his policy.”

Feinstein did not accept that reasoning. She noted that on other issues, whether a logging controversy on the North Coast or implementation of an anti-toxics initiative, Democratic Van de Kamp has declined to represent the policies of Republican Deukmejian.

“The time has come, Mr. Attorney General, if you are opposed to urban malathion spraying, to say, ‘Governor, I cannot in good conscience support you,’ and then withdraw.”

Feinstein once supported limited spraying with the condition that it be halted at a date certain. The state did set a deadline but has now exceeded it. Van de Kamp had held a similar position. Tuesday was the first time either has called for an immediate end to the flights of helicopters.

Sen. Pete Wilson, the Republican who one of the Democrats will meet in November, has supported the state’s spraying program.

“This is not simply a threat to California agriculture,” Wilson told reporters last week. “(It) is a threat to the entire nation.”

Wilson said he backs the spraying of “dilute malathion”--adding that if state officials were to abandon the spraying program, federal agriculture officials would be pressured to pick up the slack.

Wilson won his Senate seat in a 1982 contest with former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., whose reputation suffered when he held off spraying malathion during a Northern California infestation in the early 1980s.