State Loses Bid to Force Open Fullerton Airport to Malathion Helicopters

An Orange County court commissioner Tuesday refused to force open Fullerton Municipal Airport to malathion-spraying helicopters, dealing the state its first legal setback in its 10-month aerial attack on the Mediterranean fruit fly in Southern California.

Disappointed, but undaunted, by the ruling, state agriculture officials promised to find someplace else to use as a base in time for tonight’s scheduled applications around Garden Grove and Panorama City. They also will consider appealing the ruling.

Medfly Project officials, forced out of their former home at El Monte Airport last week by noise complaints from neighbors, sought to move their operations to the Fullerton facility for at least three more rounds of malathion sprayings in Orange and Los Angeles counties, scheduled to last through mid-June.

But the idea met with protest from Fullerton city officials, who complained about noise and safety concerns at an airport that already has drawn demands for closure from some critics following several plane crashes there.

Henry Voss, director of the state Department of Food and Agriculture, responded last Friday with a terse letter to the Fullerton mayor that pointed out the state’s broad emergency powers and reminded city leaders of their obligations as “responsible officials.”

That set up Tuesday’s show down in Santa Ana Superior Court.

Lawyers for the state, as well as Fullerton and Buena Park, which has often complained about safety problems at the neighboring Fullerton airport, waited anxiously for 3 1/2 hours as court Commissioner Julian Cimbaluk read legal arguments in chambers.

Finally, about 5 p.m., Cimbaluk’s clerk emerged to announce that the commissioner had refused the state’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have forced officials to open the airport to Medfly helicopters.

Cimbaluk said in his brief decision that the state had not shown enough of an emergency to warrant such an order before a hearing could be set to explore the issue further.

Cimbaluk set another hearing for June 8, only five days before Medfly Project officials had hoped to spray Compton for the final round of malathion applications in Southern California.

Asked minutes after Tuesday’s decision what the state would do, Medfly Project Deputy Director Don Henry responded bluntly: “Spray.” Both he and Robert Fox, the chief deputy director of the agriculture department in Sacramento, said they do not believe the ruling will prompt any delay in tonight’s spraying or in any future aerial applications.

State agriculture officials will confer this morning to discuss whether several other potential airport sites can be used and whether they should appeal Cimbaluk’s ruling, officials said.

“We’re going to be doing some scrambling to figure out what to do now,” Fox said.

Added Henry: “As far as I know, we’re still going to spray. . . . I’m not going to wait” until the June 8 hearing.

He added that barring a successful appeal, the state would abide by the effect of Cimbaluk’s ruling and scrap plans to move their helicopters into the Fullerton airport by late this afternoon.

“We don’t like to do anything by brute force,” Henry said.

Fullerton attorneys made clear that they were not criticizing the spraying itself--only the “haphazard” way in which they said the state had gone about switching its malathion airport operations on such short notice.

State officials said they looked at six other airports besides Fullerton--in Long Beach, Burbank, Huntington Beach, Santa Monica, Los Alamitos and Sylmar. But for reasons such as restrictions on nighttime flying, none of those airports worked out, Henry said.

MEDFLY SPRAYING MAP: B2