COLUMN ONE : U.S. Faces the Year of the Locusts : Or cicadas, killer bees, Medflies, fire ants, aphids and meat-eating yellow jackets. Across the nation, bugs are booming.

Southern Californians who believe that 10 months of Medflies, malathion and helicopters have been rough should consider the plight of Big Foot, Ill. Last week, millions of sausage-sized bugs called cicadas emerged after 17 years underground, covering the town and surrounding countryside in a crunchy carpet of wailing insects.

Or how about the poor people of Brownsville, Tex.? There, after years of “killer bee” headlines and occasional spottings, the long-feared Africanized honey bee finally is to arrive in force this summer. Consider, too, the plight of South Lake Tahoe, where the Chamber of Commerce, bracing for an onslaught of meat-eating yellow jackets, has distributed kits of poisoned canned fish to kill off the pest.

Add to the list munching armies of Mormon crickets in Nevada, fire ants in Texas and 11 other states, Medflies in Florida and, back in Los Angeles, the worst aphid infestation in a decade, and it all adds up to one creepy-crawly year.

There are many reasons. Dry weather in the West, cyclical insect population explosions in the Midwest and other entomological mysteries have all contributed to this unnerving confluence of bug outbreaks across the nation.

There are few, if any, direct connections between the infestations, but some entomologists find common themes in the uncommon outbreaks. For example, they say that concerns about pesticide usage have complicated eradication strategies. Also, exotic bugs once confined to faraway lands are hitching rides into this country, and officials concede that there is no way to keep the gate shut tight.

“It’s a symptom of our times,” said Roy Cunningham, a U.S. Department of Agriculture entomologist and one of the world’s top experts on the Medfly. “We’re all exchanging our diseases and insects.”

He and others said that the sheer variety of this year’s outbreaks, coupled with a growing public awareness of the costs and effects of the various onslaughts, have placed insects in the limelight as never before. Entomologists, who once spent entire careers laboring in obscurity in bug-filled laboratories, have found themselves thrust into the public arena with the livelihoods of farmers and city dwellers hinging on their decisions.

Cunningham, chairman of the scientific panel guiding the Medfly eradication in California, said he cannot recall a time when he has been attacked, praised and pursued in such a frenzied manner.

“Mother never told me it would be like this,” he said.

Cunningham is one of five scientists advising the state as it attempts to eradicate the Medfly from Southern California, perhaps the most visible of several such campaigns being waged nationally against various pests.

That the Southland finds itself on the front lines of bug battles is not surprising. In the last few years, it has become the nation’s unofficial exotic pest capital. Three years ago, agricultural officials in California reported finding eight different types of exotic fruit flies in Los Angeles and Orange counties; the bugs hail from as far away as Pakistan, Thailand and equatorial Africa.

There was even one fly found that experts still have not been able to identify. The only place in the world it has been recorded is Los Angeles.

“It’s the final irony in how whacked-out things have become,” said Eric Fisher, one of the state entomologists in charge of identifying exotic pests.

As entomologists scramble to meet the threats from Medflies, cicadas and the like, they have been forced to contend with increasing environmental and health concerns. For example, protests against repeated malathion spraying in Southern California have spooked state officials to the point where some worry that even a single urban pesticide spraying soon will be politically impossible.

Some of science’s best weapons against insects, such as DDT, the old backbone of mosquito eradication, have been banned for years because of damaging environmental effects. Government regulations to protect water and air have also restricted the use of chemicals against pests.

“The rules of the game have completely changed,” Cunningham said. “We have so much more to deal with today.”

The concerns about pesticide use and science’s increasing understanding of its effects have forced officials into a delicate balancing act between the risks to agriculture and the public health risks. There are often no clear answers.

“It’s so much harder today,” said UC Davis entomologist Richard Rice, another member of the Medfly Science Advisory Panel. “We can’t just give up and go back to nature, but we also have to be concerned about the health and ecological effects. We all wish sometimes for simpler days.”

In the meantime, there seems to

be no shortage of pests. Farmers in 32 states are now operating under federal quarantines for various pest infestations. One of the most worrisome pests is the Medfly.

Since the first introduction of the Medfly to California in 1975, outbreaks have come so frequently that scientists are no longer sure if this current infestation--the biggest ever in Southern California--is a new introduction or simply a continuation of past outbreaks.

Entomologists figure that the pest originally was brought into the United States by travelers or immigrated in a package of infested fruit from Asia, Africa or Central America. Those countries were infested in the same way years ago by the Medfly, whose ancestral home is in North Africa.

The state has mounted a $36-million campaign of malathion spraying and sterile fly releases to control its spread.

Sometime this summer, the king of the exotic pests--the tabloid’s “killer bee”--is expected to reach the United States after three decades of migrating through Latin America. The bee originally was brought from Africa to Brazil in the 1950s by a geneticist, hoping to breed a better variety of bee. Instead, 26 swarms escaped and their progeny have been moving northward ever since.

The bees have been migrating at a pace of about 200 miles a year and last year, several swarms were trapped about 150 miles south of Brownsville, located at the southern tip of the state.

“They’ll be here,” said Dan Clair, an entomologist with the Texas Department of Agriculture facing a double-barrelled infestation from Africanized honey bees and fire ants from Brazil. “There’s no way to stop them, really.”

Clair said that, like many other exotic pests, the Africanized honey bees have been helped in their migration by environments that are more civilized than their natural habitats.

“They have evolved in the tough environment of the tropics,” he said, “and then you put them in Beverly Hills. They just take off.”

Clair said the prospect of living with the “killer bee” is not as horrifying as the name suggests. While the Africanized bee is more aggressive than others, they won’t attack unless provoked.

“There are people panicking for no reason,” Clair said. “It’s just unnecessary. That’s what worries me.”

At the same time, there have been cases of lethal attacks by swarms of Africanized bees along its migratory route.

Home-grown pest outbreaks can be equally unnerving. One of the biggest bug explosions of the year took place last week in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois with the emergence of a bug called the cicada.

The cicada, which can grow in length to 1 1/2 inches, is a black-bodied, orange-winged and red-eyed flying creature that lives for 17 years--the longest life span of any known insect.

In one of nature’s strangest spectacles, this particular cicada spends almost all its life underground, only to emerge at the end for a monthlong orgy of sex and egg laying. No cicadas are seen again in the area until another 17 years have passed.

“They’ve been doing it for as long as we can tell,” said Ed Arnold, an entomologist with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture. “No one knows why.”

Fortunately, the pest is no threat to agriculture. But the male cicadas have a loud mating call that in chorus becomes a deafening, buzzing whine.

“It’s the most maddening thing,” Arnold said. “You think there’s something wrong with your ears.

“They make a pretty good splat on your windshield too,” he added.

Given its mysterious life cycle and the brief but intense havoc the bug can create when it emerges, newspapers and television stations have been vigorous in their coverage of the cicada onslaught. The emergence process was reported like an approaching typhoon. The Chicago Sun-Times has even set up a cicada hot line, which the newspaper says receives at least 60 calls a day. One publication presented cicada recipes (sauteed in butter is popular).

Arnold said no steps are taken to control the cicada, as they pose no threat to agriculture.

Elsewhere in the nation, agricultural officials have found themselves facing potentially threatening infestations that could take years or even decades to eradicate.

Consider the case of the voracious, two-inch-long Mormon cricket, which since the beginning of March has been pouring out of the mountains of northeastern Nevada in roving bands that stretch as long as 10 miles. The cricket infestation is Nevada’s largest since the 1930s and now covers about 700,000 acres. If the infestation continues to grow, Nevada’s $66-million hay crop could be chewed to pieces.

Sixty years ago, cricket eradication crews stalked the land, dumping a lethal mixture of lime and arsenic to kill the pest. It took nearly 15 years before the outbreak subsided. This time around, eradication workers have largely relied on ground treatment with wheat bran laced with an insecticide called carbaryl to kill the bug.

Aerial spraying is less costly and more effective, but federal regulations prohibit spraying within 500 feet of water, ruling out the technique in the mountain canyons, which are filled with natural springs and streams.

“Right now, we’re just putting out fires,” one Nevada official said.

Dick Rowe, a deputy director in the Nevada State Department of Agriculture, said the Mormon cricket outbreak probably was caused by four years of drought. Rain and cold weather in the spring is usually enough to chop down the number of crickets, but this year’s mild weather has allowed the bug population to explode.

Rowe said eradication workers have been scrambling to keep the bugs off Interstate 80 and out of towns, such as Winnemucca, although they pose no serious threat to humans.

“You know, people will freak out,” Rowe said. “They’re long, black and as big as your thumb. That’s a problem.”

While pesticide spraying can wipe out troublesome infestations, it can create problems of its own. Kenneth Hagen, professor of entomology at UC Berkeley, said some of the worst insect outbreaks he can remember occurred in the 1940s and 1950s with the increased use of DDT.

The insecticide killed the pests it was after, but it also killed plenty of other varieties, upsetting the delicate ecological systems that naturally contain bug populations.

“Those were really spectacular years for outbreaks,” Hagen said, recalling the hordes of spider mites and aphids that burst across the country.

Entomologists believe that this year’s malathion spraying campaign in Southern California has had a similar affect in unleashing the region’s worst aphid infestation in a decade.

They blame the infestation on the absence of lady bugs, lacewings and tiny wasps--aphid predators that have been devastated by malathion spraying.

UC Riverside entomologist Robert Luck added that there is always the danger that increased pesticide spraying will only create a poison-resistant strain of super bugs, which in many cases in the past has led to a vicious cycle of more and more pesticide use with less and less effect.

“You can expect resistance at some point,” he said. “It’s probably just a matter of time.”

Entomologists said that despite the variety of infestations across the country, the size and number of outbreaks is nothing to panic about.

“These things come and go,” Hagen said.

YEAR OF THE BUGS

Yellow jackets ( Vespula pensylvanica and Vespula vulgaris ) -- Lake Tahoe is bracing for what entomologists expect to be one of the worst yellow jacket attacks in years. The South Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce has begun passing out free bug traps. Locals say it only takes a few days for a swarm of the meat-eating bugs to polish off a can of fish.

Mormon cricket ( Anabrus simplex ) -- 700,000 acres in northeast Nevada have been infested with the Mormon cricket, which began pouring out of the mountains in March. The bugs can grow to the size of a church mouse and have been roaming around Winnemucca and Interstate 80 in bands up to 10 miles long.

Periodical cicada ( Magicicada septendecim ) -- Southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois have been inundated with the once-every-17-year emergence of the cicada. The bug can grow to an inch-and-a-half long and fills the area with a buzzing whine as it partakes of a monthlong orgy of sex and egg laying.

Red imported fire ants ( Solenopsis invicta ) -- The ferocious fire ant, originally from South America, has already infested much of the Southeast. In the past two years, entomologists have discovered that ant colonies have unexpectedly evolved into having multiple queens, leading to far greater insect densities. The pest is eventually expected to spread to California.

Mexican fruit fly ( Anastrepha ludens ) -- If having the Medfly around wasn’t bad enough, now the Mexfly has struck. The state has begun aerial malathion spraying in El Cajon in San Diego County and in Compton.

Mediterranean fruit fly ( Ceratitis capitata ) -- Outbreaks in Florida and California have made the Medfly the most notorious pest in the country this year. Only 270 of the tiny flies have been trapped in California in 10 months, but at least $36 million has been spent trying to eradicate the bug.

Africanized honeybee ( Apis mellifera scutellata ) -- Watch out! After years of screaming tabloid headlines, the “killer” bee is finally expected to cross into the United States this summer somewhere near Brownsville, Tex.