State Bombs Away--Forever and a Day : Malathion Spraying Policy Lacks Vision
Ah, summertime--peaches ripen until fruit tree branches sag with the weight of nature’s candy. It’s a small but certain pleasure.
But there’s an unpleasant seasonal inevitability that occurs in Southern California now: the outbreak of more Mediterranean fruit flies, more pesticide spraying and more self-delusion from agriculture officials.
Medfly outbreaks have become fairly predictable. Discoveries of the fly follow a warm-weather pattern. Since 1975, when the first state infestation occurred, 69% of the Medflies have been trapped in August, September and October, says James R. Carey, a UC Davis entomologist and state adviser. Carey believes that the pest has never been fully eradicated.
Indeed the latest find was in a peach tree near Dodger Stadium, just blocks from a Medfly discovery a year ago in another peach tree. That trapping set in motion a series of malathion sprayings that turned into a regional pesticide assault by the end of last year. Now the spraying will resume today in parts of downtown and Northeast Los Angeles.
Each time the Medfly reappears, the state treats the problem as an emergency, falsely connoting an unpredictable occurrence. But the findings of new Medflies have become a matter of when, not if: So why doesn’t the state face that and prepare accordingly?
The implications of admitting an ongoing infestation of the crop-destroying pest are serious. State officials and farmers have warned of the potentially grave economic effects of quarantines and embargoes if the Medfly is not eradicated. Agricultural economists at UC Berkeley are in the process of completing a report that should spell out the full impact on the state economy of an established Medfly population.
But in the meantime, state officials remain oh-so-very hopeful that the recent find of only a single fly is proof that their program is working. And they’re counting on more malathion and more sterile flies to finish off the infestation.
But in considering the economic impact of an established Medfly infestation, one also has to consider the price of continuing the battle in the present crisis mode. As of June 1, the spray-as-you-go campaign had cost taxpayers $36 million and showered them with 47,000 gallons of malathion.
Yet, the state Department of Food and Agriculture’s proposed budget shows no major change in priorities. The department’s way of categorizing programs makes it difficult to assess how it spends its anti-pest budget, but an Assembly Office of Research study attempted to draw a conclusion that makes sense. And in spite of the obvious merits of research and prevention, budget emphasis has remained on eradication.
A bill scheduled to be heard in a Senate committee today, AB 4161, would help shift state policy toward more planning and a more environmentally sensitive approach. In the meantime, state Medfly officials, who know that summer comes every year, need to think about what summer inevitably brings with it.
