L.A. Plea Fails; City Sprayed for Medflies

Los Angeles city officials failed Thursday to obtain a court order blocking aerial malathion applications over much of downtown. As a result, the state began spraying high-rises and Skid Row sidewalks alike later in the night.

After a brief afternoon hearing, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John Zebrowski ruled that the city had failed to prove that the mixture of malathion and fly bait used by the state posed a significant health risk.

State officials, concerned about a rapid resurgence of the pest after a relatively long dormant period, launched a squadron of helicopters over 14 square miles--an area that stretched from Silver Lake to Little Tokyo.

Just before the helicopters lifted off shortly before 9 p.m., City Councilman Joel Wachs, who has led the city’s charge against the state’s spraying campaign, appeared at Van Nuys Airport to confront the state crews, who he said were in violation of an ordinance banning the use of airports within the city for malathion spraying. The helicopters, with state police officers standing by, took off despite Wachs’ protests.

“It’s illegal,” Wachs said Thursday night from the airport. “They can’t do this.”

Isi Siddiqui, assistant director of the state Department of Food and Agriculture, responded: “They don’t have the authority to interfere with us. This is a state operation. We’ll be in court if they were interfering with us.”

“We’re operating off of a private facility here and we’ve made arrangements through the Van Nuys Airport. They gave us a list of private companies that operate out of the airport and as long as we have permission from a private company, we were not actually using the L.A. city property,” Don Henry of the agriculture department added.

The state also will start spraying Monday over 16 square miles in Rosemead and 15 square miles around Glassell Park because of three Medfly discoveries in the last week.

They also announced the discovery of a new Medfly, an immature female, in Sherman Oaks. While no decision has been made about whether to spray the San Fernando Valley community, state policy calls for pesticide sprayings after even a single fly is trapped. Sherman Oaks has not been sprayed in the current infestation.

The reappearance of the pest, considered a threat to the state’s agriculture, has stirred anew a long-running debate over whether the controversial malathion spraying will work.

The spray zone, which had shrunk to nothing earlier this month, now appears ready to expand again across Southern California, according to some of the state’s scientific advisers.

The decision in Superior Court clears the way for the state to meet the summer Medfly outbreaks with a strengthened legal hand and more ammunition to support its claim that malathion spraying poses no significant health risk.

The city had sought to show that the malathion mixture contained levels of lead, chromium and nickel in excess of amounts allowed under Proposition 65, a state initiative approved in 1986 that seeks to govern toxic materials.

The city had pressed its court action against the helicopter company hired to spray the pesticide because Proposition 65 exempted all government agencies. Zebrowski, in denying the petition, said that the city’s attempt to sue the helicopter firm was invalid.

“It doesn’t seem to me Proposition 65 applies,” the judge said.

He added that concentrations of some of the toxic substances appear “to be lower than what is found in dirt.”

Zebrowski also ruled against the city on a last-minute complaint that aerial spraying was a nuisance that exposed the public to potentially hazardous chemicals. He said the level of contaminants in the spray mix was too small to outweigh the potential danger to the agricultural industry if the Medfly infestation is not stopped.

Charles Getz, the deputy attorney general representing the state, said that regardless of the state’s exemption from Proposition 65, the city never showed there were excessive quantities of restricted substances in the malathion mix.

“They didn’t have a case today,” Getz said.

The legal battle between the city and the state began last week when Wachs released the results of laboratory tests that he said showed the malathion mixture contained excessive quantities of lead, nickel and chromium--all potentially dangerous substances.

Agriculture officials postponed spraying over downtown last week so they could test malathion. The state’s tests showed only minuscule amounts of the substances, and health officials said they posed no significant health risk.

The city’s case was hurt this week when the private laboratory that conducted the city’s testing revised its earlier findings by retracting its estimate for lead in the malathion mix. The laboratory also determined the malathion mix contained no hexavalent chromium--the only form of chromium regulated by Proposition 65.

Both sides will argue again in court in two weeks, when a routine hearing for a preliminary injunction will take place.

The decision Thursday sent city workers scrambling to prepare food and shelter for transients in the spray zone. Similar to the cold-weather contingency plans during winter months, the Community Development Department dispatched buses to pick up homeless people in the downtown area and took them to the Elysian Park Recreation Center for shelter.

Times staff writer Jeffrey Ball contributed to this story.