Officials to Declare Victory in Medfly War

By ASHLEY DUNN

Nov. 4, 1990 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Agriculture officials are scheduled to declare victory this week in their 16-month-long war against the crop-damaging Mediterranean fruit fly, ending Southern California’s longest, strangest and costliest pest eradication campaign.

Officials say that on Thursday they will lift the last state and federal quarantine that has prevented unrestricted transportation of fruit through some areas of Los Angeles County.

With cooler temperatures and the lack of Medfly finds in the last month, officials believe they have eliminated the last vestige of the insect from Southern California.

Roy Cunningham, the federal entomologist who chaired the state’s Medfly Science Advisory Panel, said more Medflies will certainly be found in the future but, with the experience gained from this year’s battle, California may never be faced with a huge infestation.

“It was tough fight, but we won,” Cunningham said. “I would not expect to see one this large again.”

But Pat Reichenberger, former mayor of Monterey Park and one of the first public officials to demand an end to aerial malathion spraying, said:

“They’re saying victory because it will calm us down, but it’s a political facade. I don’t think it’s over by any means. They’ll be back.”

Since the beginning of the infestation, about $52 million has been spent in the state’s assault against the Medfly. In all, 277 Medflies were trapped.

For 100 days, malathion-spraying helicopters rumbled through the night sky, spraying thousands of gallons of the pesticide in a light drizzle over 536 square miles in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Residents outraged at being sprayed with a pesticide chanted in the streets, complaining of health problems, damaged car paint and sickened pets despite government denials.

Opponents filed a barrage of lawsuits against the state to stop spraying, but the helicopters continued to fly. Nearly 300 damage claims were filed against the state by angry residents, although none has collected a penny to date.

An unprecedented number of ordinances were passed by cities to halt the spraying, but they too did no good.

For the last month, the public hue and cry has subsided, as the helicopters were sent back to their base in the San Joaquin Valley and the once-bulging cast of eradication workers was sent home.

The infestation began on July 20, 1989, when a county agricultural inspector found a single male Medfly trapped in a back-yard peach tree off Morton Avenue near Dodger Stadium.

The discovery came just a month after the state had declared victory over the Medfly in a 10-month eradication campaign in West Los Angeles.

The state launched what most expected to be another small-scale eradication program. “It was so discouraging because we had just finished one program, but I don’t think anyone had any idea this was the beginning of the largest infestation ever,” said Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner E. Leon Spaugy.

The state used its standard eradication procedure: one or two aerial applications of malathion followed by the release of millions of sterile Medflies to breed the pest out of existence.

But the infestation spread, first to Alta Loma in San Bernardino County, then to Whittier, Sylmar and to Orange County.

By December, the supply of sterile flies was exhausted and California Department of Food and Agriculture Director Henry Voss ordered the beginning of repeated malathion sprayings to control the outbreak. “That was the turning point,” Voss said.

The virtually nonexistent public reaction to the campaign turned virulent when the number of sprayings over urban areas of Los Angeles began to mount: two, three, four and more. Some areas eventually were sprayed nearly a dozen times.

In a month, television stars were protesting the use of malathion. School children carried signs calling agriculture officials “killers.” One woman chained herself to a spraying helicopter in El Monte.

Voss said that despite the protests, the eradication of the Medfly vindicates the state’s aggressive program of repeated malathion treatments.

Although it took much longer than expected, he called it a success. “It’s a nice feeling for it to be over,” he said.

Voss conceded his department has suffered through the eradication. His repeated predictions of an early victory left many residents wondering if those in charge of the eradication knew what they were doing.

Critics also charged that Medfly officials were only concerned with protecting the state’s multibillion-dollar agriculture industry and not the public’s health.

Reflecting on the campaign, Voss said the major lesson state officials have learned is that the days of repeated malathion sprayings are probably over. In future campaigns, the state will very likely have to restrict itself to only one or two sprayings over one area.

“Chances are, multiple sprayings will never be used again,” he said, although he stopped short of issuing a guarantee.

For the opposition, Voss’ concession that repeated malathion sprayings would be unlikely in the future was one of the few encouraging signs to come out of the eradication effort.

Patty Prickett, the coordinator of the community group called Residents Against Spraying Pesticides, said the support of local city councils, many legislators and a vocal segment of the public would usually be enough to ensure success.

But the anti-malathion forces found they lacked the power to sway the California Department of Food and Agriculture and Gov. George Deukmejian, who supported the aerial spraying.

Prickett said next time the opposition will have to adopt a “nastier” and “more confrontational” strategy. “You have to make it uncomfortable for these people. Right now, we’re just faceless masses,” she said.

An outgrowth of the Medfly campaign, she said, has been the creation of a new generation of environmental activists, many of whom have continued working on such issues as Proposition 128, the so-called “Big Green” initiative on Tuesday’s ballot and, it is hoped, will still be involved when the next eradication program begins.

One group that rose to prominence during the campaign was an unlikely band of entomologists who managed the war on the Medfly.

Entomologists, who usually spend their careers laboring in obscurity in bug-filled laboratories, suddenly found themselves thrust into the public arena with the livelihoods of farmers and city dwellers hinging on their decisions.

The three most visible in the Medfly campaign were Isi Siddiqui, a California Department of Food and Agriculture scientist who headed the eradication program; Cunningham, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and James R. Carey, of UC Davis, who became the most controversial figure of the campaign.

In a speech before the state Assembly in March, Carey theorized that the Medfly infestations were not caused by travelers inadvertently bringing the stray bugs into California, as the state claimed, but were caused by an already established Medfly population.

He said that if the Medfly was established in Southern California, it might be impossible to root out.

Carey’s speech seemed barely noticed by legislators who listened to hours of testimony that day. But through the rest of the eradication campaign, his theory would color the public debate: perhaps the Medfly battle could not be won.

Cunningham and Siddiqui became the most forceful critics of Carey’s theory, claiming that the insect had not established itself in Southern California and could be eradicated.

With the end of the Medfly eradication campaign now scheduled for Thursday, both sides can claim partial victories.

Cunningham and Siddiqui proved correct in their predictions that there would be no massive outbreak of Medflies this summer, which Carey believed was almost a certainty.

But Carey’s theory was supported, in part, by a scientific panel convened by the University of California. The panel reported in August that this year’s infestation appeared to be the result of a lingering population that had existed in Southern California for up to two years.

Whichever side is correct, the controversy has sparked a new round of debate.

Carey cautioned that because so little is known about the Medfly, it will probably take many years and many more infestations to determine which side is correct.

“The whole thing hasn’t played itself out yet, but I don’t think it’s going to be business as usual in the future,” he said.

MEDFLY SPRAYING CHRONOLOGY:

July 20, 1989 - First Medfly of the campaign found near Elysian Park in Los Angeles.

Aug. 10 - Spraying begins on 14-square-mile area around Elysian Park.

Sept. 25 - First Medfly ever found in San Bernardino County. Alta Loma.

Dec. 7 - State and county officials announce the beginning of multiple sprayings because of a shortage of sterile Medflies.

Jan. 23 - State Sen. Art Torres introduces two bills against malathion spraying, the first of 21 bills or resolutions introduced.

Jan. 25 - Cities of Garden Grove, Huntington Beach and Westminster file the first lawsuit against the state to stop aerial malathion spraying.

March 21 - First Medfly ever found in Riverside County. Woodcrest.

May 30 - Last Medfly spray in Orange County. Garden Grove.

June 26 - Last Medfly spray in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

July 23 - Last Medfly spray LA County. Rosemead and Glassell Park.