Supervisors Reject Plan for More Medfly Trapping Sites : Agriculture: State proposal might have resulted in more malathion spraying, they fear.

Afraid to do anything that could trigger new rounds of aerial malathion spraying, county supervisors ignored the advice of scientists Tuesday and rejected a state plan to double the number of Medfly trapping locations in parts of the county.

State officials had argued that they could more quickly detect Mediterranean fruit fly infestations by rotating existing traps more often and splitting up pairs of traps to double the number of locations with at least one.

But Supervisors Roger R. Stanton and Harriett M. Wieder, whose North County districts were most heavily hit by malathion spraying last winter and spring, complained that the proposal would have made a test case of Orange County and might have subjected residents here to more rounds of spraying.

“I don’t see a logic to increasing the probability . . . of finding a new fly out there,” said Stanton, who led the move to reject the proposal. “I really have found no cogent reason at all to support this program.”

In response, state Medfly experts accused the supervisors of playing politics with the problem and said the action could actually worsen the chances of heading off a major infestation.

“It sounds to me like a bury-your-head-in-the-sand approach,” said James Carey, an associate professor of entomology at UC Davis and a member of the state’s Medfly advisory panel. “The whole point of trapping is to find the fly population so that you can surgically remove them. . . . You can use a rifle instead of a shotgun.”

Because the proposal would have amended an existing county contract, four supervisors would have had to favor it. But only three did, with Stanton and Wieder opposed. As a result of the board action, the number of trapping locations in Orange County will be reduced as planned at the end of this month. There are currently about 6,000 traps in Orange County, about 4,500 of which are overseen by the state, Agricultural Commissioner James D. Harnett said.

The vast majority of those will be taken out by the state within the next few weeks, he added, now that the Medfly infestation that hit the county earlier this year appears to have passed.

Harnett would not criticize the board for its vote but said he brought the proposal to the supervisors because “we thought from a professional standpoint that it might be a good idea to do this.”

“Obviously, what was presented was not comfortable to them at this time. It seemed to me that there were other things afoot than just the logic of the issue.”

Gera Curry, information officer for the California Department of Food and Agriculture, was more outspoken. “I’m stunned,” said Curry, who accused Wieder and Stanton of putting politics ahead of science in the Medfly battle.

“We think that it’s unfortunate that some members of the board politicized this issue,” Curry said. “I can’t argue with the premise that if you don’t look, you don’t find, but early detection is what can prevent a wider spray area. It’s an early warning system.”

Some of those concerns were raised during the board meeting, as Supervisor Thomas F. Riley voiced his support for the trapping proposal.

“Preparedness is a better way to be than to be surprised,” Riley said.

Wieder questioned Harnett closely about the proposal, asking the commissioner whether other counties were participating in the program and questioning whether Orange County is already living up to its contract with the state on placing traps.

Harnett acknowledged that the county is abiding by that contract and said the state’s proposal would mark the first time that a county split its traps or rotated them more often. Orange County was picked, Harnett said, because it is an urban county squarely within the hazard zone for Medfly infestation.

If the pilot program succeeded in capturing more Medflies, Harnett said, the new method of trapping would be extended to other areas as well.

At the conclusion of their exchange, however, Wieder said she was not satisfied that the county should agree to the proposal. “Your answers haven’t convinced me,” she told Harnett. “Why are we being such heroes?”