Spraying for Medflies

You may call me an alarmist with a strong sense of deja vu, but the recent Medfly headlines look strangely familiar. The same phrases, the same arguments and the same plans are appearing a year or so after the supposed eradication of this pest. Leon Spaugy, Los Angeles County agricultural commissioner, has reassured us that since “helicopters are noisy and an intrusion” they will try to avoid spraying. Noisy? I don’t mind the noise nearly as much as having toxic chemicals dumped on me, my car, my pet and my home. Each time the helicopters take to the sky, we are promised that this series of applications will solve the problem. When in reality this problem will never be solved. It can only be periodically controlled with traps, sterile flies and unfortunately malathion.

I expect that soon an education program will again emerge with those “malathion: man’s friend” public service announcements reassuring us of the minute doses we’re given (keep those pets inside!). Considering the bucks that agriculture brings to California, perhaps no level of public outrage can keep us from perpetual intermittent showers. However, we should at least consider agriculture states, like Hawaii, who have learned to live with the Medfly. Given a choice of agricultural flexibility or being bathed in malathion every couple of years, many Californians would choose the former.

GRANT H. LANGSTON, Glendale