Medfly Flap Ends as U.S. Allots $16.5 Million : Funds: Urgent appeals from state officials save program that was endangered by bureaucratic foul-up.

After urgent appeals from California officials, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday swiftly authorized $16.5 million in federal funds to continue California’s Medfly eradication program, whose future was placed temporarily in doubt because of a bureaucratic foul-up.

Officials attributed the confusion about funding to a failure to communicate, aggravated by the change of administrations and the glacial pace of appointments to high federal jobs.

Although a contingent of 34 California senators and congressmen had alerted Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy in early February that more money was needed to keep the crucial program alive, the letter went unnoticed until late Wednesday.

“During a change of administrations you lose for a short period of time some of your institutional knowledge and background,” said Rep. Calvin Dooley (D-Visalia), who is on the Agriculture Committee and signed the warning letter to Espy. “Unfortunately, this is a problem with starting up. I’m sure this sort of thing happened with the Republicans too.”

“The problem,” said Espy spokesman Joel Berg, “is that (Espy) didn’t know about this until (Tuesday). This information was not communicated to the secretary in a way that he could act on it.”

Once Espy learned of the problem, the matter was swiftly resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. The program to eradicate the crop-destroying Mediterranean fruit fly is funded through Sept. 30, and the next fiscal year’s allotment of federal funds will be requested according to usual procedures.

“We are very pleased that the USDA is not backing out of its partnership agreement with California,” said Carl DeWing, a spokesman for the California Department of Food and Agriculture in Sacramento.

“The $16.5 million appears to be sufficient,” said Larry Hawkins, a public affairs officer for the eradication program in Los Angeles.

The short-lived governmental melodrama was triggered by a Feb. 22 letter from B. Glen Lee, a deputy administrator for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in Washington. Because of the unpredictable costs of the pest eradication program, the federal funds are doled out over the course of the year.

Lee, knowing that funds were running out, warned the state that it might have to pick up the entire cost of the cooperative program. California matches the federal money with state funds.

If the state could not pitch in sufficient money on its own, Lee ominously warned, the program could wither and “we would be required to quarantine the entire state.”

Lee was not at work Wednesday, but Berg in Espy’s office said Lee “was doing his job as he understood it. He was complying with the law (to notify the state that funds were running out).”

The dire message, setting out a worst-case scenario, unleashed a salvo of angry responses, including a condemnation of the USDA position by Gov. Pete Wilson on Tuesday.