Advisers Say Wilson Lacks Spray Option

For some of his closest advisers and the California agriculture community, Gov. Pete Wilson has no choice but to swiftly order aerial spraying of a potentially devastating Medfly infestation in Ventura County.

In their view, failure to quickly spray would invite an economically crippling embargo of fruits and vegetables not only from the Mediterranean fruit fly-infested region of Ventura County but from throughout California as well.

Such a notion, aides said Thursday, is unthinkable for the Republican governor, who is campaigning hard for reelection on a platform of rebuilding the state’s recession-weary economy.

Likewise, they vividly recalled the political damage Democratic Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. dealt himself in 1981 when he rejected recommendations of his scientific advisers and delayed aerial spraying of the pesticide malathion in an infested area of urban Santa Clara County.

The delay enabled the crop-destroying insect to gain a firmer foothold and provoked embargoes of California produce. It also cost taxpayers nearly $100 million and severely undercut Brown’s campaign against Wilson for the U.S. Senate in 1982. Wilson used the issue against Brown and won.

“Gov. Wilson is going to do the right thing, whether it is 30 days before or after the election,” Wilson campaign spokesman Dan Schnur said. “Jerry Brown tried to play politics with the issue and he got burned for it.”

Administration officials said Wilson will sign an emergency declaration today that will order helicopters loaded with malathion spray to begin their attacks in the Camarillo area next week.

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The officials said the action was recommended by Ventura County officials and state Food and Agriculture Secretary Henry Voss.

In California, economists estimate that agriculture is a $19.9-billion-a-year industry and accounts for one in every 10 jobs. In Ventura County, the annual cash crop is valued at $848 million, nearly half of which is susceptible to Medfly infestation.

State agricultural officials pounced on Ventura County’s Medfly infestation because traditionally the county has been the state’s No. 1 producer of lemons and oranges and No. 2 producer of avocados and strawberries--all hosts to the destructive pest.

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Sean Walsh, a press secretary to Wilson, said public health and environmental protection officials in the Administration concurred in the decision to begin aerial spraying. He indicated that protection of the economy was the driving force behind the action.

“This state will do everything to ensure that the economy is protected as well as the health of our citizens,” he said. “But this is a severe infestation and needs to be dealt with quickly before we face an embargo both nationally and internationally.”

In 1981, Brown sided with environmentalists who opposed spraying, but he finally retreated in the face of embargoes of California produce and a threat by the federal government to quarantine the entire state. Also, a rebellious Democratic-controlled Legislature threatened to enact emergency spraying legislation.

In 1989, Republican Gov. George Deukmejian also faced a Medfly crisis and ordered malathion spraying in heavily populated parts of Los Angeles County, provoking fears of adverse health affects and an uproar over damage to car paint.

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Earlier this year, Wilson also ordered aerial attacks against the Medfly in the Norco area of Riverside. Aerial spraying concluded a few months ago, but it was not without controversy.

The Ventura County discovery of a Medfly infestation last week touched off an especially loud alarm in the agriculture community because it was the first time the bug had been found in a commercial orchard, said Richard Matoian, president of the Grape and Tree Fruit League.

Previous discoveries in other parts of the state, Matoian said, were made in back-yard gardens and trees.

“This is significant and it is scary,” said Matoian, whose organization represents 85% of the volume of fruits and vegetables shipped out of the state. “We want to act quickly to prevent a trading embargo from our partners. For instance, they don’t distinguish oranges from Ventura County from oranges from the San Joaquin Valley.”

Matoian said the Japanese are particularly wary of the Medfly. He and Clark Biggs of the California Farm Bureau Federation said if a statewide embargo were to be imposed, Japan would very likely act first and be followed by the Philippines, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Citing figures from a recent University of California study, Biggs said Far Eastern markets in 1992 received about 62% of California’s fruit and vegetable commodities that can play host to the Medfly. These exports totaled $375 million, he said.

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He said the study by economist Jerry Siebert estimated that a widening ripple effect of an embargo by Asian trading partners would have cost the California economy up to $1.4 billion in 1992, including 14,000 jobs.

Biggs said growers considered the Ventura County infestation far more serious than the Riverside County Medfly troubles. “It is an absolute potential disaster for California agriculture,” he said.

The Grape and Fruit Tree League, a substantial force in California agriculture, abandoned its traditional low-profile role earlier in the week when it publicly called on Wilson to embrace immediate aerial spraying.

An Administration source, who asked not to be identified, said the league’s action came as a surprise. “I think (the league) was really concerned that Wilson might be getting a little hinky about going to the air,” said the source. “He’s in a close election and maybe they thought he didn’t want to upset people.”

Matoian said the organization’s unusual public appeal to Wilson was meant to “let him know exactly where we were on this issue. We didn’t want there to be any mistake about that.”