CAMARILLO : Weather Postpones Medfly Spraying

Fearing the arrival of the season’s first powerful storm, agriculture officials called off a planned Medfly malathion spraying mission over eastern Camarillo Wednesday, pushing back the spraying operation to Monday night.

The storm, which weather forecasters are calling the first significant weather system of the winter season, also forced officials to push back a planned pre-Thanksgiving application of the pesticide to Nov. 29.

“From everything we can see, it appears that this storm will be raining on and off throughout the weekend,” said W. Earl McPhail, Ventura County agriculture commissioner. “We have very strict conditions that dictate when we fly and when we will not.”

Spraying was halted Wednesday because the storm presented a 50% or greater chance of continued rainfall for 24 hours after the application of the bait to the infested 16-square-mile area of eastern Camarillo where the crop-munching pest was discovered.

McPhail said another reason Wednesday’s spraying was halted was because the storm is expected to pack winds of 20 m.p.h. to 25 m.p.h. State regulations require the trio of helicopters that apply the pesticide to stay grounded whenever winds exceed 10 m.p.h.

“That’s our limit because anything faster than that causes too much drift of the bait,” McPhail said.

Weather permitting, the now-familiar trio of helicopters will lift off from Camarillo Airport at 9 p.m. Monday.

National Weather Service meteorologist Naeemah Cushmeer said the brunt of the Gulf of Alaska-bred storm was expected to hit Ventura County late Wednesday with intermittent showers lasting throughout today.

“We are expecting anywhere from .75 to 1.5 inches of rain with this storm,” Cushmeer said. “It’s a very unstable air mass and we should see significant amounts of rain.”