Fire-Ant Fear on the March in Western States

Strangely enough, evidence of the Orange County fire-ant invasion was first uncovered by a young couple shopping for plants 300 miles away in Las Vegas.

Strolling through a local nursery one Sunday last September, Emily Tyska spotted a potted red fountain grass she wanted. Her husband reached for it, only to find his hand covered with swarming, stinging ants.

His skin swelled with bubble-like bites. His throat constricted. He turned bright red and started sweating. Bitten by red imported fire ants, Ernest Tyska was suffering a severe allergic reaction. His wife half-carried him to a nearby emergency center, where he was treated. He recovered after a few days.

But that was only the start of the story. Nevada officials traced the ant-infested plant to the T-Y Nursery on Trabuco Canyon Road, said Tom Smigel, a Nevada agricultural official. That set off a chain of events that would lead last week to an Orange County fire-ant quarantine, the first of its kind in California.

The discovery that the dreaded ants have infested at least 50 square miles of Orange County is sparking fears in surrounding states from New Mexico to Arizona to Washington state. Notified by California agriculture officials, inspectors in those states are hurriedly visiting nurseries, hardware centers and even drugstores in search of plants imported from Orange County.

Their worst nightmare: that fire ants will become permanent residents of the West Coast, just as they have infested Texas and 10 other Southern states.

“Let’s just hope they don’t like it here,” said Tom Wessels of the Washington state Department of Agriculture.

Orange County is home to an estimated 300 nurseries, including five found to contain fire ants. One of those nurseries, the 210-acre Bordier’s in Irvine, for example, had shipped to more than 1,000 outlets across the country over several years, according to state agricultural department records. That prompted the state Department of Food and Agriculture in January to notify plant quarantine officers in 14 states as far east as Connecticut, the records show.

The state has done similar follow-ups on shipments from the other 15 nurseries in Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties where fire ants have been found, a state spokesman said.

But nurseries are not the only source of the much-detested insect, which can injure people, livestock and wildlife, eat plants and damage electrical equipment.

Just last week, fire-ant worries marooned a California-bound trucker at a Blythe border station after inspectors found ants in the beehives he carried. Three states denied him entry before Arizona relented and gave him special escort back home to Texas.

In Utah, nervous state employees asked for a description of the truck, fearing it would slip into their state without notice.

Busy Nursery Season Puts the Pressure on

California’s fire-ant problem has prompted new awareness at state borders.

Alarmed by the Orange County infestation, Arizona quickly instituted stricter inspections at its border with California. “The size of this thing really sort of jumped out at us,” said Lloyd Brown, agriculture department spokesman in Arizona, which gets 40% of its nursery stock from Southern California.

“The primary nursery shipping season is starting right now, so we’re under the gun,” Brown said.

Experts say they have no way of knowing how far west the ant may have moved.

“The problem is, we don’t know where they are till we find them,” said Sherry Sanderson, bureau chief for entomology and nursery industries at the New Mexico Department of Agriculture.

Such concerns are borne out by the example of Orange County, which experts now believe has been infested by fire ants for at least five years. Yet not until Ernest Tyska was bitten in Las Vegas did the ants’ presence become known.

Even that incident might have escaped notice--if not for the fact that Tyska’s wife happens to be community affairs coordinator for television station KTNV, the ABC affiliate in Las Vegas.

The day after the couple’s ill-fated nursery visit, she described it at the station’s news meeting. The station contacted the state Department of Agriculture, which investigated and found the ant-filled nursery shipment came from Orange County.

Nevada notified California agriculture officials, who announced the infestation in November. More than 50 square miles of largely residential Orange County is known to be infested, and fire ants also have turned up at nurseries in Los Angeles and Riverside counties. More ants recently were detected in two spots in suburban Cerritos and at a Rancho Mirage area golf course.

Ants Seem to Thrive in Landscaped Areas

The prospect of an American West swarming with fire ants is especially unnerving for people like the Tyskas, whose lifestyle has already been altered by the awareness of the insect’s deadly powers. Ernest Tyska, 32, a pilot, now must carry special medication in case he gets bitten again.

“The doctor said, ‘You can’t mow in your grass, you can’t work in your yard. The effects could be deadly,’ ” his wife said. “He was offered a job in Texas, and we didn’t take it.”

Only a small percentage of people are allergic to fire ants, but their painful bites have made them a pest that Southerners have learned to avoid.

Entomologists have long anticipated that fire ants might move west, predicting that in time they could infest fully one-quarter of the United States. The ant favors mild climates, meaning that its most likely habitats are in the South, Southern Texas, portions of the Southwest, Southern California and coastal areas along the West Coast north to Seattle.

The ant prefers well-watered areas but can live in scattered spots in regions with less than 10 inches of annual rainfall.

In the sole New Mexico county under quarantine for fire ants, for instance, experts have noticed the insects seem to flourish in irrigated, landscaped areas, not in the surrounding desert.

That would seem to make Orange County an ideal breeding spot, with its heavily landscaped housing developments and office parks crisscrossed with sprinkler systems.

Inspections Likely at 600 O.C. Businesses

No one is sure how the fire ant gained such a foothold in Orange County, where it has been sighted in 15 cities from Los Alamitos and Cypress east to Yorba Linda and south to Laguna Niguel and San Juan Capistrano.

Fire ants are believed to spread in nursery stock, sod and seed, by natural mating flights, when carried on trucks or train beds, or via water after heavy flooding.

The state quarantine imposed Thursday requires that nursery plants, sod and soil must be certified fire ant-free before leaving Orange County. So must baled hay and straw stored on the ground, soil-moving equipment and other products that can contain ants. Portions of Los Angeles and Riverside counties may also be placed under quarantine in coming weeks.

Inspections are likely at 600 businesses that sell plants countywide, from nurseries to supermarkets. Inspection details are still being worked out.

A California Assn. of Nurserymen official said the quarantine could actually benefit nurseries by assuring that nursery stock can be certified ant-free.

“It looks like we’re being picked on, but on the other hand, it’s for our benefit as well,” said Robert Faleoner, the association’s director of government affairs.

Agriculture officials in surrounding states said they are generally satisfied with the quarantine and other measures California is taking to combat the fire ant, and none said they are yet considering embargoes or other protective measures.

Whether the ant can be banished from Orange County is still being studied by scientists and government officials. One possible method is aerial application of a pesticide that serves as a kind of birth control, sterilizing the queen ant.

‘It’s Going to Be Extremely Expensive’

But practically speaking, can Orange County’s fire ant population really be wiped out?

“Definitely not without aerial application involved, and it’s going to be extremely expensive,” said Homer L. Collins, a fire ant expert with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“Fire ants are a lot like cancer,” Collins said. “If you catch them early, you can do something about it.”

That’s exactly what agriculture officials throughout the West are hoping to do. But no one knows if plants carrying fire ants were received and sold before the inspectors arrived.

“We’re modestly hopeful, but we continue to be very concerned about this,” said Kathleen J.R. Johnson, plant pest and disease programs coordinator at the Oregon Department of Agriculture. In fact, the Orange County infestation has prompted Oregon officials to develop a public education campaign alerting people about the risk of fire ants.

In Nevada, state entomologist Jeff Knight wonders just how long infested nursery stock has been traveling into his state from Southern California.

Nevada inspectors have responded to fire-ant discoveries in Las Vegas nurseries six or seven times in the past seven years, he said. Those inspectors normally quiz nursery managers if they received shipments from Florida, Louisiana or other infested Southern states.

“Now we have to rethink our whole process,” Knight said. “because it may have been coming in from California all this time.”

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Ant Invasion

News that the fire ant has infested Orange County is stirring concern in neighboring states, and experts fear it could lead to a full-scale invasion of the West. News from the fire ant front:

CALIFORNIA

Orange County: At least 50 square miles infested with fire ants, which experts believe arrived at least five years ago. State imposed countywide quarantine Thursday.

Kern, Fresno, Stanislaus counties: Imported bee hives apparently carried ants into almond orchards in 1997 and 1998. Small infestation remains.

Blythe: Truck driver marooned at border inspection station last week when fire ants were found in bee hives he was hauling from Texas.

ARIZONA: Ants found to infest abandoned Phoenix nursery in the early 1990s. Isolated infestations found at other Arizona nurseries.

NEVADA: Las Vegas man badly stung in mid-September by ants in plant traced to Orange County, leading to discovery of county-wide ant problem.

NEW MEXICO: Dona Ana County quarantined in August 1998 after ants discovered in Las Cruces area. State inspectors now checking stores that received stock from infested Orange County nurseries.

OREGON, WASHINGTON: State inspectors dispatched to nurseries, drug and hardware stores in January to examine shipments of stock from infested Orange County nurseries. No fire ants found.

Source: Times reports

Researched by DEBORAH SCHOCH / Los Angeles Times