O.C.’s Fire Ants Spread, True to Ferocious Form

They rented offices, hired a small army of field technicians and bought trucks to help haul the bait that would fend off the invading red fire ants in Orange County. But even with a $5.9-million budget and a new local authority just to fight them, the ants are winning--and heading north.

With the ants newly discovered in seven more Orange County communities, including La Habra and Placentia in the north, neighboring Los Angeles County is getting nervous.

“Our infestation is predominantly associated with the border we share with Orange County,” said Robert Atkins, Los Angeles County chief deputy agricultural commissioner. “So we’re very interested and have had some assurances from Orange County’s authority that they will tend to that border with a fairly high priority.”

Officials with the Orange County Fire Ant Authority attribute the latest infestation numbers to summer heat that draws the red ants out and more technicians in the field finding them. Experts say the infestation, which also now includes Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Orange and Silverado, was greater than suspected and more detection in neighboring counties is needed.

The first discovery of the so-called red imported fire ants in Orange County came in November 1998, with about five sites detected. Now 1,039 have been counted. Los Angeles County is a distant second, counting 193. Riverside County has 79, San Bernardino 69 and San Diego County fewer than 10.

John Kabashima, a UC Cooperative Extension horticulture advisor, said other counties have to do more detection work.

“We’re hitting the tip of the iceberg here,” Kabashima said.

Los Angeles County’s infested areas included cities along its southern border with Orange County, such as Whittier, Cerritos, La Mirada, Lakewood, La Puente and areas in West Covina and Walnut.

And Atkins said the most recent fire ant discoveries in the San Fernando Valley, at a Mission Hills cemetery, were isolated but worrisome. These ants did not come from fresh mounds but from well-established colonies and were in fact “big multiple mounds, indicative of having been developed,” he said.

“We believe that more money is needed to do searches,” Atkins said of the $627,000 his office plans to spend on the eradication efforts. “We need to put a lot of money up front to fight this. It’s natural for the public and the media to see the high infestation figures and say we’re losing ground. But the infestations have been there for some time and are just now getting located.”

Orange County officials contend that their $5.9-million program is working and that new fire ant discoveries were expected, thanks to the program’s public outreach campaign, which includes having residents use potato chips as lawn bait. Residents are asked to place a chip in a plastic bag once an ant climbs onto it, then use dish soap or alcohol to kill the ant and mail it to the county for confirmation.

The county has already spent $1.1 million in start-up funds on salaries, the purchase of 21 vehicles, and office leases including its headquarters in Lake Forest and a satellite office in Buena Park. And it has a new director, Richard Bowen, a former Marine lieutenant colonel hired in February to carry out the county’s five-year battle plan on red fire ants.

“I didn’t come on board to say that eradication was totally impossible,” Bowen said.

The county already has reported some success, especially at O’Neill Regional Park in Trabuco Canyon, which had 100 mounds a year ago, he said.

“Now you can take your kid out there and have a peaceful picnic,” he said.

Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer, whose district includes most of the known infestation area, said his office has fielded 3,000 calls from residents since the outbreak. He says the large number of detection sites means the county’s program is working.

“The public education campaign is only beginning, and I said from the very beginning this is a five- to seven-year eradication program,” Spitzer said.

The authority has 18 workers and borrows field technicians from a local vector control district when they are available. Plans call for 10 more employees, and continued help from half a dozen people through the private, nonprofit Orange County Conservation Corps.

So far, Orange County has received the lion’s share of funding among the Southern California counties because it has the largest detected infestation, which last year prompted a state-ordered quarantine on nursery products.

Many of the county’s 300 nursery operators complain that the ants are costing them as much as $3 million a year to drench each plant with pesticide before it can leave with a customer.

“And that’s not only drenching but treatment of the soils,” said Gary Hayakawa, legislative chairman of the California Assn. of Nurserymen. “Once the county was quarantined, it affected all nurseries, whether they have the imported red fire ants or not.”

The quarantine was needed to stop the spread of the ants elsewhere in California or other Western states, where they damage plants and even electrical equipment. Their painful bites can be fatal for those few who are allergic.

In Riverside County, two agencies have been allotted more than $1.5 million to handle two types of ant infestation. The western half has fewer infestations than Riverside’s Coachella Valley, which has vast tracts of irrigated lawns.

“We’re seeing small yards with as many as 30 mounds and whole country clubs that are infested,” said Mark Conrad, head of the Coachella Valley program to combat the ant.

Since the Coachella Valley program is only 4 months old, most of its efforts have been spent on surveying sites and killing ants. Many people, Conrad said, are unaware of the problem. “I don’t think people really notice them on their lawns,” Conrad said. “I guess it’s too hot at this time of year to be walking around on their lawns.”

For Kabashima, the UC horticulture advisor, Southern California residents need to be more concerned about the threat.

“My concern is there’s no way to activate citizens unless they get stung,” he said. “Once you get stung, you do not want to let this thing get a foothold. You become a believer in getting it eradicated.”

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Times staff writer Monte Morin contributed to this report.

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Anatomy of an Invasion

Orange County has spent more money on eradication and fire ant mounds than any other county in Southern California by far, and the problem is worse than expected. Here is a breakdown of mounds detected so far, and budgets for fire ant eradication in Southern California counties (through June 2001):

Orange County

1,039 mounds

$5.9 million

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Los Angeles County

193 mounds

$627,000

*

Riverside County

79 mounds

$1.5 million

*

San Bernardino County

69 mounds

$63,000

*

San Diego County

fewer than 10

$26,000

Mounds by Community

Anaheim: 58

Buena Park: 65

Costa Mesa: 1

Coto de Caza: 120

Cypress: 159

Dana Point: 2

Dove Canyon: 10

El Toro: 1

Fountain Valley: 1

Fullerton: 8

Garden Grove: 5

Irvine: 2

La Habra: 1

La Palma: 2

Ladera: 13

Laguna Hills: 8

Laguna Niguel: 15

Lake Forest: 8

Las Flores: 41

Los Alamitos: 27

Mission Viejo: 135

Newport Beach: 1

Orange: 5

Placentia: 2

Rancho Santa Margarita: 189

San Juan Capistrano: 17

Santa Ana: 3

Silverado Canyon: 1

Stanton: 4

Trabuco Canyon: 133

Tustin: 1

Westminster: 1

Source: State Department of Food and Agriculture