County to Use Aerial Spraying on Medflies : 22-Square-Mile Area Southeast of Downtown L.A. to Be Treated With Malathion Pesticide

About 22 square miles in the Maywood-Bell-Huntington Park area will be sprayed from the air with the pesticide malathion Thursday night in an effort to halt a growing Mediterranean fruit fly outbreak, Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner Paul Engler announced Tuesday.

The spraying from two low-flying helicopters--expected to be a one-time-only event--is scheduled to begin about 9 p.m. and will take several hours.

The aerial spraying area will be bordered by Washington Boulevard on the north, Firestone Boulevard on the south, Garfield Avenue on the east and Santa Fe Avenue on the west. It will include parts of Vernon, Walnut Park, Bell Gardens, Commerce, Cudahy, Los Angeles and South Gate.

Stirs Angry Protests

A state Department of Food and Agriculture announcement said that although only one aerial spraying is planned, there may be others “if evidence indicates a spread of the infestation beyond the present treatment area.”

Aerial treatment with a sex-lure bait containing malathion--which stirred angry protests from residents during the previous big Medfly outbreak here in 1980-81 and during the 1983 Mexican fruit fly infestation from Huntington Park to Echo Park--was made possible by a declaration of emergency from Gov. George Deukmejian on Tuesday afternoon.

The governor complied with a morning request by the county Board of Supervisors, which was told by Engler that 34 of the crop-threatening Medflies have been found in the area east and southeast of downtown Los Angeles since July 27, when the first female fly was discovered in a monitoring trap in an East Los Angeles peach tree.

Engler has called it potentially “the biggest threat to California agriculture that I can imagine” because a Los Angeles County infestation could spread to all of Southern California, including the big fruit-producing areas of Orange and Ventura counties.

Fearing another infestation like the one that caused an estimated $100-million loss to California agriculture and cost an additional $100 million for eradication six and seven years ago, state ground crews began on Aug. 17 spraying a malathion-laced yeast on fruit trees in a smaller area of Maywood and Bell.

Last week, a quarantine was declared on produce grown in a 76-square-mile area that surrounded that relatively small ground-spraying zone.

At the same time, Engler announced plans for what he called a Medfly “birth-control program” under which millions of sterile male Medflies will be released to mate with wild female flies and thus drastically reduce the number of fertile flies.

Engler said Tuesday that present plans are to spray malathion from the air only once to “knock down” the Medfly population as much as possible and allow the pesticide to dissipate “so it won’t kill our steriles,” the first 6.5 million of which will be released throughout the area on Monday.

The sterile fly program, he said, “will be our primary means of eradication” as workers continue putting out 6.5 million sterile male Medflies a day until 40 million of them have been released.

The county agricultural commissioner hastened to remind residents that government health authorities have declared that there is no particular peril to people from aerial application of malathion.

The state Department of Health Services has just issued a report saying that medical researchers have discovered no increased birth defects or low birth weights in San Francisco Bay Area communities where malathion was sprayed during the 1981-82 Medfly crisis there.

Nevertheless--as in the past--residents of the Los Angeles County treatment area were advised to put their automobiles under cover to prevent paint damage. The sweet-syrup protein bait with which the malathion is mixed, said county agriculture officials, may act on paint in the manner of such other proteins as raw eggs and bird droppings if left on too long.

Owners with no way to cover their vehicles should wash them with soap and water as soon as possible after the spraying, the officials said.

Hundreds of California Conservation Corps members will begin going door to door to an estimated 60,000 households this morning to pass out leaflets informing residents.

A hot line has been set up to answer questions from residents in the area. The number is (818) 350-1929.

Engler said the decision to spray from the air was made because he and other agricultural officials “are just not satisfied with the ground application (of malathion bait). We’re only covering about 80% of the properties.”

The main problem, he said, is one of access. If a property owner with a backyard fruit tree is not home, the crew must return later for permission to enter and apply the bait.

Engler said he is optimistic that the latest Medfly threat to agriculture can be repulsed. “This is the fourth time we have had an infestation in Los Angeles County, and we’ve been successful on all three previous occasions. We’ve got the tools to deal with it.”