Infestation of Medflies Spreads to New Areas

Eight more Mediterranean fruit flies were reported Wednesday to have been detected in Los Angeles County neighborhoods, discoveries that will require new rounds of pesticide applications.

Three Medflies, including a pregnant fly, were found for the first time in La Habra Heights, near the Orange County border. A single female was also detected for the first time in Lakewood in Southeast Los Angeles.

In addition, four flies were trapped in a sector of the San Gabriel Valley that had already been sprayed twice with the pesticide malathion, as recently as last week. The neighborhoods now are likely to become the first in the Southland to receive a third application of malathion, county officials said.

The new discoveries came as five top Medfly experts from throughout the country gathered in Los Angeles to develop new strategies in what so far has been a losing struggle to contain the pest. The scientists will present their recommendations to state and county agricultural officials responsible for running the eradication effort today.

“This continues to be disappointing and disheartening,” said Bill Edwards, deputy Los Angeles County agricultural commissioner. “We obviously still do not have a handle on this.”

The current infestation can be traced back to August, when a fly was trapped near Dodger Stadium. Since then, the crop-damaging pests, which exacted a heavy toll on California agriculture in a 1981 infestation, have been detected in a string of communities stretching from the San Fernando Valley to northern Orange County.

A total of 211 Medflies have been found. As a result, 253 square miles of largely residential neighborhoods, populated by more than 1 million people, have been sprayed.

About 16 square miles encompassing La Habra Heights and La Habra will be sprayed Tuesday, Edwards said. Officials had not decided Wednesday whether the Lakewood area will receive a pesticide application.

There is a “strong possibility” that parts of the San Gabriel Valley will be sprayed again within a week, he said.

Helicopters sprayed pesticide over nine square miles of Monrovia, Arcadia and Temple City Wednesday, the second of three consecutive nights of aerial spraying this week. A 25-mile swath of Downey and South Gate is scheduled to be sprayed today.

State and county officials received bad news on another front Wednesday. They were told that the infestation has been exacerbated by glitches in a sterile fly production facility in Hawaii.

Sterile flies are used to breed the wild population out of existence as an alternative to repeated aerial sprayings. The production problems mean that officials have little choice but to increase the pesticide spraying.

State agricultural officials had hoped to cut down on additional pesticide applications by stepping up fly production in Hawaii from 60 to 130 million a week and purchasing 30 million more sterile flies from a facility in Mexico. The flies from Mexico were scheduled to arrive later this week.

But malfunctioning air-conditioning systems and troubles with mold growing on fly food has slowed down the delicate breeding process in Hawaii, said Gary Augusta, a state entomologist and director of the sterile release program.

“Now we are not going to be able to expand the sterile program as planned for at least a month,” Edwards said, adding that Whittier, Baldwin Park and Valinda will be the only infested cities to receive sterile flies.

MAPS OF SPRAYING AREAS: B2