BREA : Protest Planned for Malathion Spraying

North County residents are scheduled to get their fourth dose of malathion spray tonight, while critics of the state’s expanded assault on the Mediterranean fruit fly prepare to step up their opposition.

Helicopters will begin dropping hundreds of gallons of the malathion-bait mixture over a 26-square-mile region of northern Orange County and southern Los Angeles County about 9 p.m. tonight, barring rain or high winds.

About eight square miles of Orange County, including parts of Brea, La Habra and Fullerton, are to be sprayed.

Malathion critics, who question assertions that the pesticide is safe in the low doses being used, are planning a protest at 5:30 p.m. at the corner of Brea Boulevard and Imperial Highway in Brea. A similar event earlier this month drew about two dozen people.

Meanwhile, about 10 residents in the Garden Grove area organized over the weekend to begin mounting opposition there to the spraying. They are hoping to turn out at least 100 people for tonight’s City Council meeting to voice their concern about the Medfly policy.

The residents complain that the malathion spraying is an invasion of privacy, may not be safe, and “it’s a waste of taxpayer money because it doesn’t even appear to be working,” said Jerry Yudelson, a state Assembly candidate who is helping to organize the opposition.

Garden Grove gets its first malathion spraying Thursday night. It is at the center of a new, 36-square-mile spray area that state officials created last week after discovering two Medflies nearby. Parts of eight other cities, including about half of Westminster, will also be sprayed.

TONIGHT’S MEDFLY SPRAYING

A 26-square-mile region of North Orange County and Los Angeles County will be sprayed with a pesticide mixture tonight beginning at 9 as part of the state’s ongoing battle against the Mediterranean fruit fly. The region includes a 10-square-mile area that was sprayed initially on Nov.30 and twice since then. The entire region will be resprayed perhaps as many as a dozen times in coming months.