Word: aerials
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...that has pushed Brown's approval rating to its second lowest level in his nearly seven years as Governor.* California Pollster Mervin Field last month reported that 72% of state voters rated Brown's performance as "fair" or "poor." Some 60% criticized his go-slow approach to aerial spraying of the tiny golden-mawed Medfly, which thus far has afflicted only one commercial farm, but is spreading fast and could ultimately wipe out almost $1 billion of the state's $14.1 billion agribusiness income. Field also found Brown trailing the three most likely Republican nominees-Congressmen Paul...
...Angeles. But the speckled little bugs continued to show up in the north. By July, officials found Medflies at more than 100 sites and worriedly placed three counties under quarantine. Roadblocks were set up and officials confiscated fruit from vehicles leaving the area. Still, Brown stubbornly refused to permit aerial spraying-until the Reagan Administration finally threatened to embargo all California produce. By then, it may have been too late. Two weeks ago, on what San Joaquin farmers now call Black Friday, a fertile female Medfly was discovered in a trap placed in an apricot orchard owned by Gene Bays...
...been more than a year since Medflies were discovered almost simultaneously in Los Angeles and in Santa Clara County, just south of San Francisco. No one knows where they came from-perhaps in contaminated fruit from Hawaii. But farmers, recalling the devastating losses from past outbreaks, immediately clamored for aerial spraying with malathion, a mild garden-variety pesticide that kills off Mediterranean fruit flies while causing no apparent harm to humans. Nonetheless, California's Governor, who plans to run for the U.S. Senate next year, refused to allow what he called a rain of chemicals on residential areas. Instead...
Governor Brown did not have to agree to aerial spraying in trying to thwart the Mediterranean fruit fly [July 27]. As the 1981 edition of the Farmers' Almanac specifically points out, "Scientists have discovered that the mating call of the Mediterranean fruit fly has exactly the same frequency as lower F-sharp on the harmonica." All the good Governor needs is a harmonica and an amplifier...
More than 500 National Guardsmen carted the fruit away, burying an estimated 750 tons in Santa Clara landfill dumps. Roadblocks had been set up at three points and produce was confiscated from 12,661 of the 286,240 cars and trucks checked. But aerial support was vital, and many Californians, especially farmers, were angry that spraying did not start sooner. At first Governor Jerry Brown had resisted, evidently concerned that he would alienate his strong environmentalist constituency. He changed his mind when U.S. Agriculture Secretary John Block began planning a quarantine. Complained California Senator S.I. Hayakawa: "Brown should have done...