Spraying OKd Over Corona but Won’t Begin Yet : Agriculture: State officials postpone malathion treatment of Medflies to allow residents to prepare. Delay gives city a chance to file another appeal.

RIVERSIDE —  An appellate court Tuesday cleared the way to begin aerial spraying of malathion over Corona and Norco, but state agricultural officials--who had hoped to begin spraying Tuesday night to eradicate the Mediterranean fruit fly--postponed their plans for at least a week so residents would have more time to prepare.

The reprieve will also give Corona city officials more time to file another appeal in their effort to block the spraying. They contend that the aerial application of the insecticide jeopardizes public health and that Gov. Pete Wilson acted illegally in approving the action. The state says it is necessary to eradicate the crop-ravaging pest before it spreads to rich farmlands.

“We will file our appeal to the state Supreme Court this week, asking that a complete review of this issue be made,” said Corona City Manager Bill Garrett.

The city has lost two efforts to legally block the malathion spraying.

On Tuesday, the U.S. 4th District Court of Appeals in San Bernardino said the state’s need to rid the pest in Corona was “obvious,” and called the aerial spraying “an essential part (of Medfly eradication) and . . . poses no substantial risk of other than transient and trivial detriment to persons.”

The court sided with a Riverside Superior Court judge who refused last week to overrule Wilson’s declaration that the state’s agricultural industry is at risk because of the pest. Such an executive level decision was appropriate, both courts agreed.

With both courts upholding their plan, state officials had hoped to begin spraying Tuesday night.

But Corona city officials asked Wilson late Tuesday to keep the helicopters grounded because residents assumed there would be no spraying that night, Garrett said.

“No one expected the appellate court to make its review so quickly,” he said. “The governor was sensitive to that issue and recognized that in the best interest of everybody, (public) renotification of the spraying should occur. The helicopters were even being gassed up. It was real close, and there was a horrible amount of confusion--were they going to spray or not?”

Robert Dowell, the state’s primary entomologist, confirmed that the spraying is being postponed “because of concerns and confusion about the notification to citizens,” and said the date of the spraying had not been determined.

Meanwhile Tuesday, the state Department of Food and Agriculture expanded the Medfly quarantine area in the Los Angeles Basin to 1,576 square miles--about 180 square miles larger than the quarantine zone announced last month.

The transportation of fruit is regulated in the quarantine area to control the spread of the Medfly. The zone was expanded to reflect consolidation of more than 20 infestation zones, officials said. The quarantine area is larger than the one ordered at the peak of the 1989-90 Medfly infestation.