Oahu irradiator a possibility in several years [Will irradiate fruit flies, and eventually, more fruit.] The Associated Press State & Local Wire December 8, 2003 The state Department of Agriculture has a plan to allow shipment of more Hawaii fruit - and more fruit flies - to the U.S. mainland. The plan is to install a commercial-scale irradiator that will sterilize the flies before they leave Oahu, but a department spokesman said it may be two or three years away. The irradiator also would be a boost for a federal Department of Agriculture project in Waimanalo that actually rears sterilized fruit flies for intentional shipment to the mainland. At the facility, pre-adult fruit fly pupae are irradiated and sterilized, and then shipped for release in areas where there is a threat of fruit fly infestation. The infertile males compete with fertile males to mate with females, but the sterilized males produce infertile eggs, thereby reducing the number of new fruit flies. The federal government plans to expand the Waimanalo facility so it can produce 400 million flies per week, said Lyle Wong, state plant industry administrator. But the two small irradiators USDA uses on Oahu cannot efficiently handle that volume, he said. The plan is to have a new irradiator built that can accommodate both the workload from the USDA fruit fly program and commercial traffic from Oahu, Maui, Molokai and Kauai farmers who want to export their products, Wong said. [emphasis added] He declined to identify companies considering the project, and said no site has been selected. Locating an irradiator on Oahu would allow Hawaii farmers to treat and export more produce to the mainland, he said. The only irradiator used to process Hawaii produce for export is located in Keaau on the Big Island. That facility uses X-rays to penetrate food and packaging to sterilize any fruit flies hidden inside, meeting federal regulations to allow the fruit to be shipped to the mainland. A new irradiation facility is needed on Oahu to sterilize large quantities of fruit flies as part of the expanding federal program to eradicate fruit fly populations in parts of the mainland, officials said.