GRANDVIEW — Jim Pinson remembers the days before mosquito control near his farmhouse along the banks of the Yakima River east of here. They’re not very fond memories.
Some summer evenings, he recalls, 20 or more mosquitoes could land on just his hand in the time it took to walk from his back door to a deck chair.
In 1992, his neighborhood annexed into the Benton County Mosquito Control District, which sprays a network of ponds just across the Yakima River from his house. A summer evening outdoors now requires a few swats, nothing more.
“We still get mosquitoes, but boy not like we used to,” said Pinson, a retired teacher.
But now Pinson, some of his neighbors and local mosquito control officials worry that they could see an increase in mosquitoes if new spray restrictions are adopted by the state.
Citing its toxicity to fish and other wetland animals, the state Department of Ecology is considering banning the spraying of insecticides that target adult mosquitoes near rivers, ponds and lakes.
There would be clear exceptions to allow spraying in areas where diseases carried by the insects, such was West Nile virus, have been confirmed.
And spraying for larvae, considered less environmentally harmful, would continue as it is now done.
Still, the Ecology Department proposal is drawing fire here and in other parts of the state.
A public hearing last week at the Moses Lake Fire Department attracted more than 200 people, causing the room to overflow.
Critics don’t want to distinguish between a mosquito with a disease and a “nuisance” mosquito, according to Angela Balint, manager of the Benton County Mosquito Control District, which stretches from the Tri-Cities into eastern Yakima County, including in and around Grandview and Mabton.
“We just want to consider all mosquitoes bad,” she said.
No matter how aggressively larvae are sprayed, some still hatch, she said.
She also believes that waiting for a positive disease test could allow mosquitoes to propagate beyond control.
West Nile virus has been repeatedly detected in the Prosser and Grandview areas. Last fall, there were at least 30 confirmed cases of the virus in people in Yakima and Benton counties.
One died, a 71-year-old woman from Sunnyside, which is near, but not in, the Benton County Mosquito District. It is not clear where she contracted the illness.
The district tests for the virus in mosquitoes usually once a week. It takes at least 28 hours to set traps, collect them, test the samples in a lab and determine the results. That’s enough time at the height of summer for adult mosquitoes to breed and hatch, said Kevin McClure, field supervisor for Benton County district.
When the virus is detected in mosquitoes, the state leaves the decision over where and how much to spray for mosquitoes to the local district.
The Benton County Mosquito District plans to treat its entire district with adult-mosquito-killing chemicals as soon as it finds a positive West Nile test, Balint said.
That happened last May. District officials expect the virus to surface even earlier this year because of warmer-than-normal weather and more testing.
Some of the concerns about the state’s proposal are what will happen in the future and what happens in other districts that don’t test as aggressively as the Benton County district does, said Balint, who noted that mosquitoes can fly about 20 miles.
“We want to make sure we’re on top of things always,” she said.
The mosquito district receives about 70 requests per year for adult spraying. Often called fogging, it is typically done from the back of pickups at night. The agency has been known to fog a neighborhood in advance of outdoor weddings and even made several applications with planes last year.
“We just want to perform the service that people are used to in this area,” Balint said.
In eastern Yakima County, a high water table, flood plains and prevalence of irrigation make mosquitoes an “off-the-charts” problem, Balint said.
For example, Morgan Lake, a floodwater pond northeast of Mabton managed by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, had mosquito counts 25 times a typical comfort level some nights last year, Balint said.
“That’s a lot of mosquitoes,” Balint said. “That’s intolerable.”
The areas around Grandview, Mabton and Prosser also are a hot spot for West Nile.
The disease infects horses, birds and people. In 2009, 38 people contracted the disease statewide. Of those, 21 cases were in Yakima County and nine were in Benton County.
“It worked its way all the way through the district” last year, McClure said.
Still, West Nile virus is relatively minor and rare, said Gordon Kelly, director of environmental health for the Yakima Health District. And not all mosquito species common to the Yakima Valley carry it.
He said the Ecology Department’s proposal will have a “minimal effect” on the spread of the virus.
Only one in five people infected with the virus come down with symptoms, which include fever, headache, body aches, rash and swollen lymph nodes. A more serious form of the virus causes neck stiffness, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, paralysis or death.
And mosquitoes can always be prevented by wearing long-sleeved shirts and repellent, Kelly said.
It’s uncertain how the new rules would affect outdoor barbecues for Jim and Cathy Pinson and their chores on their 30 acres of Concord grapes on the banks of the Yakima River.
They live across the river from Byron Ponds, a network of marshes fed by underground seepage and the Grandview waste water settling ponds.
District employees found West Nile samples there, so they bombed the area by plane six or seven times last summer.
“It made all the difference,” Jim Pinson said.
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Information from: Yakima Herald-Republic, http://www.yakima-herald.com
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