Mosquito district looks to expand

EPHRATA - A Grant County mosquito control district may start spraying the entire county to control the insect.

To achieve the goal, Grant County Mosquito Control District 1 wants to annex the county and the cities into the district. District Manager Dan Couture met with the Grant County commissioners recently to discuss the possibility.

Couture explained in an interview the district presently covers Moses Lake, and includes 580 square miles.

"These other communities don't have any relief," he said. "That's going to benefit the existing portion of the district because we can push those mosquito boundaries out further and further and further. It's going to bolster the economy for the Moses Lake area, the MarDon area, it will help with tourism and it's a quality of life issue."

To expand the district, the commissioners and the cities need to place a measure on the ballot, and voters need to approve it, Couture said. If all the cities and the commissioners agree, and the voters

approve it, it would expand the district to 2,600 square miles.

"We would not change the format of what we do right now," he said. "So basically what we have in place, we would just make it bigger."

Expansion plans for the district call for adding an airplane, a pilot and some increase the in ground crew, Couture said.

The cost of expanding the operation would be absorbed by the increase of property in the district, he said. The district receives money through property taxes.

"For what I got, from most of the town clerks and mayors throughout are very interested," he said. "I think we put it to the taxpayer and let them decide. We can provide the service. We know how to do it. We know that there are areas in the county that are just horrible with mosquitoes with no control, and, at this point of time, for those individual cities to start their own district is too cost prohibitive."

He noted the district isn't trying to force people to join. Couture pointed out West Nile virus creates problems in northern California and southern Oregon. The disease affects humans and horses and is carried by mosquitoes.

"I think we're remiss if we don't alert the public that, yes, West Nile is coming back. It was all over the news last year. It will hit Washington state. It will kill people in Washington state," he said. "We have an avenue or resource that we can help alleviate that." Commissioner Richard Stevens pointed out the large tracts of dry land, which doesn't provide habitat for mosquitoes, in the county.

It may be possible to exempt the dry land residents from the property tax, Couture said. He is still researching the possibility.

The expansion would incorporate two other Grant County mosquito control districts into district 1, Couture said. An about 300-square-mile district exists near Coulee Dam and an about 40-square-mile district covers the Coulee City area.

"Coulee City district 3 is totally for it," Couture said. "The problem is, in talking to them, they want somebody else to do it. They don't have proper permitting as it is right now." Some people disagree in the Coulee Dam district, but most of the people Couture spoke with agreed once he explained the benefits, he said. District 1 is capable of doing in one day what it takes an entire season for district 2. Couture plans to start presenting the information to the various city councils in the county starting in February, he said.