Wilson Creek swats at mosquito problem

EPHRATA — Wilson Creek has a mosquito problem.

“There’s a lot of water in Wilson Creek this year,” said Grant County Health District Environmental Health Manager Todd Phillips. “There’s a lot of runoff east of Wilson Creek and in the Crab Creek Drainage.”

In fact, Phillips told members of the Grant County Board of Health on Thursday that when he recently visited Wilson Creek, he was “eaten alive” by mosquitoes.

Phillips said the problem is that standing pools of water from the runoff and high creek levels, as well as water in barrels and old tires, all contribute to the situation.

Mayor Kevin Newland, who is new to his job, said the mosquito problem is pitting Wilson Creek residents against each other, with townfolk blaming farmers and ranchers for the problem, and the farmers and ranchers blaming town dwellers.

“I couldn’t care less where it comes from,” Newland said. “I’ve already been bitten twice.”

Phillips said some help might come from the state Department of Health to trap mosquitoes and determine what sort of disease risk they pose, and he intends to meet with area residents in late May to talk about ways to deal with the problem.

“We’ll come together and work on a solution together,” Phillips said. “But there are no resources to combat and spray.”

County Commissioner Tom Taylor — all three members of the Grant County Commission sit on the Board of Health — suggested that Wilson Creek residents consider creating a mosquito control district.

“They could form their own district. The taxes collected fund your operations, and your spraying,” Taylor said.

Newland said he wasn’t even sure where to begin to deal with this problem, and Phillips said Wilson Creek likely doesn’t have the tax base for a mosquito control district.

“But it needs to be explored,” he said.

Grant County has three mosquito control districts, special regions where voters have approved an additional tax levy to fund spraying and other means of dealing with mosquitoes. Two are in the far north of the county — one centered on Coulee City, another centered on Electric City — and a giant district around Moses Lake.

But none are close enough to encompass Wilson Creek.

Health Officer Alexander Brzezny said he remains concerned about the slow, northward advance of serious mosquito-borne illnesses like dengue fever, West Nile virus and malaria. While the climate hasn’t changed enough to bring some of these diseases here, Grant County already hosts the anopheles mosquito — the mosquito that can transmit malaria.

“All we need is someone infected with malaria, which thankfully, we don’t have yet,” he said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.