08.4.2000 00:15
State
readies
W. Nile
response
The potentially deadly virus has been detected in Connecticut, about 25 miles from the Rhode Island line.
By PETER B. LORD
Journal Environment Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- John A. Fusaro Jr. runs the Public Works Department in Westerly, a hot spot for mosquito-borne illnesses in recent years, so he has as much reason as any local public official to worry about the West Nile virus that seems to be getting closer to Rhode Island.
But after a briefing yesterday afternoon on the state's plans for dealing with West Nile, should it show up here, Fusaro said he was impressed and confident that the right things are being done.
"I'm in a hot zone, no question," Fusaro said. "But all this makes it a lot easier. There's no more guessing. And I think everyone should be impressed that they are ready."
No sign of West Nile has been found anywhere in Rhode Island, ever. But it has been detected in birds and mosquitoes in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and it's showing up at an accelerating rate in birds and mosquitoes in New York and New Jersey. New York has launched a widespread pesticide-spraying program.
A crow infected with the potentially deadly virus has been found in Columbia, Conn., the first known case in eastern Connecticut, state officials said yesterday. Columbia is off Route 6, about 25 miles west of Foster.
The bird was found July 13 at the south end of Columbia Lake, state officials said during a news conference at Town Hall. There were no immediate plans to spray the town.
RHODE ISLAND
officials laid out yesterday their plan for responding to West Nile should it show up here in mosquitoes, birds, or people.
The protocol, approved by a special advisory panel last Friday, amounts to a series of measured responses so that as little pesticide as possible is sprayed on the environment.
"We're all set to spray," said Jan Reitsma, director of the state Department of Environmental Management. "But we really don't want to spray if we don't have to. Our program is more designed to prevent overreaction than to trigger reaction."
More important than anything the state does are efforts by parents and children throughout the state to protect themselves from mosquitoes, Reitsma and Health Director Patricia Nolan said.
"We must make it clear that government can't do this job by itself," Reitsma said. "People must exercise personal protection."
For much of the summer, the state has been distributing larvicide to communities so they can spread it to kill mosquitoes before they fly. It also launched an extensive public-education campaign to get people to dry up mosquito-breeding areas and avoid mosquitoes by wearing protective clothing and repellents.
The state's surveillance program has so far tested 5,467 mosquitoes collected from 27 traps around the state. Also, the state has tested 34 dead birds -- 14 came back negative and 20 results are pending.
DEM officials said yesterday they will recommend that communities launch ground spraying of pesticides if West Nile is discovered here. Spraying will be limited to populated areas within 2 miles of the detected disease. No spraying will be allowed on wetlands, open water or agricultural fields.
Towns will be given the sprayers, the pesticides and special computer-generated maps showing where to spray and what areas to avoid.
The state would proceed further, to limited aerial spraying, if it was convinced that ground spraying didn't work, the disease had spread to wide areas or people became infected.
Aerial spraying must be authorized by Governor Almond, and only after he declared a state of emergency, according to DEM Associate Director Malcolm Grant, who is in charge of the program.
Grant said there has been one problem with the state's surveillance system -- far too many people are reporting dead or diseased birds that aren't likely candidates for West Nile. A total of 180 calls have been received in the last few months.
"We're getting birds with tread marks, birds with cats still attached to them -- 80 percent of the calls we're getting are false and that's chewing up valuable staff time," Grant said.
IN REHOBOTH,
Mass., officials postponed plans to spray pesticides yesterday after tests of a dead crow failed to find any indication of West Nile.
Once the rains subside, though, Bristol County Mosquito Control will resume responding to pesticide-spraying requests from individuals.
In Rhode Island, communities can get approval for pesticide spraying only after they convince the DEM that they have a worse-than-usual problem. Westerly officials announced plans this week to do an aerial distribution of larvicide onto Chapman Pond today, but that was only because of an increase in mosquitoes, not because of a sign of any disease, state officials said.
West Nile was never seen in the United States until an outbreak last fall killed seven people in New York. No one knows how the disease was carried here from its regular home in Africa and eastern Europe.
But it's considered particularly lethal to birds in the United States, because they have no immunity to it.
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The potentially deadly virus has been detected in Connecticut, about 25 miles from the Rhode Island line.