City’s Bug Busters Work to Take Sting Out of Summer

On a sweltering July morning, Mark Westerline and Loc Tran survey the scene on the eastern edge of town: a stretch of drainage ditches below the Villa Del Arroyo mobile home park covered with shrubbery and plenty of stagnant pools where their enemies lurk.

“This is the worst area,” says Westerline, who along with his partner has come prepared for combat.

Wearing safari hats and black rubber boots and armed with machetes and metal canisters filled with larvicide, the two head down into the ditch they call the swamp. There they come face to face with the enemy: mosquitoes.

Call them Ghostbusters for Moorpark’s pest insects. Part of their job entails whacking at bushes with their machetes to get to drainage ditches or flood channels where mosquitoes breed.

Other times they are out sifting through manure or trash cans for flies that may pose a public health hazard.

Their aim isn’t to kill every bug they see, but rather to control pest insects that carry diseases that can be passed to humans. They also serve as the city’s yellow jacket patrol whose job is to help keep people and animals from being stung.

Although Westerline and Tran have worked at the same jobs for years, they now have a new employer: the city of Moorpark. The city on July 1 took over the services of the embattled Moorpark Mosquito Abatement District, a 38-year-old agency that disbanded last year after questions were raised about its financial operations.

Westerline and Tran now work for the city’s newly created Vector Control Division, which operates under the city’s Community Services Department.

One major difference is that the new abatement program only covers the city, whereas the old operation was responsible for nearby unincorporated areas, said Mary Lindley, director of community services.

This means the two city workers will have more time to examine the areas within the city boundaries for pest insects, Westerline said.

But the future of the new city agency is still up in the air. The city is still considering how best to use the assessment money it receives from its takeover of the old abatement district as well as the time of its two new employees, Lindley said.

One proposal calls for using some of the money collected to help pay for other city services or programs, such as the library.

The city is expected to collect about $130,000 in its share of mosquito assessments this year, assistant manager John Nowak said. In addition, the city and county must still divide about $1.4 million in assessments already collected by the former abatement district.

Whatever the city decides to do in the future with its share of the money, there are still mosquitoes and other pest insects to contend with.

Usually by this time of year, for example, many water beds from winter and spring storms have dried up. But with El Nino-driven storms earlier this year, plenty of standing water has been left for mosquitoes to breed in.

What makes it worse is that, “This is peak season, especially when it heats up like this at night; the mosquitoes are very active and the amount of time it takes to become an adult is shortened,” Westerline said.

A chief concern is that mosquitoes can pass diseases such as encephalitis to humans.

The two strains to look out for especially in Southern California are western equine encephalitis and the more serious St. Louis encephalitis.

The virus can cause inflammation in the brain and spinal cord. Often the symptoms are flu-like and can more severely affect toddlers and the elderly.

Westerline and Tran place mosquito fish into stagnant pools to eat the mosquito larvae, but it isn’t always enough to control them.

Another powerful weapon is the larvicide that they pump out of their metal canisters. The substance is a nontoxic mineral oil with a petroleum base that sticks to the surface of the water and suffocates the mosquito larvae.

Yet it’s clear that this is not a one-time battle, especially at Villa Del Arroyo mobile home park.

“He sprayed yesterday,” Westerline said after he finished examining a few pools just below the mobile homes. “But we found little larvae that hatched last night. It just goes on and on. It’s like a war that never ends and this is like the biggest battlefield.”

The old mosquito abatement district was originally formed by county officials in 1960 to control pest insects attracted to the many egg farms and horse ranches around Moorpark at the time.

But over the years, the nature of Westerline’s work has changed as new residential communities have been developed.

There are more sewers and trash cans to attract flies, and more gutters, flood control channels, ornamental pools and fountains for mosquitoes to breed in.

And the problem is likely to get worse.

For example, Hidden Creek Ranch, a 3,221-home development planned for north of town, calls for seven retention basins to avoid draining into the Arroyo Simi, Westerline said.

Even before it is built, Westerline already knows what this means: new breeding grounds for mosquitoes.