The Valencia County Commission voted unanimously last night to look for money to restart its recently cut mosquito control program.

The program was removed from the county’s budget by commissioners during recent budget discussions by “unanimous consensus,” Commission Chairman Pedro Rael said. The program costs the county approximately $13,500 per year.

“When we decided this, it was down to employees or mosquitoes, I think,” Commissioner Georgia Otero-Kirkham said. She later added, “This decision was made for economical reasons.”

The county, like most governments, is suffering from the current economic climate, which has reduced county revenue and forced budget cuts.

“It wasn’t a decision that said, well, let’s just not do it,” Otero-Kirkham said. “It was a decision that was based on the economy and the money coming into the county.”

While Otero-Kirkham suggested the service was cut to save jobs, the commission reinstated it last night without a threat to any jobs, saying the $10,000 needed to continue the program into this summer and early autumn might come from cuts to departmental travel or from an $18,500 project reimbursement the county will soon receive from the state.

The commission backtracked on its earlier decision partly because “we’ve had lots of concerned citizens calling us and television stations as well,” Rael said, who noted he had heard from people in all parts of the county.

Some of those concerned citizens showed up at last night’s meeting to express everything from outrage to confusion, with all stressing the need to continue the service for county residents who continue to be inundated by mosquitoes.

“I know when they don’t spray, you can’t go outside,” said Jeff Kunzman, a Los Lunas area resident. “I know when they do spray, you can actually go outside and work in your yard. You can’t even go outside and work in your yard right now.”

He gave the commission a petition he said had 550 signatures on it from county residents wanting the mosquito control to continue.

“My area, which is Jarales, is a lot of farms, a lot of farmland, quite a few ditches and so forth,” Commissioner David Medina said. “We have a serious problem there with the mosquitoes.”

The commission’s only skeptic was Commissioner Ron Gentry, who argued that the program appears to be ineffective, partly because its coverage area is so limited. He said the company responsible for the program can’t access private property and doesn’t have access to areas near the river with standing water.

Dr. Paul C. Sandoval, who administers the program for Roadrunner Public Health Inc., an Albuquerque-based company, said the company accesses private property with the permission of the owner. He said the service isn’t about whether or not mosquitoes are a nuisance, but rather whether or not the county can reduce the number of mosquitoes enough to reduce viral infections to animals and humans through mosquito bites.

County Manager Eric Zamora acknowledged the company doesn’t produce reports detailing its work for the commission to review.

“I have no data to support that this program is effective,” he said.

Gentry, who said mosquitoes have poked him his whole life, requested the company provide information about what work they’ve done over the past three years, including specific actions, locations and times, which Sandoval promised to provide.

Sandoval added that his company doesn’t just spray for mosquitoes. It takes a more comprehensive approach that involves public awareness to avoid fostering mosquito breeding areas, identification of mosquito hot spots, natural mosquito larvae-killing pellets placed in standing water, as well as spraying.

Gentry said the core problem with the program is that the county takes on the responsibility, while agencies managing wildlife refuges and other areas with standing water don’t do anything.

“It’s a concerted effort,” Rael said. “We have the villages, the conservancy, the county — between us all we probably are having some impact on the mosquito population. It’s not just us. A whole bunch of organizations are doing it.”

The villages of Los Lunas and Bosque Farms and the City of Belen have mosquito control services. The Town of Peralta has been working to continue its service, which was provided by the county, according to the Valencia County News-Bulletin.

UPDATE (6/4/09): KRQE, the news station partly responsible for why the service was reinstated, reports:

This page was published on June 4, 2009 at 7:44am and is filed under Archive.