Government spraying of poisons in populated areas rises

Janice Terenzio waited anxiously last night for the state to spray her Stamford neighborhood with insecticide to kill mosquitoes that could carry the potentially-deadly West Nile virus.

Mosquitoes infected with the virus were discovered Friday across the street from Terenzio's Lawton Avenue home in Sleepy Hollow Park.

"I just want them to spray. I'm more afraid of contracting the virus than the pesticide," Terenzio said. "I walk my dog in the park two or three times a week. We're always trying to keep the kids out of there."

Starting at about 8 p.m., state Department of Environmental Protection crews in three trucks ground-sprayed insecticide in a 2-mile radius of the Springdale park, including parts of Darien and New Canaan. It was the first spraying in the state this summer.

Police cars escorted the trucks, which traveled at about 10 mph, as they sprayed the foglike insecticide, Scourge, along 150 miles of road, on both sides of each street.

Scourge, which contains resmethrin in a mineral oil base, is designed to kill mosquitoes within 15 to 30 minutes of application.

Last night's application of about 45 gallons of Scourge was expected to kill about 70 percent of the mosquito population, said Paul Capotosto, mosquito management supervisor for the DEP.

Although deadly for mosquitoes, Scourge poses little risk to humans or animals, officials said. The insecticide was applied at a low strength and will dissipate when it comes into contact with ultraviolet light, Capotosto said.

"It's a safe product for killing mosquitoes," he said. "It's safe for the environment and for people."

Stamford resident Michael Guroian hung a 20-by-30-inch sign in front of his Fieldstone Road home with the words, "I object to being poisoned" written in big letters.

Guroian said he believes the spraying will do little to lessen the West Nile threat.

"I cannot understand how spraying from the road will help the problem. . . . What happens to the mosquitoes that are breeding and swarming in the swamp areas where there are no roads?" he said. "Most of the mosquitoes will survive. This will not stop the spread of the West Nile virus."

Guroian said he was caught off guard by last night's spraying, which had been postponed Monday night because of the threat of rain.

He learned the spraying had been rescheduled while at a church meeting in Westchester County, N.Y., and had to rush home to make sure his pet cockatiels, Timothy and Titus, were OK.

"I was driving 80 miles an hour on the Merritt, because I had two birds in my house with the windows wide open," Guroian said. "I couldn't sit at a meeting in good conscience thinking that poison was wafting through my windows."

She went shopping at Ridgeway Shopping Center on Summer Street last night and said she inadvertently got caught in the crossfire of the spray.

She said she emerged from one of the stores at about 8:30 p.m. to find other shoppers complaining about the smell of insecticide that hung in the air.

"I planned not to be involved in this spraying, and by going out shopping I had to breathe that stuff in. I'm upset," Elizabeth Guroian said.

Mayor Dannel Malloy said while Scourge has been deemed safe, it makes sense for people to have as little contact with the spray as possible.

"You certainly don't want to hang out when the truck goes by," said Malloy, who was also upset by the short notice of last night's spraying.

Officials recommended that people who live in the targeted spray area keep their windows closed, take their pets indoors and remain in the house while the insecticide was applied.

Scott Russell of Northill Street in Stamford wondered what impact the insecticide could have on wildlife.

"If they tell you to bring your dogs and cats inside, what will this do to other animals like birds and squirrels?" he asked.

"I think it's necessary," Dudek said. "It's disturbing that they found so many (infected) mosquitoes here in the neighborhood. My daughter and I have already had Lyme disease, and we don't want to get anything else."

Theresa Romaniello of Lawton Avenue said she also worries about the threat the mosquitoes pose to her three young grandchildren.

"We're always watching the kids and spraying them down (with mosquito repellent)," Romaniello said as she stood with her 8-year-old granddaughter, Danielle, looking at the television satellite trucks that lined the street to cover the spraying.

DEP spokeswoman Michele Sullivan said the light mist that fell last night after the spraying began should have no effect on the pesticide. Only a heavy downpour would impede Scourge's effectiveness, she said. The spraying was done for up to six hours.

Parts of Stamford, Greenwich, Darien, Norwalk and Westport were sprayed with Scourge last year when mosquitoes and dead crows infected with the West Nile virus were found in the area.

No human cases of the virus have been confirmed in Connecticut. Last year, the virus infected 69 people in New York, killing seven.

The elderly and children under 12 months are most susceptible to the more serious complications of West Nile virus, according to the DEP.

Many Stamford residents said they did not receive enough notice of last night's spraying of insecticide in their neighborhoods.

City and state officials agreed but said further delay could have led to a higher risk of mosquitoes breeding and spreading the potentially lethal West Nile virus.

The state Department of Environmental Protection had planned to spray Monday and yesterday after discovering the virus Friday in a group of mosquitoes trapped in Sleepy Hollow Park. But the spraying was postponed Monday because of the threat of rain.

At a Monday morning news conference, state officials said if the spraying was postponed that night, today was likely the earliest next date. But yesterday at about 11 a.m., the decision was made to go ahead and spray last night.

"I'm furious," said John Henesy of Elizabeth Avenue in Springdale, who lives inside the 2-mile radius of Sleepy Hollow Park, where the spraying took place. "I have my mother-in-law who lives with me who has lung problems and needs air conditioning. . . . If I hadn't seen my neighbor who told me, she would have been at risk for a heart attack or lung disease. . . . This isn't right. It really is not right."

Malloy returned to Stamford and arrived at the Springdale park just before spraying began at 8 p.m. Afterward, he took calls for about an hour on the city's special West Nile hot line, which is manned from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. He said several calls were from residents concerned about the short notice.

"After today, I'm going to insist on a 24-hour minimum notice, or at least a full news cycle, to the citizens of Stamford," Malloy said last night, after cutting short a trip to a Washington, D.C., school leadership conference. "I couldn't be any clearer. I think that was a mistake. It's a state spraying program, and we're participants, but I don't condone this situation tonight. It flies in the face of how I have done everything in terms of keeping the public informed. . . . I wouldn't have gone to Washington if I'd known."

Health officials said the pesticide, resmethrin, is safe, but precautions should be taken to avoid contact with it, including staying indoors or leaving the area, bringing in lawn furniture and children's toys, shutting off air conditioners that draw air from the outside and closing doors and windows. Officials have said some people will have reactions, especially those with respiratory problems.

Edward Condon's wife has emphysema and just returned from the hospital after being treated last week for bronchial pneumonia. Condon said he was frustrated with the lack of notice and the lack of information he got from city and state officials when he learned yesterday afternoon that spraying would be done last night in their Stamford neighborhood.

"I never saw such a disorganized mishmash or lack of information," Condon said. "It's horrible for seniors, because they have no information. . . . My wife can't breathe when it's warm. . . . They don't tell you anything. They only tell you they're going to spray from 8 to 2 but they don't tell you which streets, when. What the heck kind of system is this?"

State officials said there was no other option but to get the word out as best they could in the afternoon and evening.

"The public certainly has a right to be concerned about the notification," said Michele Sullivan, spokeswoman for the DEP, standing on Knapp Street as the trucks began spraying there in front of Sleepy Hollow Park. "We certainly are (in the future) going to follow a protocol of 24 hours' notice. In this case, we felt we had given notice over the weekend and thought we should seize the opportunity to do this now."

The state and officials in Stamford - and in Darien and New Canaan, where spraying also took place - took several steps to inform the public once the decision was made to apply insecticide last night.

Stamford Health and Social Services Director Dr. Anthony Iton, who also had hoped for more notice, said many steps were taken to inform people once the decision to spray went forward.

"All the local radio stations, the (Stamford) Web site, the hotline which is going 14 hours a day, were informed," Iton said. "All the day-care centers were faxed or told in person. Senior residential facilities were given notices and every grocery store has been given fliers to hand out. The Fire Department has stapled 2,500 notices throughout the area."

Iton said leaflets also were handed out to Metro-North Railroad passengers debarking trains on the New Haven line and New Canaan branch, and announcements were made at Grand Central Station and on the trains. Police substations handed out notices in areas where people congregate, he said.

Given the time constraints, Iton said, "I'm satisfied that we've done every reasonable thing we could to give notice, and hopefully they'll understand we did every reasonable thing we could."

Sullivan said the DEP was worried it would lose an opportunity to go after the mosquito population until next week, since the agency avoids spraying on weekends except in an extreme health emergency, because so many people are outside and apt to be exposed to the insecticide.

Given the fact that the same rains that make spraying impossible also cause the standing water that mosquitoes breed in, Sullivan said the DEP felt it had little choice but to start the spraying program.

NEW YORK - Bill Fuller waited eight hours to get a front row seat to the New York Philharmonic's free performance in Central Park - only to be turned away Monday evening because of West Nile spraying.

"I was seething mad last night, but in retrospect, I guess they did the right thing by canceling the performance. This morning, I got here at 9 a.m., and I'm looking forward to a wonderful evening," said Fuller, 54, a Manhattan real estate agent.

The 843-acre park reopened yesterday morning after spraying for mosquitoes bearing the West Nile virus.

Rick Adams, 52, a city planner, said concert turnout by yesterday afternoon seemed small in comparison to the same time Monday.

"I'm not pleased about the chemicals, but the alternative, particularly for the elderly and the very young, made using them a justifiable risk," Adams said.

He and his daughter, Rosalind, played Frisbee yesterday to pass the time as they waited for the evening concert.

Virus-carrying mosquitoes have been found in the park and on Staten Island. The city is expanding spraying across the city, using the synthetic pesticides sumithrin and resmethrin, which can cause breathing problems for the elderly and people with respiratory ailments.

"The risk of spraying is very, very small, if not infinitesimal, and (unlike West Nile virus) doesn't include the chance of death," Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said yesterday. (When did the Mayor become a toxicologist?)

Martin and Susan Goetz and their two daughters, visiting from Jacksonville, Fla., never thought twice about their decision to enjoy an afternoon of rowing in the park yesterday.

"It didn't stop our trip. It's a beautiful day, and I think the chances of being infected by the virus - or harmed by the spray - is very, very small," Martin Goetz said confidently after helping his wife and daughters out of the rowboat.

The discovery marked the first time this year that the potentially deadly virus has been found in mosquitoes in New York City. Earlier this summer, the virus was found in birds and mosquitoes in the suburbs.

Rockland County announced yesterday the discovery of its first infected mosquitoes and said it would expand its spraying program to include parts of Ramapo, near where the mosquitoes were found.

Last year, the virus killed seven people and infected 62 others in the metropolitan area. In the most serious cases, it can result in encephalitis, or swelling of the brain.

To staunch a new outbreak this year, the city embarked on a program of trapping and testing mosquitoes, placing flocks of sentinel chickens around the city to detect the presence of the virus early and placing mosquito larvae-eating fish in water treatment plants.

On Long Island, the Suffolk County Department of Public Works planned to continue mosquito spraying last night in the Fire Island community of Point O' Woods. Spraying also was scheduled today for Ocean Bay Park, Summer Club and Davis Park, also on Fire Island.

In Connecticut, spraying was to start at 8 p.m. over a two-mile radius covering parts of Stamford, New Canaan and Darien.

(Editorial Note: It is against the law to say any pesticide poison is safe. What do these "officials" think they're doing?)

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