City gets grant for mosquitoes

The city’s parks and recreation department is ramping up its continual battles against mosquitoes.

Tuesday night, the Green River City Council voted unanimously to accept emergency insect management funding from the state. The funds, provided through a grant from the Wyoming Department of Agriculture, total $8,913. The city also received $50,150 in matching funds from the department’s Emergency Insect Management Committee.

However, both award amounts were not the full requests made by the city, which were for $15,000 in grant funding and $84,400 in matching funds.

According to the grant award document, cities receiving $3,000 or more in grant funding have to conduct mosquito monitoring activities. Brad Raney, Director of Parks and Recreation for the city, said the city will set mosquito traps to capture the insects. The captured mosquitoes will then be sent to the University of Wyoming to determine which species live in Green River.

“It’s part of the effort to do everything we possibly can,” Raney said.

In the weeks leading up to summer, Raney said the city is focusing on applying larvicide to keep mosquito numbers low. Raney said the city is also working to eliminate pools of standing water on city property, a frequent brooding site for mosquitoes. Raney also asks residents to mitigate standing water and clear out blocked drainages to help keep mosquito populations in check. He said the city also plans to conduct the aerial applications of mosquito larvicide later in the season.

“We will do the fly overs, as we’ve done for years,” Raney said.

Once adult mosquitoes become more prevalent, Raney said the parks department will start fogging neighborhoods with an insecticide targeting the adults. He said while the fogging is effective against adults, it doesn’t effect mosquito larva.