The higher-than-normal mosquito presence across Leflore County has prompted the Board of Supervisors to declare a state of emergency and consider spraying for them by air.
Emergency status will allow the county to spray wherever needed, particularly on private property such as athletic fields but also inside Itta Bena or even Greenwood, if necessary.
District 1 Supervisor Sam Abraham, who asked for the declaration during a board meeting Monday, later explained, “I have been here 67 years, and the mosquitoes are worse than I have ever seen.”
The county bought a new sprayer truck recently, so it now has three trucks spraying insecticide every night, although they don’t cover all of the county every night.
Mosquito numbers, which dramatically increased this month due to the wet and humid weather, pose a health threat. The Mississippi Department of Health has documented 37 cases of West Nile virus, which is carried by mosquitoes, in the state this year. None of the cases was in Leflore County.
Abraham and Wayne Self, District 4 supervisor, discussed whether the use of planes to spray insecticides would be more effective than spraying from roads. Abraham said he had been informed that spraying from the air is not more effective than by truck. However, he said later, “We are going to look at it.”
The board also endorsed by a 4-0 vote a petition that opposes a plan to construct a weir in Money Bayou because residents of the community believe the weir’s presence could result in nearby flooding. Before the vote was taken, Abraham left the room because he said he owned property near the area in question.
More than a dozen Money residents attended the meeting. Among them was Mike Turner, a former county supervisor, who told the board the Mississippi Nature Conservancy, apparently backed financially by unknown individuals, was preparing to build the weir so it would foster better duck-hunting conditions.
“When you pay $100,000 to join a duck club, you know what I mean, you want to kill a duck,” Turner said.
Attempts to obtain information from the Nature Conservancy were unsuccessful Tuesday.
In other business, the board voted:
nIn favor of a 10-year property-tax exemption for Milwaukee Tool on its ongoing expansion. The exemption will cut the manufacturer’s taxes for this year by $19,425, according to county Tax Assessor Leroy Ware. The expansion is expected to create 300 jobs.
nFor an interfund transfer of $23,528 from the county’s general account to close out a fund associated with the now-defunct North Central Narcotics Task Force. When the multi-county law-enforcement agency folded at the end of 2014, Leflore County was left with expenses the task force did not have the money to cover. “We got stuck holding the bag,” Sheriff Ricky Banks said.
The order also stipulated that the sale of any remaining property of the task force would accrue to the county, although Banks said there wasn’t much left to try to sell.
•Contact Mitch Robinson at 581-7235 or mrobinson@gwcommonwealth.com.
