American in Albuquerque, may bring us closer to a solution for monitoring their resurgance.
According to Discovery.com, scientists found far more mosquitos in
sewage-contaminated streams than in clean ones, and said that those
mosquitos specifically were bigger, stronger, faster. Yuck! Ecologist Luis Fernando Chaves comments on what this means for people: "One way to reduce these artificial problems is to ensure the water quality of these streams by not dumping sewage in them."
Unfortunately, more than 750 communities in the United States use a system called a "combined sewage overflow system," which mixes minimally treated wastewater with storm run-off and delivers the mixture to a treatment site. But when storms hit, the contents bypass the facility and dumps sewage right into local rivers and lakes.
Rosmarie Kelly, a public health entomologist at the Georgia Department of Community Health in Atlanta, tell Discovery: "We've known for a while that it's likely that these combined sewage overflows were creating not only a mosquito problem but a West Nile problem."
Though no plans to rectify the sewage system is in the works just yet, the situation will remain closely monitored.