Employee Training

January 12-15 Aerial Short Course January 21 What is an Integrated Mosquito Management Program Webinar February 6 Communication in the Workplace February 10 Overview of Yellow Fever, The American Plague February 11 Communication in the Workplace February 13 Communication in the Workplace February 17 Chemical Spill Response February 19 Supervisory Training February 20 Supervisory Training February 27 Supervisory Training March 4 Management Training March 13 Clarke Workshop April 7 Chemical Spill Response April 30 Right to Know and Hazardous Communication May 6 First Aid and CPR May 18 Introduction to Common Adult Mosquitoes Found in Lee County, FL May 19 Introduction to Common Adult Mosquitoes Found in Lee County, FL May 20 Introduction to Common Adult Mosquitoes Found in Lee County, FL May 21 Introduction to Common Adult Mosquitoes Found in Lee County, FL May 22 Introduction to Common Adult Mosquitoes Found in Lee County, FL May 22 LCMCD Influenza/Pandemic Plan May 27 First Aid and CPR June 25 Right to Know and Hazardous Communication July 30 Rift Valley Fever, Florida Department of Health Webcast July 30 Basic Pesticide Safety for Larvicide Materials July 31 Basic Pesticide Safety for Adulticide Materials August 4-6 Hazardous Materials, Incident Commander Level V September 10 Emergency Communications: Cutting Through the Static—Webcast September 22 AMCA Webinar: Media and Mosquito Control October 7 U.S. EPA Webcast Clean Water Act Permitting of Discharges from Pesticide Applications October 26 Identification of Adult Mosquitoes in Lee County, FL

The District purchased Automated Ex-ternal Defibulators (AED) which were installed in the T. Wayne Miller, Jr. Ad-ministrative Building, the stockroom, and the employees break room. Em-ployees that attended the CPR/First Aid training were familiarized with the use of an AED during class room instruction. In an emergency, the AED can be oper-ated by anyone who can follow the writ-ten instructions on the front of the ma-chine and the oral instructions the AED provides when activated.

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Media Interviews Feb. 10 Sun Sentinel—Governor's Travel

March 24 NBC-2—Night Vision Goggles March 26 News Press—Educational Program March 27 Lee County Schools Instructional Television April 16 NBC Today Show—Abandoned Pools April 23 Florida News Network—Abandoned Pools May 19 NBC-2—Mosquito Activity May 19 Fox News—Budget and Mosquito Season May 19 WGCU—Budget and Mosquito Season May 26 News Press—Mosquito Season May 26 Wink TV—Mosquito Season June 5 Naples Daily News—Abandoned Pools June 10 Shell Point Retirement Magazine—Overview of LCMCD June 11 NBC-2—Mosquito Activity and Disease Surveillance July 1 NBC-2—Budget July 7 Fox TV—Current Mosquito Activity

Tours & Presentations

The Education and Communication Department provided over 27 tours and or presentations for the District.

January 31 Day of Discovery February 24 Leadership Foundation Tour March 11 Beekeeper’s Association of Southwest Florida March 24 North Fort Myers Friends of the Library March 31 EPA Regulatory Tour April 27 Bayshore Elementary April 28 International Rotarians May 1 Gateway Elementary May 5 River Hall Elementary May 12 Sanibel Seniors May 12 EPA/IFAS Tour May 14 Seven Lakes Homeowners Association May 21 Pine Ridge Homeowners Association May 29 Alva Elementary June 17 Mr. & Mrs. Nearon June 18 Candidate Dana Pierce July 1 Leadership Lehigh July 6 Cape Coral Family of Faith Summer Program August 3-7 EPA Entomologists August 5 Sunshine Rotary Club August 10-14 Navy Entomologists August 18 Dutch Tourists August 24 Shell Point Village September 18 Evangelical Christian School September 29 Sanibel-Captiva Sail and Power Squadron November 7 Sundowners November 14 Aviation Days

July 10 Wink TV—Webpage July 13 Naples Daily News—Budget July 21 WGCU—Mosquito Activity and Budget July 27 News-Press—Mosquito Activity July 29 Pine Island Eagle—Mosquito Activity August 7 WGCU—Mosquito Woes, Budget and Control Sept. 3 News Press2 Sept. 11 NBC-2—Website Sept. 11 ABC—Website Sept. 13 News Press—Benefits of Mosquitoes Sept. 22 WGCU—Dengue Sept. 22 Wink TV—Dengue Oct. 14 NBC-2—West Nile Virus Case Oct. 15 News Press—West Nile Virus Case Oct. 15 The Breeze—West Nile Virus Case Oct. 15 Wink TV—West Nile Virus Case

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The central life line for the District is communications. All calls are answered by an operator. If a service request comes in outside of regular working hours, an answering service will take the request.

When residents call to report a mosquito problem, the receptionist logs the caller’s name, phone number and address. Once the call is logged, the request will be sent to an inspector to evaluate the severity of the problem. Service requests for 2009 were below average in number. At 3104 calls, it was the second lowest number of service requests logged from 1981 through 2009.

Late in 2009, service requests could be logged through the District website. Service requests can be entered by going to www.lcmcd.org and clicking on the box labeled Make a Service Request. It can be found at the top of home page on the right hand side. After clicking on Make A Service Request the site takes the individual to a page with the option to click on service request. The individual is prompted to enter their name, street address, phone number, email address, whether or not a dog is present and room for comments. Information on whether or not a dog is present is for the pro-tection of District inspectors. After filling out the information, the individual hits the submit button. A message will indicate the service request was successfully logged or if there were any errors. The service requests are then provided to staff.

Service Requests

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Mission Statement

To enhance the scientific and environmental literacy of the younger citizens of Lee County to

augment their lifetime understanding of the science related to mosquito control.

The Lee County Mosquito Control District takes great pride in an educational program de-signed to teach our school age children about mosquitoes and the role that mosquito control plays in the local community. Our classroom programs are conducted in collaboration with classroom teachers. Programs are designed for grades five, seven, and high school chemistry and biology classes and support Florida’s Sunshine State Standards in a variety of areas. Films, readings, slide/Powerpoint programs, discussions, art activities and lab experiences are utilized to teach the objectives of each five-day unit. These hands-on learning experi-ences are being offered county-wide to public and private schools. Students learn to identify different kinds of mosquitoes, their habitats and life cycles, and are familiarized with the techniques currently being used to control mosquitoes. Our public school outreach program reached approximately 10,000 students in over 350 classes for grade five, seventh grade science, and high school biology and chemistry classes. Each class participated in a week-

long (5 periods) environmental science interdiscipli-nary unit relating the biology and ecology of mosqui-toes to their disease carrying behavior and resulting human impacts and responses. In addition, instructors are active with local, state and national committees devoted to mosquito control and environmental edu-cation.

Environmental Resource Teachers

Brian Murphy

Courtney Dwyer

Satkoski

Florida Gulf Coast University Instructor

Neil Wilkinson

Number of Classes Taught

0 100 200 300 400

2004‐05

2005‐06

2006‐07

2007‐08

2008‐09

Total

High School

Middle

Elementary

Number of Classes Taught

5

Florida Gulf Coast University

Intern Program

Intern Jessica

Phillips in new Aquatic Systems

shirts

The Aquatic Systems/Mosquito Education (AS/ME) intern program was initiated during the 2008 summer semester at FGCU and contin-ued in 2009. The interns logged 1,012 volun-teer hours. Students were able to earn Service Learning hours needed for Florida Gulf Coast University graduation. Students came from a mixture of majors: Environmental Education, Business, Health, Professional Studies, and Communications. In addition to assisting with class teaching, maintaining equipment, col-lecting specimens for lab work, and produc-tion of materials for student use; several in-terns were able to cover elementary classes while our resource instructors were unavail-able due to attending professional meetings, sick leave and even jury duty. Interns also played a critical role in the new Kindergarten curriculum offered.

The 2009 students selected for the intern positions were Samantha Bunyard, Kathryn Foreman, John Garafola, Dan Kerr, Brandon Kingsbury, Greg Kosik, Jonathan Maile, Jaime Massa-Mussleman, Jessie Phillips, Jenny Williamson, and Mike Powelson.

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Kindergarten Unit

The kindergarten unit was developed to expand the mosquito education program by getting really young kids interested in science. The kindergarten students are inspired by interns from Florida Gulf Coast University students. The kindergarten unit is designed for 40 minutes of classroom instruction and 5 minutes cleanup and breakdown. These classes are scheduled for Fridays. The kindergarten unit was presented to Treeline, San Carlos Park, Rayma C. Page, Orange River, Mirror Lakes, Pine Island, Manatee, Harns Marsh, Fort Myers Beach, Tropic Isles, Gulf, Spring Creek, James Stephens, International Academy, Patriot, Alva, Caloosa, Trafalgar, Ray V. Pottorf, and Three Oaks Elementary schools.

Kindergarten classroom materials

Neil Wilkinson received permission from Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) to offer a class titled Mosquitoes — Biology, Disease and Control. This class is offered to upper level environmental studies majors for the Spring 2009 semester. FGCU required seven (7) stu-dents to enroll for the class in order to support it. Over 20 students signed up almost im-mediately. The texts for the class are The American Plague by Molly Caldwell Crosby and The Mosquito Wars by Gordon Patterson. John Beidler, retired Director of Indian River County Mosquito Control and honorary Dean of Florida Mosquito Control, was guest lec-turer on March 25th providing a class on impoundments. Neil’s goals include educating Environmental Science majors that will be working with mosquito control programs in the future through regulatory and advisory positions.

Kindergarten Book

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Long Range

Aviation Plan

To make the District more efficient and cost effective, the Director has developed an Aviation Plan to contain and reduce costs. In 2006, the District had 23 operational aircraft. By the end of 2009, the District was operating 20 aircraft while transitioning to fewer and newer ships. In 2010 more aircraft will be taken off line and two newer aircraft will be added. By 2011, the goal is to have a smaller, newer and more efficient fleet of approximately 13 aircraft.

The District had 6 radial piston engine C-47s. Three have been retired. The remaining three will be replaced by 2 more reliant turbine engine DC-3s.

The District had 4 Bell 47s helicopters which have been retired and replaced by 2 Bell 407s heli-copters. The District had 6 UH-1H and 1 UH-1B Huey helicopters. 3 UH-1H and 1 UH-1B helicop-ters have been retired. Two UH-1s have completed maintenance overhaul and next year the final UH-1s will be go through complete maintenance overhaul, reducing the number of Huey helicop-ters to three.

Bell 47

Bell 407

Turbine engine Radial, piston engine

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Commissioner Mike Ellis

Five Years

of Service

Ten Years

of Service

Clyde Nabers and Robert Richardson

From left to right: Sandra Martin, Ken Soliven, Milton Sterling, Marco Workman and T. Wayne Gale. Missing from the photo was Scott Bates, Commissioner Mike Ellis, Vivian Jones, and Commissioner Bruce Scott.

Fifteen Years

of Service Commissioner Joseph Burgess and Commis-

sioner Rick Pritchett. Missing from the photo was Jeremy Ford

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Twenty Five

Years of

Service

Richard Baker, Bryan Smith, and Gene Sutton

Brian Cotterill

Thirty Years of Service

Robert A. Harper

Twenty Years

of Service

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Retired

Employee

Roger Zocki Sanibel Field Inspector

New

Employees

Rick Pardo Robert Roper

Don Altenburg

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Advanced Mosquito

Identifica-tion

Certifica-tion

Advanced Inspector Sprayer

Certifica-tion

There are 74 individuals in Florida that have obtained Advanced Public Health certification through the Florida Depart-ment of Agriculture and Consumer Ser-vices. LCMCD had 4 employees with the advance certification as of December 2008, but due to the hard work of Robert Hedrick, Chuck Herzog, Paul Morgan and Tommy Stewart the District has 4 more. The District now represents 11% of the State Advanced license holders.

Florida State

University and FASD Certified District

Manager

Sandy Gross completed the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory Ad-vanced Mosquito Identification Course. This two week course provides inten-sive training for experienced mosquito identifiers. Sandy passed the four hour comprehensive practical laboratory and written examination at the conclusion of the course. Sandy was awarded the Florida DACS/FMEL certification as a Certified Mosquito Identifier.

2009 Advanced Mosquito Identification Class at the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory

The Florida Association of Special Districts (FASD) has offered a Certified District Man-ager (CDM) Program of training and exam. The CDM designation requires experience and educational components along with a written project. There are 35 individuals that have earned the CDM certification since 2004. In 2009, James Burgess and Shelly Redovan completed their written projects and earned the CDM designation.

Top: Stewart, Bottom: Hedrick Top: Morgan, Bottom: Herzog

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Once again, the District participated in the Edison Festival of Light activities.

The District provided an educational display at the Edison Day of Discovery Interactive Family Area, which is held with the Edison Regional Science Fair. The booth and helicopter static display was at Centennial Park from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. In an effort to ex-pand community outreach and encourage future scientists, Lee County Mosquito Control District sponsored a science fair award in addition to providing judges.

Aerial Short

Course

The Florida Mosquito Control Association in cooperation with Lee County Mosquito Control District hosted the Annual Aerial Short Course. Classes were held January 12 through the 15. The Aerial Short Course classes were an abbreviated version of the USAF Reserve spray wing class usually given at the Youngstown (Ohio) Air Force Base for DoD category 11 (Aerial Spray) certification. Approximately 150 attendees from the Air Force, Navy, Mosquito Control Agencies, LCMCD pilots and staff were instructed by Major Karl Haagsma and Major Mark Breidenbaugh.

Major Haagsma Instructing

Edison Day of

Discovery

Interior Cockpit of C130 Spray Tanks and Equipment Inside C130

New Hangars

The District invested in two, open-end hangars which are 133 feet wide, 88 feet long and 33 feet high. The hangars will be used to house the DC-3s and helicopters from the hot sun and in-clement weather. The open-end hangars pro-vide an economical alternative to building multi-ple hardened buildings to protect the aircraft from sun and rain.

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Following the floods in May along the Suwannee River in northern Florida, The Florida Department of Agricul-ture and Consumer Services (FDACS) contacted the District for assistance with ground adulticiding. All of the District’s costs were reimbursed by FDACS through FEMA. District crews helped with treatments in LaFay-ette, Gilchrist and Suwanee Counties.

NPDES Tour

DACS Assistance

On May 12, LCMCD/LCHCD hosted a contingent of EPA officials, Weed Science Society of America policy coordinators, an Army Corps of Engineers representative and Florida De-partment of Agriculture & Consumer Services personnel Steve Dwinnell and Dennis How-ard. The group was on a three day tour, led by Dr. William Haller, UF-IFAS, of south Flor-ida to witness, first-hand, professional pesticide applicators in order to better understand the industry. The interest is in response to a decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court which requires that a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit be ob-tained before the application of pesticides or herbicides to, over, or near waters of the U.S. This could have a significant impact on both mosquito control and aquatic plant man-agement. The District provided the EPA members an aerial view of the challenges faced when trying to control mosquitoes, especially salt marsh mosquitoes. Presentations were provided to the group. Presentations covered basic aspects of mosquito and aquatic weed control.

Preparing for Spray Assignments

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The objective of redesigning the District website was to communicate and better serve its constituents by expanding its’ website functionality. On September 9, the updated District Website went live. There were many enhancements, but the key upgrade is an interactive map which indicates areas scheduled for adulticide treatment and has a section that allows internet logging of service requests.

Updated Website

Pandemic Plan

Following advice from the Lee County Health Department to be prepared in the event of a pandemic declaration, the District developed a Pandemic Plan and presented it to all employ-ees on May 22.

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Automated Alert List

Gone are the days of putting red markers on a map with numbers to locate alert list phone calls. The alert list is a data base of individuals wishing to be notified prior to adulticide activities. Keith Lowe upgraded the phone system and one of the benefits is the alert list calls are now being automated. Instead of LCMCD personnel calling our chemically-sensitive people that live in areas scheduled for adult mosquito treatment, the computer generated calls provide a message and then record when the message went through. Jon Hornby, Katie Heggemeier and Don Claytor worked to create a data base of phone numbers sorted by areas. These areas are specially coded. When the trucks or aircraft are ready to spray an area, the coded areas are searched for alert list individuals living within the treatment area. Jean Mavrelis has recorded her regular message for these computer generated calls. This automated procedure saves a great deal of time when the switchboard operators are busy entering incoming service requests and is less likely to miss an individual due to human error.

Science Fair Intern

Five top science fair entries in the Thomas Alva Edison Kiwanis Science and Engineering Fair were selected as the recipients of the Lee County Mosquito Control Emerging Scientist Award. In addition to receiving this award, the five students were given the opportunity to apply for a one week Summer Internship hosted by the Lee County Mosquito Control District. The intern-ship was awarded a one week unpaid experience which involved learning about the biology of mosquitoes, mosquito vectored diseases, application of basic research and science, issues re-lated to controlling mosquitoes and aquatic plant management. The internship involved both laboratory and field activities. This year’s intern was Ricardo Lasso de la Vega. He was selected based on two application essays: “Why is scientific research a value to society?” and “Why do you want to participate in this actual intern project?” The selection committee also considered responses on the Survey of Research Readiness: Student Self Assessment. The internship was June 15-19 and everyone involved found Ricardo to be enthusiastic, helpful, interested in the work and good natured with the work conditions. The District will consider making the Emerg-ing Scientist and internship an annual award.

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West Nile and Dengue

Fever Viruses

October 14, 2009, the Lee County Health Department (LCHD) announced a 69-year old male from the South Ft. Myers (Iona area) had been confirmed to have West Nile Virus (WNV) by the state laboratory. LCMCD actively monitored and sprayed the effected area. The Lee County Health Department and LCMCD provided press releases to advise residents and visi-tors how to protect themselves from mosquitoes. WNV is a mosquito-borne disease that causes mild to severe illness and first reached Florida in 2001. WNV activity has been identified in all 67 counties and peaked in 2003. There have been a total of 239 cases of WNV in Florida and 6 cases in Lee County since 2001. The big news in Florida for arbovirus was the 22 human cases of Dengue Fever Virus (DEN-1), sub-type 1, found in Key West. The cases represent the first documented, local transmis-sion of dengue in Florida, since 1934.

There was concern whether taping towers would be acceptable to the FAA. To get the issue resolved, the District invited Bruce Beard, National Operations Manager from FAA Obstruc-tion Evaluation Services to be our guest on October 7—8. The visit allowed Mr. Beard to examine the District’s tower taping project in Lee County. Gene Sutton and Jim McKeever gave him a night demo flight in the 407. Mr. Beard was very impressed with the way that the towers showed up at night when taped. The District had sent him pictures of the tow-ers, but Mr. Beard said they really were not as impressive as it was to see them in their real setting. Jim McKeever and Robert Roper also gave him a demo flight in the DC-3. Follow-ing his visit the District received a letter from the FAA stating they do not object to the tap-ing of towers.

Tower Taping Project

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FMCA

Aviation Days

On November 14th, Aviation Days was held at Page Field and drew thousands of interested people. Over 500 bags of information about LCMCD were distributed.

The Florida Mosquito Control Association (FMCA) Fall Meeting was held in Tampa, Nov. 8—11. The FMCA President was none other than our former LCMCD employee, Dennis Moore, who is now the Director of Pasco County Mosquito Control District. Shelly Redovan served as President Elect. One of her duties as incoming President was Program Chair. Shelly lined up Dr. Jeffrey Lockwood, author of Six Legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War as the keynote speaker. This lead into a symposium on mosquitoes used as weapons and mosquito control serving as first responders to mosquito-borne diseases. Courtney Satkoski and Neil Wilkinson provided an overview of the Malaria Club at FGCU during the Awards Banquet Tuesday evening. The program provided updates on research from the Florida Medical Entomology (FMEL), Public Health, Entomology Research and Education Center (PHEREC), and the U.S. Department of Ag-riculture Mosquito and Fly Research Unit (USDA/MFRA) laboratories. At the end of this meet-ing, Shelly Redovan, who served as Program Chair and President-Elect, was installed as Presi-dent of the FMCA.

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Surplus Aircraft

LCMCD continues to utilize military surplus through the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). LCMCD had indicated interest in surplus aircraft for a number of years, but nothing suit-able was available to the District. The U.S. State Department decided to retire a fleet of OV-10 Broncos and LCMCD was awarded one for no charge. While it is too early to know if this aircraft will be an advantageous tool for dispensing materials to control mosquitoes, it has many desir-able properties such as being a twin engine, being able to carry heavy loads, and being able to take off on a relatively short runway. LCMCD took possession of the plane on December 10.

What is a Bronco OV-10?

The Rockwell, OV-10D, known as a Bronco, is a twin-engine, two-seat aircraft designed in the late 1960s by North American Aviation, to fulfill a requirement for three branches of the U.S. mili-tary (the Air Force, Marines and Navy, usually referred to as the tri-service requirement.) The design is unconventional, with twin booms, a very large greenhouse canopy, small sponsons for armament, and a cargo area in the center fuselage pod. The original purpose of this airplane was to serve a Forward Air Control aircraft, although it has been used for a large variety of other roles.

On December 10, Bronco Bureau Number 155447 after being serviced was test flown and deliv-ered to LCMCD by Marine Corps Lt. Col. and former Bronco pilot Bob Finer. This particular air-craft, while in Marine "green", was flown by VMO-1 as an A model before being converted to a D model during the 1970's. It was then later modified to the "D plus" configuration through the Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) in the late 1980's. After service in the Marine Corps, this aircraft was acquired by the U.S. State Department where it was modified for use in their coun-ternarcotics program. From http://www.ov-10bronco.net/