[Delmarksman]

"The worst part is that they are being installed adjacent to business and residential areas, right next to where people live."

I am a Land Surveyor in DE and here anyway, that last statement is an absloute fact. Every new Housing development or business that is built must have Stormwater Mgmt. Pond or the Conservation guys will ensure that nothing is built. In fact the pond is built before any construction is allowed.

Mousquito breeding area? Yes definitely! As even when it is dry everywhere else, the bottom of most ponds are wet.

Del

[Marauder]

All they need to do is stock them with minnows.

[TroutStalker]

Storm Water Retention Ponds Assist The Spread Of West Nile Virus

So do wetlands.

[madfly]

ping

[Axenolith]

I had a project in the middle of nowhere (literally, It was about 20-30 miles due SE of of Susanville, CA) that really brings out the best of the wetlands hoakum. There was a good patch of property that the Highway department was going to use as a "wetlands mitigation" (WM for short) site.

You aquire property for WM so when you pave over an acre or two, there's no "net loss". The aquired property had some crap dumped on it including a few old vehicles and a used oil drum that was pretty close to empty. An area about the size of half a car had some oil staining.

There was all of 400 parts per million (ppm) of motor oil in that patch of soil but it had to go (for some odd reason, I guess this particular wetland wouldn't be able to digest this phenominal amount).

So, off we go with sampling equipment, a backhoe, and some big trucks. We had to assume there'd be enough to fill at least three by the job description, but we ended up barely filling one and racked up about 11K in costs.

Now here came the interesting part. Down the gravel road was a newly installed BIG ass well with a pump on it so big you could just envision the ground sucking down when that puppy fired up. This well probably cost somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 dollars to install.

I asked the project oversight what that was for, and they said, "when we need to mitigate some wetlands, we'll turn that pump on and flood this area".

As we were in the middle of the "electricity crisis" I mentioned that that would cost a pretty penny to run and they replied "oh yea, the [some Federal agency like BLM or Forest Service, I forget] site up the road costs about 18,000 dollars a month when they run theirs".

Oh, did I mention, this "wetlands mitigation" site is in the middle of the desert?

I wonder what the folks up in Klamath think about using water like this...

[TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!]

What about trumping the environwackos and bringing back that ole truck that cruises the neighborhood spraying for mosquitos; like when I was a kid.