Due to the possibility of bad weather Wednesday night, only four of the 14 Westchester communities that had been scheduled for mosquito ground spraying Thursday night will in fact be sprayed, County Executive Andy Spano announced today.

Spano said that Westchester contracts for the spraying with the same firm, Clarke Environmental, that New York City will be using, and that if it rains Wednesday night, plans to ground spray Wednesday night in Staten Island could be delayed one day, thereby tying up use of the trucks scheduled for Westchester on Thursday. With that in mind, he said he had no choice but to postpone some of the spraying in Westchester.

Those communities where spraying is still planned for are: North Castle, New Castle, Mount Pleasant and Pleasantville. These are the communities closest to the site where mosquitoes infected with the West Nile virus were recently found. Weather-permitting Thursday, the spraying will take place between 11:30 p.m. and 4:30 a.m., as originally scheduled.

Decisions will be made later on when spraying will take place in the other 10 communities: New Rochelle, Eastchester, Tuckahoe, Bronxville, Mamaroneck Town, Scarsdale, Mount Kisco, Pound Ridge, Lewisboro and Bedford. These communities are slated for spraying because they are within a two-mile radius of the sites where dead birds infected with the virus have been found.

Said Spano, "Unfortunately we are being held hostage to the weather, which we have no control over."

The County will be using the pesticide Anvil during ground spraying, which is one of the least toxic products available for this purpose. After-dark ground spraying minimize the exposure to area residents.

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