Yes, today is Earth Day.
The cause is a little closer to my heart this year than in some years previous, because of our family's litter pickup project from earlier this spring.
Besides making our community just a nicer-looking place, the litter-pickup efforts have another benefit, which I was reminded of in an e-mail I got recently from the York County West Nile Virus Program Coordinator, Thomas Smith.
As part of Earth Day, the e-mail release said, you're invited to participate in the Great American Cleanup of Pennsylvania. Why? Because organizing and participating in a neighborhood or community cleanup is the most effective method to eliminate mosquitoes.
It goes on to say that York County is now home to 27 different species of mosquitoes (eww!). The most common types breed predominately in artificial water reservoirs created by humans.
Those can be anything from a bottle cap to a swimming pool, or tires, buckets, tarps and roadside trash.
Here's a scary fact: One bucket or tire in someone's backyard can breed hundreds of mosquitoes a year.
Anyway, if you are willing to help clean up at least your yard or a surrounding area, you might help prevent West Nile - of which there's been a human case in York County every year since 2002.
Want to know what you should tackle specifically? Read on. And take a look at the photos in this entry, which are examples of things you DON'T want to have!
