Monday, 20 August 2007 02:00
Amador County Benefits From Gov.’s West Nile Virus Order
A
new chapter in the fight against West Nile Virus may raise the stakes for
Cities and Counties. A woman is suing the city in which she lives, Chico, for her husband's death from the West
Nile virus last year. Ilse Brown has filed a wrongful-death
lawsuit seeking $50 million dollars in damages from the City. Brown says that
her husband contracted the virus and died last year.
Now, she too has been diagnosed with the illness this summer, and she
says that the City of Chico
just has not done enough to combat West Nile Virus or
the pest that spreads the virus, mosquitoes. Last week Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger signed an executive order providing up to $10 million in
additional emergency relief for local mosquito control agencies. The executive order supplements the emergency proclamation Governor
Schwarzenegger signed on August 2 and the more than $1 million in emergency
funding awarded last week. The Governor is reacting to the recent
explosion in West Nile Virus cases in both humans and animals that rose
dramatically in the last few weeks. Although all counties surrounding us have
diagnosed cases in either humans or animals our county remains free of the
virus , at least for now. The Governor did not leave the county out, however,
and the new executive order provides the Amador County Ag Department with $26 thousand plus dollars
for mosquito control and $85 hundred dollars for surveillance.