Ary Faraji, Dick Loomis and Jason Hardman
We went on a fascinating field trip today, with our work for the Ouelessebougou Alliance. Thanks to the efforts of friends at the Mosquito Abatement District and our board member, Dick Loomis, we are partnering on a very important project to help relieve malaria in the Ouelessebougou region of Mali.
These folks have helped us fill a container with all of the supplies and vehicles needed to start an abatement program in Ouelessebougou. Ouelessebougou is one of the worst mosquito areas in the world. There is plenty of research and aid that can be done there. The container is ready now to be shipped.
The Mosquito Abatement District in Salt Lake is one of the finest in the nation. These scientists are excited to partner with the scientists in Bamako. Today we learned all about their incredible work to keep our communities here safe from mosquitoes. I had no idea all of this was going on. I’m excited for our friends in Mali to benefit from what goes on here.
http://www.slcmad.org/ is where you can learn even more. We loved our tour and were fascinated by all the scientific research that goes on here in Salt Lake. We learned about the history of mosquito abatement in this area, and the day to day operations. It was really quite unbelievable. As a malaria survivor, I’m grateful for people like this who are behind the scenes, making the world a better place.
Guess how many mosquitoes are in these jars!
When I was little, my dad had sprayers like this. He’d spray our bedroom at night when the mosquitoes were so bad we couldn’t sleep.
This state of the art facility included these fine bathroom signs!
Jason Hardman explained to us every step of the process of studying the different varieties of mosquitoes found here and how treatments for each type and each area are specific and specialized.
Cameras mounted above the trays help count the number of mosquitoes.
Breeding trays:
Hatched adult mosquitoes:
Here is a detailed map of our Salt Lake Abatement area. These folks know where every puddle of water is!
The salt flats near the Great Salt Lake are a huge breeding area.
These are breeding tanks for little fish that eat mosquitoes.
Workers from the Abatement District travel all over our valleys, spraying and treating areas where mosquitoes breed. The goal is to kill the larvae before they become adult mosquitoes and fly.
These machines spray safe pesticides.
The pesticides are customized to the types of mosquitoes. Everything is color coded.
There are fleets of trucks and boats and land rovers that take the treatments to every corner of this valley.
This dipper is a universal size (used all over the world) for counting mosquito larvae in water.
A vehicle like this one is in the container for Mali.
This type of sprayer will also be sent to Mali.
High-tech drones help identify problem areas.
These batteries are kept charged. They power the mosquito traps.
I loved this tour. If you are interested to learn more, please go visit. You will be fascinated by what is done here.
