Marines Battle Bugs

A Camp Pendleton official said Tuesday that the Marine Corps will do what it can to prevent another swarm of salt marsh mosquitoes like the one that descended on the area in the first week of August, the North County Times reported.

Lt. Riley Whaling said Tuesday that base mosquito control workers plan to apply larvicide at the mouth of the Santa Margarita River on Aug. 18, the day that a 6.7-foot high tide is predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"I can not guarantee that it will be done that day, but, as of right now, that is when it is scheduled for," Whaling said in an e-mail.

A 7.1-foot high tide July 21, pushed by larger-than-usual storm-driven waves, inundated local river mouths and lagoons with fresh salt water, causing a mass hatching of aedes taeniorhynchus, commonly known as the black salt marsh mosquito, the paper reported.

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