Clouds of mosquitoes that recently moved in near the Sorrento Valley COASTER Station are causing concern among helpless commuters, victims of their itchy bites.
Kevin Anderson noticed the unwelcome neighbors as he waited for the train last week.
“There weren’t any problems and then all of the sudden, there’s just swarms of them,” said Anderson.
“There’s just clouds of them. Like millions of them,” he added.
Gathering at dusk, the swarms prey on commuters, who have turned to huddling at the north corner of the five-car-length platform in an effort to escape.
Anderson told NBC 7 on Wednesday, a mosquito flew into his co-worker’s eye and bit the inside of it. Another fellow commuter was bitten near her left eye, which caused her eyelid to swell up.
The North County Transit District learned of the problem Wednesday as the result of a customer complaint and sent a staff member immediately to check out the station, according to spokesperson Katie Whichard.
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She said the pests appear to be coming from a flood control channel that's on city property.
Anderson said North County Transit District (NCTD) crews have been doing construction near his station, so they cleared overgrown trees, bushes and grasses along a drainage canal that runs along the Sorrento Valley tracks.
During that process, Anderson believes a dirt berm may have built up, causing water to pool and stagnate. And there’s no place mosquitoes love to breed more than in stagnant water.
The concerned commuter called the San Diego County Vector Control Program to report the infestation.
County Communications Specialist Gig Conaughton told NBC 7 Anderson and three others reported the Sorrento Valley swarm on Wednesday.
The same day, inspectors were sent to the area and found two mosquito breeding areas nearby, according to Conaughton. On one of them, employees scattered larvicide, a granular material that kills mosquito larvae and stops the insect population from growing.
The second breeding site is close to the train tracks, so Conaughton said the county will have to work with the NCTD to take care of it at a later time.
He said it will be up to whoever owns the property to make sure the stagnant water is cleared.
A solution is in the works, according to the NCTD.
"We’re trying to figure out whose jurisdiction the problem is in," Whichard said. "We’ll be coordinating with the city and county to make sure vector control will come out and take care of It."
The pests are not only a nuisance, but a health issue as well, Anderson believes.
“The health concern of West Nile, you always hear about it and people that are waiting on the platform, many of them have been bit,” he said.
The San Diego County's Vector Control Program recently warned residents they've found yellow fever mosquitoes around the county, a breed that could become dangerous if established in the region.
