YORK, Maine — Concerned about mosquito-borne illnesses, two well-meaning and proactive York school administrators were nevertheless flattened when they suggested moving Friday night football games to Saturday afternoon.
The proposal was part of a five-part plan to limit the possibility of contracting Eastern equine encephalitis and West Nile virus. However, according to York School Committee members John D’Aquila and Dwight Bardwell, such concerns about mosquitoes that would prompt moving Friday night football games to Saturday were, essentially, much ado about nothing.
“I’ll be honest with you. I struggle with this thing. It’s not because I don’t have any sensitivity to the risk. There are so many risks out there, and sometimes I just feel that we try to over-manage risk. But the scheduling thing is a big deal,” D’Aquila said. “I am personally affected by this, and I have plenty of friends who can’t stand that we’re changing the schedule either, especially if we’re taking all these other steps.”
He added: “I mean, my kids don’t even play football, but the Friday night football experience in Maine is a big deal. And if we’re talking about a big new risk, or a significant risk, or something that’s changed or something is different, I think people will understand it more.”
After a lengthy debate, the committee instructed the administrators who developed the draft plan, Zak Harding, the director of facilities for the York School Department, and York High School Athletic Director Andrew Wood, to drop the idea of Saturday afternoon football. It instructed them to return to the committee with statistics on the incidence of mosquito-borne illnesses in York and surrounding towns. The committee also sought information on the type of pesticides the school would use in late summer and early fall to prevent such illnesses.
“It’s highly unlikely to be infected by EEE, but it’s devastating if it happens,” said Superintendent Debra Dunn in prefacing Harding’s and Wood’s proposal. And Harding noted that both EEE and West Nile virus are transported by mosquitoes that are indigenous to the area.
The draft plan comprised five elements:
— Educating coaches and parents of the dangers of mosquito-borne illnesses, especially during the dusk period in late summer and the fall.
— Changing the athletic schedule to remove students from those danger times on the field. Wood had already set up the football schedule for the fall where the games would have been played on Saturdays or earlier in the evenings if teams are close.
— Emphasizing use of “personal protection” such as wearing full-length shirts and jeans and using repellent.
— Larvacide treatments — It’s a bacterial product used in the wetlands and catch basins. Not sprayed, “it’s a biological agent that eats mosquito larvae, so that’s one way to keep the population down,” said Harding.
— Barrier spraying — “We would do a couple of barrier sprays in the summer before school starts,” Harding said. “And if we start to see those [EEE and West Nile virus] risk factors going up, we’d be able to spray again.”
The plan was part of “IPN Integrative pest management,” the implementation of which is a requirement by the state, Harding said, adding that its buzz phrase is to “think first and spray last.”
But D’Aquila got Harding to admit that there have been only a couple human and equine cases in the last few years. And D’Aquila was concerned that no other surrounding school districts were adopting the most controversial element of the plan, moving Friday football. Wood said the football scheduling changes could be reversed.
Committee member Sara Simonds requested information on the progression of the positives cases and the deaths, “just so everyone can see those numbers.”
“And let’s be honest,” Bardwell said. “If we found that there was a real prevalence of EEE in town to the point where it was an epidemic, then I think we would take other action on it. I mean, we don’t have a Friday night football game if we think people are going to get sick. We do it Saturday.”