EAST LONGMEADOW – The town of East Longmeadow will play a part in the creation of the first Pioneer Valley Mosquito Control District, which also includes the communities of Deerfield, Greenfield, Montague, Palmer, South Hadley, and Southampton.

East Longmeadow Health Director Aimee Petrosky told Reminder Publications the town of Deerfield applied for grant money from the state through its Community Compact to kick-start the new initiative.

Although the town of East Longmeadow has not signed a Community Compact agreement, it was able join the regionalized effort and gained $35,310 to fund mosquito testing.

According to a press release from the office of Gov. Charlie Baker, the Baker-Polito Administration awarded more than $1 million in Community Compact Grants to approximately 70 municipalities across the Commonwealth. The grants funded projects that focused on efficiency and regionalization.

“Lieutenant Governor Polito and I formed the Community Compact Cabinet shortly after coming into office as a way for the state to serve as a more reliable partner for our cities and towns,” Baker stated. “We are proud to announce several grants today that will help cities, towns, and school districts from across the Commonwealth share services and find efficiencies.”

Petrosky said there are mosquito control districts in Berkshire County and the eastern half of the state, but none have been established in Western Massachusetts.

“At this point it’s not a treatment mechanism,” she added. “It’s going to be strictly surveillance. So, the grant money will be mostly used to hire a consultant to look into forming the Mosquito Control District and to start doing surveillance within the towns that have agreed to sign on.”

She noted each community would look for viruses such as West Nile or Eastern equine encephalitis in mosquito breeding areas.

“Historically, East Longmeadow has done no surveillance,” Petrosky said. “We’ve done spraying at the beginning of spring time to treat the wetland areas with larvicide. The problem with that is we don’t know what exists in our wetlands when we start, so there’s no way to monitor the success of the treatment. And we don’t know if there are any infected mosquitos in the area at all. By doing surveillance, it allows us the opportunity to do targeted interventions for when we know how many infected mosquitos we have, where’s the highest density of mosquitos, and what risk there is to the community.”

There have been no past cases of West Nile infections in the town, she stated.

According to the grant application, the town would utilize $2,500 for administrative expenses, purchase 10 mosquito light traps for about $1,200, an additional 10 Gravid traps for $950, five gelled electrolyte batteries for $145, an automatic battery charger for $225, two dippers for $40, and a 100-watt halogen magnifying glass for $250.