From the Pima County Health Department, Tucson, Arizona: The Pima County Health Department is investigating its sixth case of a bat making its way into a private home.  In all six cases, Health Department officials have recommended the residents receive rabies shots as the extent of exposure could not be determined.

“We think people are more aware of the potential rabies danger in bats, and are willing to report bat encounters as a result of recent media coverage,” said Babs Johnson, an epidemiologist for the Health Department.  “Because bat bites are difficult to detect, and once contracted rabies is fatal, it’s extremely important that people call either the Health Department or Pima Animal Care Center when there is contact with a bat, regardless of how inconsequential it may seem,” she said.   According to the Arizona Department of Health Services, nationwide from 1990-2002, 26 of the 35 human cases of indigenously acquired rabies were the result of bat variants and only 2 cases had a bite history. 

The smallest opening around a home can be an entrance for a bat.  Residents are encouraged to survey the roof lines of their homes to ensure all openings are tightly sealed.  

Additionally, residents are encouraged to check window and door screens for tears and holes.  By making repairs, it will also be more difficult for mosquitoes to enter homes.  Although there have been no positive mosquito pools identified in Pima County so far this season, it’s important that we don’t become complacent and forget to protect ourselves from West Nile Virus.  

To report contact with a bat either in the home or outside, call the Health Department at 740-8315 or the Pima Animal Care Center at 743-7550.  To report standing water, stagnant swimming pools, or mosquito complaints, call the Health Department at 740-3191.

For more information on rabies, log onto www.pimahealth.org

Tucson officials report that soil samples taken from a World War II tungsten mill show unacceptable levels of cadmium, lead, and arsenic. The two acres of property, located near Silverbell Road and Speedway Boulevard, is currently scheduled for the development of a Natural Resources Park. It seems the course of the city is not without a sense of irony…

Cadmium is a relatively rare naturally occurring element (listed on the periodic table) with the chemical symbol Cd, and an atomic number of 48. It is used in electroplating, solder, semiconductors, and most often in the manufacture of batteries – most commonly Ni-Cd batteries. Intake of this element, whether orally or by breathing is extremely toxic to living organisms.

Lead is a naturally occurring element (listed on the periodic table) with the chemical symbol Pb, and an atomic number of 82. It is used in the manufacture of many things, including lead-acid batteries, bullets, and radiation shielding. Until the toxic effects of lead were discovered, it was used extensively in paints. Lead and lead acids are extremely toxic to living organisms.

Arsenic is a chemical element listed on the periodic table with the chemical symbol As, and an atomic number of 33. Arsenic is used in the manufacture of insecticides, poisons, bronzing, and integrated circuits. Arsenic in all of its forms is extremely toxic to humans. It kills by interrupting metabolism and thereby shuts down multiple body systems.

Tucson is currently looking into the best way to clean up the mess – safely.

On August 24, 2006, the residence of a City of Tucson Water Department employee was burglarized. Among the items stolen were multiple Water Department uniform shirts. The shirts are light blue in color and contain the City of Tucson and Water Department logos.

The Water Department advised that all Water Department employees will be instructed to wear their identification visible to the public and should be with a marked City of Tucson vehicle while on official business.

If the public has contact with anyone wearing the described uniform shirt that does not have their identification visible, they are encouraged to call 911.

Improving the Public Process For the Implementation of Transportation Projects
Pima County and the City of Tucson held four public forums to discuss public involvement in transportation projects. The county and city are jointly updating their guidelines for involving citizens and small businesses in transportation improvement projects. The county’s Community Participation and Mitigation Ordinance and the city’s Roadway Development Policies ordinance identify the planning process that enables citizens, neighborhoods and businesses to provide valuable input into the planning, design and construction phases of transportation projects. Both the city and county governments have a long history of public outreach, including:

Creating citizen committees to review plans for future transportation improvements.
Holding public meetings to inform people about upcoming construction projects.
Helping businesses deal with the impacts of nearby road construction.
Creating citizen committees to address specific issues, such as public art, bicycle and pedestrian improvements.
City and county officials want to make their respective ordinances more consistent, so that citizens can expect similar processes for public participation—whether they live in the City of Tucson or unincorporated Pima County. This common goal reflects a regional approach to transportation that emphasizes consistency and accountability. Both ordinances are also being updated to incorporate environmentally sensitive roadway design components and integrate small business assistance.

For more information, please call Annabelle Quihuis at (520) 740-6410 or Michael Graham at (520) 791-4371.

Attorney General Terry Goddard made an Internet Safety presentation at Maxwell Middle School in Tucson on Thursday, August 24th. He promoted online safety to 170 eighth-graders at 2 p.m.

The presentation emphasized precautions young people should take with social network dotcom address Web sites such as myspace and facebook. The presentation included experiences of teens who have been victims of Internet exploitation. The Internet safety program was developed by NetSmartz and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Internet safety is a topic of growing importance because young people are spending more time online, and many are unaware of the dangers they can encounter. A recent survey conducted by Cox Communications and the National Center for Missing and Exploited children found that 30% of kids between 13 and 17 years old considered having a face-to-face meeting with someone they met online. The survey also revealed that 14% actually had the meeting.

Goddard was joined by Tucson Unified School District Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer.

Maxwell Middle School is located at 2802 West Anklam Road in Tucson. This presentation was open to the media. Goddard was available for interviews following the event.

Maricopa County Parks To Lift Fire Ban

Regional parks permit campfires and grills in time for Labor Day festivities

(Phoenix) – The Maricopa County Parks and Recreation Department will lift its annual fire ban beginning Monday, August 28, 2006. This allows park visitors to use campfires, fire pits, and charcoal grills. The decision comes in time for the Labor Day weekend.

The fire ban was initiated in early May 2006 to limit the possibility of starting a brush fire, which could cause serious damage to the parks.

There are ten Maricopa County Parks that residents are encouraged to visit over the Labor Day weekend: Lake Pleasant Regional Park, White Tank Mountain Regional Park, Adobe Dam Regional Park, Buckeye Hills Regional Park, Estrella Mountain Regional Park, San Tan Mountain Regional Park, Usery Mountain Regional Park, McDowell Mountain Regional Park, Cave Creek Regional Park, and Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area.

If you have any questions regarding any one of the parks, call the Maricopa County Parks and Recreation Department at 602-506-2930, or visit www.maricopa.gov/parks.

Currently, Arizona has about 20 miles of steel border fencing and 35 miles of vehicle barriers – installed by the federal government to protect the southern border.
Washington-based FOMGuard USA, representing the South Korean company, FOMGuard, (FOM stands for Fiber Optic Mesh) has donated $7-million worth of optical fencing to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps for installation along the Arizona/Mexico border. The South Korean company developed the cutting-edge fencing.
Wow – a foreign country helping the United States. What a concept. We can only hope it catches on… Thank You FOMGuard!

Man has a habit of doing what he thinks is best, which can almost always be read as “most profitable,” despite any consequences – known or unknown. We all see it now with oil and nuclear proliferation, and we’ve seen it many times before. We kill off all the wolves, then the coyotes become a serious problem – so we reintroduce the wolves, which become a new kind of problem – and not just the tens of millions of tax dollars that fund such things. But man’s poor handling of environmental issues is not solely relevant to animals, it is more and more common among plants as well. For decades, those living in many southern states have fought a fierce battle with a plant imported from India to control erosion along highways: Kudzu (Pueraria lobata). This woody vine grows very rapidly in substandard conditions, and will climb anything. It quickly resolved the erosion issues, but then started to climb trees and telephone poles and pull them to the ground. The fast-growing flora also created such thick ground cover in many areas that the areas became unusable breeding grounds for rodents and insects.

Tucson, and in fact the entire Sonoran Desert region, is now facing a rapidly expanding environmental challenge. Buffelgrass, (Pennisetum ciliare), an African grass, was initially brought to the Tucson area in the early 1900’s because it would thrive in the desert climate, and feed the growing number of cattle in the area. Now, the grass is running amok, and starting to compete – successfully – with indigenous plant life. Everything is affected, even the massive, majestic icon of the Sonoran Desert – the Giant Saguaro Cactus.

The second negative impact of this malevolent weed is caused by its inordinately high flammability – even when it’s wet. Naturally, its low ignition point, and fast, hot burning rate become proportionately worse as the grass becomes drier. It’s a real wildfire nightmare.

There is a movement afoot to destroy the grass. The county will be spraying for it, and you may even notice the spraying – which is only effective when the undesirable grass is green. The herbicide that is being used to kill the grass, which was recently declared a noxious weed, contains a blue dye – to mark the sprayed areas. So, you may start noticing some large patches of what appear to be bluegrass, but in fact, it’s just buffelgrass that has been sprayed. Hope fully, this approach will contain the grass, and save the fragile desert ecosystem from becoming a large sandy plain with nothing in it except buffelgrass.

August 21, 2006. In an article in today’s Arizona Daily Star, ‘Driver wonders about signal timing’ by Andrea Kelly, a disgruntled Tucson driver wanted to understand why he had to sit at lights for excessively long periods of time – even at 4:30 AM when there was no traffic. Traffic sensors have difficulty detecting the presence of many of today’s newer vehicles, especially motorcycles, mopeds, and smaller cars and trucks. If you find yourself getting stuck at lights around Tucson (or anywhere else) and would like a cheap, easy remedy, try visiting this site: http://www.signalsorcerer.com/.

Are You Ready?
An In-depth Guide to Citizen Preparedness
Are You Ready? An In-depth Guide to Citizen Preparedness (IS-22) is FEMA’s most comprehensive source on individual, family, and community preparedness. The guide has been revised, updated, and enhanced in August 2004 to provide the public with the most current and up-to-date disaster preparedness information available.

Are You Ready? provides a step-by-step approach to disaster preparedness by walking the reader through how to get informed about local emergency plans, how to identify hazards that affect their local area, and how to develop and maintain an emergency communications plan and disaster supplies kit. Other topics covered include evacuation, emergency public shelters, animals in disaster, and information specific to people with disabilities.

Are You Ready? also provides in-depth information on specific hazards including what to do before, during, and after each hazard type. The following hazards are covered: Floods, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Thunderstorms and Lightning, Winter Storms and Extreme Cold, Extreme Heat, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Landslide and Debris Flows (Mudslide), Tsunamis, Fires, Wildfires, Hazardous Materials Incidents, Household Chemical Emergencies, Nuclear Power Plant, and Terrorism (including Explosion, Biological, Chemical, Nuclear, and Radiological hazards).

Are You Ready?, also available in Spanish, can be used in a variety of ways including as a read-through or reference guide. The guide can also be used as a study manual guide with credit awarded for successful completion and a 75 percent score on a final exam. Questions about the exam should be directed to the FEMA Independent Study Program by calling 1-800-238-3358 or by going to www.training.fema.gov/emiweb/is.

Also available is the Are You Ready? Facilitator Guide (IS-22FG). The Facilitator Guide is a tool for those interested in delivering Are You Ready? content in a small group or classroom setting. The Facilitator Guide is an easy to use manual that has instruction modules for adults, older children, and younger children. A resource CD is packaged with the Facilitator Guide that contains customizable presentation materials, sample training plans, and other disaster preparedness education resources.

Copies of Are You Ready? and the Facilitator Guide are available through the FEMA publications warehouse (1.800.480.2520). For large quantities, your organization may reprint the publication. Please visit our reprint page for more information.

For more publications on disaster preparedness, visit the Community and Family Preparedness webpage.