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August 5, 2004

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· First Thursday: The Governor on HORIZON;
· West Nile virus
In-Studio Guests:
· Governor Janet Napolitano;
· Al Brown, Director, Maricopa County Environmental Services department.

>> Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon," Maricopa County has voted to spend another $2 million to fight west Nile virus as another person dies from that disease. And Governor Janet Napolitano is back after a visit to bean town for the democratic national convention. Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Did democratic presidential candidate John Kerry get a boost from the democratic national convention? Governor Janet Napolitano is here to talk about that and more on first Thursday, the governor on "Horizon." The governor will also field viewer questions. Here now is Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, who has a cold.

>> Governor Napolitano:
I have a cold. So I have to ask the audience and your forgiveness. I'm a little hoarse today.

>> Michael Grant:
I'll ask very long questions.

>> Governor Napolitano:
Good. I'll keep my answers to monosyllables.

>> Michael Grant:
Let me ask my first question, no, John Kerry and John Edwards did not get a bump out of the convention. Why?

>> Governor Napolitano:
And it was not anticipated that they would for a couple of reasons. One, this is a very different election than elections we've had in the recent past. In 2000 gore got a bounce out of the convention in part because prior to the convention the Democrats hadn't consolidated behind him. Democrats have clearly consolidated behind Kerry. In '92 Clinton came out of the convention with a 15-point bounce or something like that, massive. I remember this, I was in New York City at the time at the convention. Ross Perot dropped out right in the middle of that convention. At the time Perot was drawing about 30% of the vote and a lot of it went to Clinton. That's where you got that bounce. None of those factors were present here, and I think the purpose of the convention, which was to reintroduce John Kerry and John Edwards, talk about some of the things they would like to accomplish for the American people. I think that was accomplished.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, your purpose was to talk about healthcare.

>> Governor Napolitano:
Yes, how ironic. How ironic.

>> Michael Grant:
Were you happy with the speech?

>> Governor Napolitano:
Yeah, I -- it's always a thrill to be asked to address your national party, and I was honored to do so, and I think Kerry has a great health program, great -- absent a one payer plan which I don't think this country is prepared to have, I think his the most innovative approach we've seen.

>> Michael Grant:
What's it like to stand on that podium? I mean, both of us have seen it any number of times. I've never stood on the podium. You stand there and look out over this sea of people. I would think that would be incredibly intimidating.

>> Governor Napolitano:
It's really pretty exciting. The fleet center was full because I was one of the later speakers that night. In fact, I got to be the warm-up act for Barak Obama. But what the TV doesn't show is it's very loud inside the fleet center because people are milling around and talking and when you're giving the speech, you have to avoid the temptation to say, okay, everybody it is down. You're talking with the audience, with the television audience and the people back home. I was glad to have healthcare in part because it's gotten to be such a huge issue for us in Arizona.

>> Michael Grant:
I got two different views on Arizona's prominence in the convention. I got the view that Arizona was paid a lot of attention, and I got a view that, yeah, they were paid more than normal attention, but nothing out of the extraordinary. How did you gauge that?

>> Governor Napolitano:
I don't know whose giving their views. I thought we got lots of attention. We had a good placement in the fleet center. That's the first count. Because when we were in L.A., we were not a battleground state in 2000, so we were kind of in the back behind a pillar and kind of waving -- we were sitting next to American Samoa, I think. That actually is true. Whatever. So even by placement, you could see by the hotel we were in, we were in the hotel with Missouri and Iowa, also two battleground states. I think having those three states in the same hotel was done by intention.

>> Michael Grant:
Terry McAll you have says both you and VILCEK were his favorite governors.

>> Governor Napolitano:
I think he says to that all girls.

>> Michael Grant:
Didn't someone say he has 26 favorite governors?

>> Governor Napolitano:
Something like that. But this was -- this convention he was a strong presence and has been a strong lead or your political side for our party.

>> Michael Grant:
John Kerry and John Edwards, I think the itinerary is Flagstaff on Sunday --

>> Governor Napolitano:
Sunday night late.

>> Michael Grant:
Grand Canyon and Kingman on Monday. Are you headed to Northern Arizona --

>> Governor Napolitano:
Yeah, I will join them for the Flagstaff part. It's unclear to me whether the Grand Canyon part is public or not. And then I will break away and go to New Mexico. We are meeting with governor Richardson, governor Schwarzenegger, governor Perry of Texas and our colleagues in Mexico. We have a meeting there in Santa Fe that I will break away from Kerry to go attend.

>> Michael Grant:
Taking up border issues, I assume?

>> Governor Napolitano:
Mostly border issues, trade issues, and at this meeting, water issues, dealing both with the Colorado and the Rio Grande.

>> Michael Grant:
I think you had mentioned a few weeks ago that it was time to start sending stronger messages to Mexico about what Mexico needs to do to assist us on illegal immigration. Is that going to be a subject at that conference?

>> Governor Napolitano:
Well, it usually is. That -- in that more needs to be done in the interior of Mexico to deter people from beginning the journey north, because once they're in the northern states, the state of Sonora, they have the problem of people coming into the state of Sonora and waiting there to cross, and so it's a problem, a mutual problem, for everybody. But more efforts done within the interior of Mexico that we are collaborating with, with the Mexican government to deter people from beginning that journey.

>> Michael Grant:
Maricopa County took a vote today and approved the increased fogging effort instead of the aerial spraying, which CDC had recommended. I think you indicated earlier in the week that you felt that that was inside protocol and an acceptable decision. Are you enthusiastic bit or is it an acceptable decision.

>> Governor Napolitano:
It's an acceptable decision. These are judgment calls. Aerial spraying is in and of itself a benign process but it would allow us to spray more ground more quickly. What they want to do with the additional money is to get more trucks out there doing ground fogging to deal with the virus and, you know, you can argue both options, and I think what they decided to do is do the enhanced ground fogging right now and if they need to, watching the daily reports of incidences of people getting the virus, they can always switch to aerial if they need to.

>> Michael Grant:
Here's the concern, though. I mean, there are some estimates we might have 3,000 reported cases by the time this is over. Let's hope obviously this does not material. But 30 reported deaths in that case, I mean, obviously time becomes a critical consideration.

>> Governor Napolitano:
Yeah, I think we have to rely on the public health experts. They've been in contact, I know, in consultation with the CDC. The CDC, I think, agrees the enhanced ground fogging is acceptable for now, and if cases start to spike and we begin going on that 3,000-case rate incline, they can always switch to aerial.

>> Michael Grant:
One of the encouraging factors appears to be that the occurrences have stopped a geometric growth and seem to have moved to more of an arithmetic growth.

>> Governor Napolitano:
There is that, and people themselves can be their single best protector, wearing proper clothing outside, clearing standing watter from your property, particularly now after it rains, go out, clear that standing water, put on insect repellent that contains DEET. People can really help themselves and prevent getting bitten and therefore prevent opportunity to get the virus.

>> Michael Grant:
Speaking of people helping themselves, knock on wood, it appears that we have gotten through the power problems, thanks an awful lot to some really significant conservation efforts on the part of a lot of people in the Valley.

>> Governor Napolitano
: I think everyone deserves a round of applause here. The voluntary conservation that took place, people and businesses and government raising their thermostats to 82 degrees between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m., reducing their lighting to task lighting, you could see it on the demand charts how it was leveling off the power demand during those high periods, and the new transformer is here, the installation is going well. I met with some of the leadership of APS today to get a status report, and hopefully we will get through this without any rolling blackouts, which when this started I thought was not a very high probability. So everybody deserves some kudos.

>> Michael Grant:
Incidentally, in case anybody is wondering, I want to vouch for the 9th floor in that process, too, because as you know, I showed up to do a remote interview with you and while I was waiting for you to show up I took my coat off because it was so hot.

>> Governor Napolitano:
Yes, we did our part and we thought, we better lead by example.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, drought, you had -- was it a task force that reported some drought recommendations?

>> Governor Napolitano:
Yes, we're now in the process of getting public comment on those for a statewide drought plan before they officially present them to me. We'll have a series, I think, of hearings around the state, probably in September, late August September, make sure we get complete input from everybody before we carve anything in stone.

>> Michael Grant:
Let me go with at least a couple of themes that I picked up from them. Still trying to leave a sizable amount of control over when restrictions would be imposed locally?

>> Governor Napolitano:
Yeah, that's one of the tentative recommendations, and we'll wait and see whether that actually becomes the recommendation or recommendation that I accept.

>> Michael Grant:
On the other hand, though, if I recall correctly, there was a recommendation that if the governor, whoever that might be, obviously you currently, were to declare a state of emergency, that mandatory conservation restrictions could be imposed in those circumstances?

>> Governor Napolitano:
Right. That may be an appropriate balance between statewide imposition and local control. Water in Arizona has always had a large part of it be under local control by the AMAs, by localities, counties, cities and towns, so forth. So there are lots of balances to be struck here, but the end goal has to be, has to be, a drought plan that people understand, that they are ready to buy into, and that we can enforce.

>> Michael Grant:
Do these task force recommendations, though, go to the larger issue which is slowing the rate of consumption so that when you hit periods like 8 or 9 years it's no assurance you won't have problems but at least you will have reduced the magnitude of the problem.

>> Governor Napolitano:
I think you have to look at the water issue both from the supply side and we kind of know what the problem is with the supply side is, we have a drought, a long-term drought but now you have to look at the demand side and the demand side is driven by population, it's driven by wait you use water, it's driven by the way you recycle water, and most of these things in this plan, I think, will have to be on the demand side to really get us through a drought period.

>> Michael Grant:
For example, I mean, it's often been pointed out that Phoenix has a lot of green. In fact, the contrast between Phoenix and Tucson is marked, and, incidentally, the per capita consumption of watter is marke. Should we start moving toward more fundamental changes in lifestyle such as we're going to have to cut down on the green?

>> Governor Napolitano:
Desertscaping, that sort of thing. That's why I think it's more important to get more public input before we make those decisions. There are arguments to be made for -- we have other kind of water issues. We have communities in Arizona that don't have access to Colorado River water, they survive on ground and surface water. They're most at risk now of actually having an actual shortage. The whole agricultural use, for example, the Yuma area, is heavily agricultural, and making sure they have adequate water to sustain that in industry. So there are lots of things that go into this, and that's why the process has to be open, transparent, public and all-inclusive and no options are off the table.

>> Michael Grant:
Last time we talked, we were holding our breath about a lot of things, but one of them was fire season. Obviously we got fortunately some modestly good rains in July, if you'll pardon the expression, are we out of the forest --

>> Governor Napolitano:
Don't say it. Are we out of the woods? I think we're probably through the worst of it. There are no guarantees, but probably through the worst of it. We had the Aspen fire, which ended up consuming about 120,000 acres and ran the risk of not so much structures but transmission lines impinging on those. The nuggets complex composed of the nuggets fire and the Gibson fire, of course, came very close to the telescope array on the top of Mt. Graham. Excellent firefighting response by the federal, state and local people working the fires. These people really know what they're doing. They used some very innovative techniques this year to get at those fires and we were lucky.

>> Michael Grant:
Amazing. The viewer question for the governor tonight is: governor one of your highlighted projects has been the biotech industry. Can you give an update on how Arizona's biotech industry is progressing?

>> Governor Napolitano:
I think it's coming along very well. T-GEN is expanding day by day. They just received a grant, you may have seen in the newspaper, for a huge national autism project, and others are coming in in. The lab tore ears being constructed at the universities the legislature approved and I think this Monday we will have something exciting to announce that ties into biotech. So I'm very pleased with the progress we're making?

>> Michael Grant:
You don't want to leak it?

>> Governor Napolitano:
No, I'm just teasing. Everybody will have to watch on Monday.

>> Michael Grant:
Sort of related subject, on November's ballots will be constitutional amendments would that allow the universities to enter into joint ventures and those kinds of things. How critical is that to this general subject?

>> Governor Napolitano:
This was something that I put before the legislature in my first year. Hit to wait until this fall's ballot, but what this does is it allows the universities to participate basically with private sector spinoffs of their research. You have an immediate linkage. This has been found to facilitate the creation and sustaining of a biotech or new kind of high-tech corridor. You see it in Texas. You see it in North Carolina. In the bay area in California. It's time for Arizona's universities to be unshackled so they can do the same thing.

>> Michael Grant:
One of the things I --

>> Governor Napolitano:
Maybe they'll invent the cure for the common cold.

>> Michael Grant:
You're doing pretty well and I'm going to get you out of here. One of the statistics that I saw that I completely was unaware of, they said Stanford University stands to gain something like $400 million off Google.

>> Governor Napolitano:
The potential financial rewards are immense. Again, our universities are hotbeds of research now, we're a attracting some of the world leading researchers to our universities because we're so supportive their mission. Now we want to unshackle them and let them be more entrepreneurial as well.

>> Michael Grant:
Thanks for joining us. This was yeoman like work with that --

>> Governor Napolitano:
The show must go on. Thank you very much.

>> Michael Grant:
Take care. Maricopa County supervisors voted today to spend more money to fight the west Nile virus. I will talk to the head of the county's environmental services department about that as well as another death from west Nile but first here's more about today's action.

>> Reporter:
A third west Nile virus death was reported today, a northwest Valley woman in her 70s died from the disease. One state health official is predicting up to 3,000 west Nile cases and 30 deaths by autumn. Meanwhile the Maricopa County board of supervisors approved another $2.1 million today to increase insecticide spraying to kill mosquitoes which carry the virus. All but just a handful of the 246 west Nile virus cases this year have occurred in Maricopa County. The money will be used to double the number of employees to spray the inspect side. It will also be used to trim the number of fogging trucks. With the increased fire power and manpower, the county will be able to treat 4.4 million acres and kill mosquitoes in 6,000 known breeding sites. In addition the county will be able to purchase an additional 200 mosquito traps. Officials also hope that the extra money will mean they can get the complaints of standing water faster. During the supervisors' meeting today, some protested said they didn't want fogging for mosquitoes of any kind.

>> Michael Grant:
Joining me to talk about the county's vote concerning the west Nile virus and the third west Nile death is Al Brown. He is director of the Maricopa County environmental services department. Al, the death today, a woman, I believe n her 70s in the northwest part of the Valley?

>> Al Brown:
Yes, unfortunately we've had three deaths now from west Nile virus here in Maricopa County, although that's really low compared to what we had expected as of this time. We're running about a 1% mortality rate, whereas Colorado had about a 10% mortality rate last summer. So if you compare us to Colorado, we're doing pretty good with regard to mortality, but our neuroinvasive diseases, which are the brain form of the disease, like encephalitis, we're running higher than Colorado did last summer, with over 50% being the more severe kind of west Nile virus.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, the elderly and young children are the two primary risk groups?

>> Al Brown:
Michael, the most at risk people are those who are immunocompromised. They have weakened immune system for any reason. Senior citizens, anyone who has chronic diseases and, therefore, their immune system maybe having to fight off the other diseases. Children usually, if they do get the disease, survive it quite well.

>> Michael Grant:
Geographically, the woman who just died was northwest Valley. That seems to have been an area with a lot of case occurrences. Is that true?

>> Al Brown:
The epidemic started this summer in the North Central, northwest type of area of the Valley, and it's been spreading pretty much all over Maricopa County urbanized area. Our most recent cases are coming in mostly from the southeast Valley. It's possible that the patient did acquire the disease several weeks or a month ago when the disease was hitting the northwest Valley hard and unfortunately passed away just recently.

>> Michael Grant:
Are there several other people in intensive care? The newspaper reported that today.

>> Al Brown:
Yes, Michael, we do have some seriously ill people on intensive care. So it is a very serious disease. People need to protect themselves, avoid mosquitoes entirely, and if you know you're going to be out anywhere where mosquitoes are flying, to wear repellent, long-sleeve clothing, minimize your exposure.

>> Michael Grant:
Now, let's move to the action today, the supervisors approved two million dollars for basically a ramp up of the fogging efforts. Fill us in on the details of what that entails.

>> Al Brown:
Our plan adopted by the board of supervisors today is aimed at trying to get more science to the question of whether or not we should spray a particular neighborhood. We currently only have 20 mosquito traps and we're basing our application of pesticide on just 20 mosquito traps. We would like to have as many as 200 mosquito traps going at once so that we can fine tune where we would ever need to have to apply pesticides.

>> Michael Grant:
You use dry ice in relation -- I found the description of these traps pretty fascinating today because the CO2 they emit sort of tricks the mosquito into going in there, but the purpose of this is to more specifically and better identify the areas that you ought to concentrate the fogging on?

>> Al Brown:
Yes, we use the adultCIDE as applications as our last resort against mosquitoes. We prefer natural controls, public education, larvaCIDING before using application of the ground foggers. So in order to minimize that type of pesticide application f we have better data, more complete picture of where the high populations of mosquitoes are and where the infected mosquitoes are, we can target our applications to just those areas.

>> Michael Grant:
So you go to more traps to identify where you ought to be, move to more gear and more people to put more fogging into the air each night, correct?

>> Al Brown:
The other key elements of the plan are to have an army of volunteers out there doing weekly inspections of the 6,000 known CULEX breeding site. That's the most common vector for west Nile virus in the United States. We have 6,000 breeding sites for the critters. We have an army we're building to go out and inspect all the sites on a weekly basis and treat them as necessary so we can catch them before they become winged adults. That's a key plan. Then also to have the 35 foggers, ground foggers, deployed within the next few weeks to cover as much area as we can that's known to be infected by the mosquitoes.

>> Michael Grant:
Ultimately hoping to get up to a fogging effort of about 45,000 acres per night?

>> Al Brown:
That would be with our in house capability. We're also going to be contracting with six pest control companies in the local area who have ground foggers and we're going to be greatly ramping up our public education campaign. We're getting a lot of help from the grocery industry, from the news media has been very good about getting the word out, the Realtors association, they're going to help us spot green pools, for example, and we want to encourage the general public to do what they can to do surveys of their neighborhood. We're going to work with the cities, especially, to help identify civic groups like the Boy Scouts, et cetera, to do surveys of their neighborhoods and to find those green pools and standing water and report them to us so we can get out there and treat them.

>> Michael Grant:
Al, let me quote to you from this letter. This was from the CDC. Since time is of the essence, we encourage you to implement an aerial pesticide delivery program. It's from John -- I think it's the chief of the CDC's disease branch. Aerial pesticide application will be the most rapid way to respond to an epidemic that covers an area this large. Why wasn't aerial spraying in the county's opinion, in the state's opinion the best way to go?

>> Michael, we did carefully consider aerial spraying. These decisions have to be made on a local level. The CDC is from fort Collins, Colorado. That's where the mosquito people are based. They didn't come here to see what our local environment is like. We know where our hot spots are in general. We really had to take some serious question to the notion about doing widespread aerial application of 2,000 square miles. That was the initial estimate of what it would take.

>> Michael Grant:
1.2 million acres?

>> Al Brown:
That's right. That's just a huge area for pesticide application all at once. Also considering that to be effective you have to do it two to three times. So we worked hard on coming one an alternative we think will work. Of course, a lot of it depends on mother nature, if we get deluges of monsoon rains, which hopefully will break the drought, but it could cause a serious outbreak of the CULEX mosquitoes and then we will use aerial spraying or we will proposed to board of supervisors aerial spraying as the next step fit ever gets to that point.

>> Michael Grant:
No substantial, if any, health differential, though, between the fogging operations with the pesticide and the aerial application with the pesticide?

>> Al Brown:
That's correct from the standpoint of the application rate. The amount of pesticide coming out of the foggers on the ground is very small, only about a third of an ounce per acre, and out of a plane it would be about half an ounce per acre. He so it's really a minuscule difference there.

>> Michael Grant:
All right. Al Brown, Maricopa County environmental services department, thank you. If you would like to see a transcript of tonight's show, see what's coming up on "Horizon," go to our website at www.kaet.asu.edu, click on "Horizon" in the lower left of the screen. That's going to lead you to all you need to know about our program.

>> Al Brown:
Maricopa County supervisors decide to spend $2 million more on fogging to fight the west Nile Veras. It appears the effort to get the Los Arcos ASU plan on the Scottsdale ballot has failed. And senator John Kerry will be making a weekend trip to the northern part of our state. Join us for the Journalists Roundtable Friday at 7:00 on "Horizon."

>> Michael Grant:
Thanks for being here this evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.

 

 

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