Terry Greathouse, Ass't. Professor of Biology at Cuyahoga Community College, explains why the wetlands at West Creek will not increase the risk of West Nile virus ( listen to his own words in an mp3 file):

"I must tell you that, West Nile virus, we knew it was moving into Ohio last year. We anticipated it. We knew the concerns about wetlands. And it goes like this:

If you create good predator habitat for the mosquitoes, you will not aggravate the West Nile virus problem, and you should alleviate it a little bit. It is not a cure. But you won't find - and again, I had the health department come down and confirm. We had a pool of water over here all summer. I monitored for the mosquito larvae and pupa and not a one because we had dragonflies everywhere over there. And diving water beetles and water boatmen, if any of you know what those are. They're all predators. And so they're all in there.

Now, where are the mosquitoes going to come from? Not here because their predators are here. Where they're going to come from and what does it for West Nile and why it's such a big problem even in big cities where there's no wetlands: the knothole mosquito. It breeds in the knotholes of trees after rains. It'll lay its eggs and goes through its lifecycle 3 days to a week. And there's not much we can do about that. They also like tin cans. They also like tires. They also like birdbaths. What I'm saying is: standing temporary water is the breeding ground for these mosquitoes. Not permanent water where their predators are. Their predators can't live in those conditions 'cause they need months to mature. And when they dry out the predator's done and then it takes a long time to get them back in there.

This is not going to aggravate the West Nile problem and I'll tell you how I'm going to make certain of that: If you get a little pocket of water coming back in and if the water level drops and that little pocket becomes isolated, there - mosquitoes will start breeding because their predators aren't up in that little pocket 'cause that little pocket will dry out and fill up with rain water. So where I have those little pockets, I'm going to be monitoring for mosquitoes. We see a little pocket that's going to be a breeding ground for mosquitoes, I'm going to fill it in. We'll just fill it in, that little pocket. That's all we'll do."