Area health and public works officials are preparing for a bumper crop of mosquitoes as Northwest Indiana's spring has given way to soggy, warm humidity.

(Video: Mark Mokry battles mosquitoes in the field to try to control the spread of West Nile.)

The nuisance level doesn't appear to have spiked yet, said Steve Poulos, manager of Valparaiso's water reclamation department. But Valparaiso and several other region municipalities are trying to get ahead of the season that will bring the variety of mosquitoes that carry the West Nile virus.

The Lake County Health Department is pursuing its own mosquito abatement under the urging of Lake County Commissioner Fran DuPey, D-Hammond, who has a personal reason to pursue it.

Her 75-year-old husband, Frank, who served as Hammond police chief during the 1980s, was stricken was stricken by West Nile fever last August after he was bitten by a disease-carrying mosquito outside their daughter's home in the Robertsdale neighborhood of Hammond. He suffered partial paralysis.

"He used to be very active. He swam and walked every day, winter or summer," DuPey said. "He went out (earlier this week) for the first time without a wheelchair. It took a lot of effort, but it's a beginning."

DuPey said she has been insisting the county department wage war on the mosquitoes in Hammond after taking over early this year for the Hammond City Health Department, which was deactivated in a budget-cutting move.

Ken Severson, Indiana State Department of Health spokesman, said Wednesday there were 24 human cases of West Nile virus in the state last year but none to date in 2008. Health officials in Indianapolis have reported finding mosquitoes testing positive for West Nile virus this year, however.

"I don't think that we have received many calls at this point expressing concerns about them within the city," Poulos said.

Nevertheless, he said, Valparaiso city workers are distributing larvicide briquettes throughout the city's many stormwater catch basins, tree lines and areas around bridges. Workers there also are preparing to spread a filmy, antimosquito substance over smaller retention ponds.

"The larvicide doesn't allow the eggs to hatch and mature into mosquitoes. ... We've been doing it the last six or seven years as part of our yearly maintenance plan," he said.

Jay Olson, Crown Point public works director, said he normally sends work crews to "dip" the edge of ponds on public property to determine whether mosquito larvae are present before abatement efforts begin.

"But this week, I told them to just treat everything with a granular larvicide we use because we have a lot of standing water and temperatures in the 80s," Olson said. "We also are putting notices in the Hub City Monthly and water bills about helping us reduce them."

Douglas Wright, general manager of the South Cook County Mosquito Abatement District in Harvey, said his crews have been spraying areas with standing water and dropping larvicidal pellets into storm drains throughout the south suburbs since early April.

"The last few weeks, with the abundance of rain and the heat that came behind it, have had us particularly busy," Wright said.

The additional rains have created a unique situation with mosquito larvae developing at different rates depending on the amount of standing water in any given area.

"We're doing all we can to keep up, but you can go out one day and be treating larvae in half an inch of water and the next day they've developed substantially because of the heavy rains," Wright said.

Severson said James Howell, epidemiologist at the Indiana State Department of Health, is asking Hoosiers to help keep the swarms down by disposing of old tires, tin cans, plastic containers, ceramic pots or other unused containers that can hold water, repairing failed septic systems that leave standing water, drilling holes in the bottom of recycling containers left outdoors, keeping grass cut short and shrubbery trimmed, and cleaning clogged roof gutters.