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New Information Shows Mosquito Spray Flight Path Went Further South Over Homes

NATOMAS (CBS13) — New evidence shows a plane dropping insecticide for West Nile Virus prevention over homes with no notice given to residents.

Angry neighbors say they weren't told about a plane spraying potentially harmful insecticide over their homes, with one resident saying the chemicals made her sick.

Officials say chemicals from the plane did not reach homes, but new evidence of the flight path may show otherwise.

Sacramento Yolo Vector Control spokeswoman Luz Rodriguez told CBS13 on Monday that the spray targeted fields and not homes.

Natomas neighbor Dee Dee Toney emailed CBS13 to say not only did the plane spray over her house, the chemicals made her and her husband ill.

"Nobody got a notice, nobody knew," she said. "I had a headache as I sat on my computer texting the station, saying 'She lied!'"

CBS13 obtained flight-tracking data from Sacramento County airports showing the plane's path going back and forth over homes on Sunday night.

"We did need to have the planes fly directly above the neighborhoods, but the material was not being deposited there, it was targeting the rice fields," Rodriguez said.

According to the district's website, the target zone was north of Elkhorn Boulevard, where the tracking data showed the plane flying. But it also flew further south into residential neighborhoods.

"To have the wind drift and deposit the material into the rice fields," Rodriguez said.

She says vector control's weather technology tells the pilot precisely where to spray insecticide to reach the intended area.

"It's not uncommon to have a one-mile buffer zone from where the material needs to be deposited," she said.

But the flight path shows the plane flying twice as far south.

"To our best knowledge, the material ended up in our target zone, which is the rice fields," Rodriguez said.

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