Insects swarm to reservoir area

Swarms of flying insects that trespass into houses and hover near lights by the hundreds have plagued residents on the streets near Jerome Park Reservoir. 

Many believe the facility, which authorities refilled earlier this year after it stood empty since 2008, could be the root of the problem. 

“It’s gotten really bad this year. It was like something out of a horror movie,” said Giles Place resident Miosotis Familia, who said the insects have been flying in through her window on warm nights, attracted to the light in her bathroom. 

Several residents believe the insects are midges, flies smaller than mosquitos that appear in the spring and in the late summer. 

“I think they come around when the warm weather comes, and we’re in the Indian summer,” Giles Place resident Rolando Martinez said earlier this month.

Though he has heard complaints about the bugs, he said he has yet to hear a “rallying cry” from neighbors to combat the problem. 

Resident Tessa Kratz was with her 2-week-old baby in her living room one evening when she looked up and noticed hundreds of bugs on the ceiling.  

“They’re all over the neighborhood. You look at my door and there are swarms of them,” she said. Though she has lived in the area for four years, she said she has never encountered so many midges swarming. 

She hopes they will disappear when the temperature begins to drop. 

The Department of Environmental Preservation (DEP) did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the insect situation around the reservoir. 

The facility has been at the center of a years-long controversy. In December, the DEP pushed back the expected completion date for the Jerome Park Reservoir from 2013 to 2015. The issue was one of many bones of contention between the Croton Filtration Monitoring Committee (CFMC) and representatives of the beleaguered project to build a massive underground plant at the Mosholu Golf Course to filter drinking water from the upstate Croton reservoir system.