Children don't play outside here in the summer, and they go to school armed. Nearly everyone is enlisted in the battle against Public Enemy No. 1 _ mosquitoes. Williston, located at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, is a kind of mosquito mecca. The rivers create an ideal breeding ground for hundreds of thousands of the insects. ``They're bad,'' says 23-year-old Kellee Cox, who moved to the area from Fargo last spring. ``I can't believe it. I've got a million mosquito bites. ``I went into my back yard and got swarmed with them,'' she says, revealing dozens of irritated red bites on her arms. ``They just swarmed over me and attacked me like killer bees.'' It isn't a new problem; explorers Lewis and Clark complained about the bugs during their brief visits to the rivers' confluence in 1805 and 1806. A historian called a mosquito attack of 1947 the worst on record. Some say the mosquitoes enjoy the predominantly Norwegian blood of the town's 13,000 residents. Others have proposed getting rid of the bugs by building a bubble over the town or setting up huge fans to blow them away. For years several agencies, including the impressive-sounding Vector Control District board, labored unsuccessfully to put down the insect uprising. ``Too many people were running the same program,'' says Bill Cole, chairman of the vector board. ``Things weren't getting done.'' But a new idea emerged from a heated city meeting last summer at which residents were challenged to come up with their own ideas for mosquito control. Two housewives joined a pediatrician, two teachers and the owner of a day care center to form the Bug Busters _ a volunteer group that studied ways to control the pests while protecting the environment. They enlisted the local high school, a woodworking club and the Army Corps of Engineers to make about two dozen mini-houses along the river, each designed to attract bats and sparrows _ natural mosquito predators. ``We're not importing bats or anything like that,'' said Bug Buster Jackie Stenehjem. ``The bats are already here. We're just hoping they'll move out of town and move into the houses along the river.'' Before the Bug Busters, the spraying of newly discovered larvae had to be approved by several agencies, taking up to a week. Now the decisions are in local hands and extermination can start within 10 minutes. In April, voters approved an annual fee of $12 per household to help bolster mosquito control. Despite a rough week or two, this summer generally was better than last. But children still stay mostly indoors and when they they go to school, they take cans of bug repellent with their pencils and notebooks. Residents try to make the best of the bug situation, which they recognize is an unwinnable war. ``It's a numbers game we're playing,'' Cole said. ``We just want to get it down to where it's livable.''
