Aerial hunter sniffs out mosquito-ridden pools

On a dazzlingly clear day last week under the high-noon sun, Bob Franklin and Dennis Vied taxied their Cessna Turbo 206 down the runway at Livermore Municipal Airport and took to the sky in search of a public-health menace.

They were hunting for mosquitoes - or more specifically, fetid swimming pools that harbor the insects and potentially the West Nile virus they can carry.

As the foreclosure crisis has escalated, so has the number of abandoned pools. A million mosquitoes can breed in a single stagnant pool. Now finding and fixing them has taken on a new level of urgency.