SPRAYING SEEN AS A LESSER EVIL.(MAIN)

Byline: ALAN WECHSLER Staff writer

South Maple Lane is a quiet dead-end street, home to families with children, retired folks -- and one of the first birds found to be carrying the West Nile virus north of Westchester County.

Now it's ground zero, an epicenter from which, extending two miles outward, the community will be sprayed with an insecticide in an effort to kill mosquitoes carrying the deadly virus. Similar zones have been created elsewhere -- including Troy -- after virus-infected birds were found across the state in the past week.

Residents here are not sure which is the lesser evil: the virus or the spraying.

Most, however, seem …