Month: September 2016

Chester County Health Department WNV releases, summer 2016

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“Mosquito control treatment scheduled for East Coventry Township
to control nuisance mosquitoes.” released dated 6/13/16. Spraying was scheduled for June 15 from 8:30 pm to 10:30 p.m. Download the release here: spraying-e-coventry-6-15-16.

“West Nile Virus identified in mosquito sample in Chester County
West,” release dated 7/15/16. The mosquito sample in question was collected in Tredyffrin on July 7. Download the release here: west-nile-idd.

“Mosquito control treatment scheduled for Thornbury and Birmingham Townships
to prevent West Nile Virus,” release dated 9/9/16. Spraying was scheduled for Sept. 13 from 7:30 pm to 11:00 p.m. Download the release here: spraying-thornbury-birmingham-9-13-16

Also hear an interview about Zika virus with Chesco Health Director Jeanne Casner and other staff members on The Julia Journal, WCHE, 1520 AM, 9/29/16.

Community activists fight mosquitoes and spraying

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by Pete Bannan, Daily Local News, 9/10/16

WEST CHESTER >> Motorists driving through the streets of the borough this summer may have noticed the lawn signs with a baby wearing a gas mask stating ‘Don’t Spray Me.’ Those provocative signs belong to a group of community activists formed to stop Chester County from spraying pesticides in the borough.

Co-founders Margaret Hudgings and Nathaniel Smith recently sat down with a reporter to talk about the group.

“In 2012 the county sprayed in the southwest quadrant of the borough,” said Hudgings. “The morning after it was like silent spring, and we had a lot of people reporting illnesses.”

Three years later, Hudgings and Smith received reports of a plan by the county to spray in the Marshall Square Park area for West Nile mosquitoes which had been discovered in that neighborhood. County Health Department officials planned to use permethrin with permanone, sprayed by truck in the evening after winds had calmed down.

Concerned about the health effects on people and the environment, the two drew up a petition calling for a stop to spraying.

“We assembled a group of five volunteers who walked the southwest quadrant of the borough with a petition asking the county not to spray,” Hedging said. “We got a 98-percent signing rate. People don’t want to be sprayed.”

They presented it to West Chester Mayor Carolyn Comitta and county health officials…

dln-dsm

read more at Daily Local News

The Zika virus and Chester County

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by Nathaniel Smith, The Times of Chester County, 9/1/16

Getting rid of standing water is more effective than spraying

News has come around lately that “Pennsylvania Is Now One Of The Top States With Zika Virus ” (Phoenixville Patch, 8/23/16). Currently PA ranks 5th in the number of diagnosed Zika cases. Of course, no one knows how many undiagnosed cases there are anywhere.

Quick quiz: how is Zika spread? If you answered “by mosquitoes,” you’re only half right. It’s our fault too.

It’s important to focus on this note in the article: “All of the cases were travel-related, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

That means no human has acquired Zika from a mosquito in PA. Although the prime mosquito host for Zika, aedes aegypti, does exist in Pennsylvania, it doesn’t do well this far north (yet).

The fact is that Zika is spread not only by mosquitoes but also by people, whether through sexual contact (CDC offers explicit advice on this aspect) or from carrying the virus (usually without symptoms) and being bitten by a mosquito that in turn bites someone else, who thus acquires the disease. The aedes albopictus mosquito, often called “Asian tiger,” has become very numerous in PA but fortunately does not seem to transmit Zika very well (yet).

Spraying pesticides is a limited, short-term fix that leaves many adult mosquitoes alive and does not affect eggs and larvae but harms many forms of life and can lead to acquired immunity. Mosquitoes breed over 500 times faster than people, so they will become immune to whatever we do against them much faster than we can evolve to resist them. Mosquitoes in Puerto Rico and Florida are already becoming resistant to permethrin, the standard anti-mosquito pesticide.

This is all not good news, except that in PA we do have some time to get ready for present and future mosquito-borne diseases….

read more at The Times of Chester County

Mosquito traps made from old tires are 7 times more effective than standard traps

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by Melissa Breyer, treehugger, April 8, 2016

A new study found this cheap, easy system significantly reduced virus-carrying Aedes mosquitoes in Guatemala.

Called an ovillanta, a simple mosquito trap fashioned from old tires spells doom for mosquito eggs. So effective is the cheap eco-friendly system that during a 10-month study in Guatemala, the team collected and destroyed over 18,100 Aedes mosquito eggs per month, almost seven times the eggs collected compared to standard traps. Anecdotally, the researchers note that there were no new reports of dengue during the time in the area, normally during that timeframe the community would have reported up to three dozen cases.

The Aedes genus of mosquitoes is primarily responsible for transmitting a host of vexing viruses, including Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever. Aedes is notoriously tough to control, according to the World Health Organization. Pesticide-resistance, lack of resources, and a boost in mosquito-friendly environments have hindered traditional methods of controlling the pest’s quick spread.

Created in collaboration by researchers from Canada and Mexico, the ovillanta is made of two 20-inch sections of old car tire secured together in the form of a mouth, with a fluid release valve at the bottom. A milky mosquito-luring non-toxic solution is poured in the bottom – the solution includes a mosquito pheromone that tells female mosquitoes that it’s a safe place to lay eggs. The mosquitoes enter, lay eggs on a paper or wooden strip that is floating in the “pond” … twice a week the little egg raft is removed, the eggs destroyed, and the solution drained and filtered before being reused in the trap again….

ovillanta old tire mosquito trap

read more at treehugger

Aimed at Zika Mosquitoes, Spray Kills Millions of Honeybees

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By ALAN BLINDER, New York Times, SEPT. 1, 2016 [n.b. the spraying agency made several “human errors” in this case: spraying a toxic chemical other than as a last resort; not giving adequate public notice, especially to beekeepers; and spraying when bees are active during morning hours and on a hot day. If you ever observe private companies spraying airborne pesticide at times or locations where bees could be active, please document details and let us know.]

The Monday morning scene at Juanita Stanley’s apiary in Summerville, S.C., was ghastly and stunningly quiet: Everywhere one looked were clumps of honeybees, dead after a dousing on Sunday with the potent pesticide with which the local authorities had intended to kill mosquitoes.

“There was no need for a bee suit Monday morning to go down there, because there was no activity. It was silent,” Ms. Stanley said on Thursday. “Honestly, I just fell to the ground. I was crying, and I couldn’t quit crying, and I was throwing up.”

For Ms. Stanley and her business, the death toll easily exceeds two million bees, and Dorchester County officials are still tabulating how many more might have been killed when a day of aerial spraying, scheduled to combat mosquitoes that could be carrying viruses like Zika, went awry. The apparently inadvertent extermination, the county administrator said, happened after a county employee failed to notify Ms. Stanley’s business, which the administrator said should have been alerted about the spraying strategy. Some hobbyists were also caught by surprise.

“We’ve learned that the beekeeping community in Dorchester County, and in that area in particular, is larger than we were aware of,” Jason L. Ward, the county administrator, said in an interview. “Our idea is to balance working with them with the issue of public safety.”

Concerned about the spread of the Zika virus across the South, local officials on Sunday targeted a 15-square mile area of the county, which is near Charleston, with naled. The pesticide, which has been in use in the United States for more than 50 years, is a common tool for mosquito control, but federal officials have said the chemical can be harmful to honeybees while also posing brief risks to aquatic invertebrates and terrestrial wildlife….

read more at New York Times. Also see Melissa Breyer, “Massive bee death after South Carolina sprays for Zika mosquitoes, treehugger, 9/1/16, and “‘Like it’s been nuked’: Millions of bees dead after South Carolina sprays for Zika mosquitoes,” Washington Post, 9/1/16 (see also videos and photos there).

More technical: “NALED Insecticide Fact Sheet” at No Spray Coalition. A dangerous spray, no doubt about it!