Updated May 9, 2021. Short version: dump standing water; larvicide water that can’t be dumped.
Here is the enemy: 
But that photo shows mosquito larvae, which don’t bite.
Right, but once larvae hatch, they are harder to control. One female mosquito, with a protein infusion from blood, lays 100+ eggs. The eggs hatch into larvae, which fly away as adults in a few days. Continue reading
[Update 24 hours later: kudos to whoever — Public Works, individuals, businesses — shoveled up all that salt, as it now is gone and will not drain into Plum Run after all!]
All this sodium chloride is headed for Plum Run, unless someone shovels it up for future use. And this, ironically, at a time when the Borough is expending a lot of effort to prevent Plum Run’s banks from eroding and is financing rain gardens to reduce runoff and attendant chemicals from entering streams.
The same day, the chloride level in Plum Run at the SW corner of the Borough measured 310ppm.
According to Molly Hunt et al., “Chlorides in Fresh Water“:
“In Rhode Island, the Department of Environmental Management (DEM) has set acceptable chloride concentration exposure limits for freshwater organisms at 860 ppm to prevent acute (immediate) exposure effects and at 230 ppm to prevent chronic (long-term) exposure effects. For drinking water, DEM has set a maximum contaminant level of 250 ppm chloride, which is the point at which water starts to taste salty.”
So 310 ppm is not good. What’s the problem? According to Jeremy Hinsdale, “How Road Salt Harms the Environment“:
“Chloride is toxic to aquatic life, and even low concentrations can produce harmful effects in freshwater ecosystems. High chloride levels in water can inhibit aquatic species’ growth and reproduction, impact food sources, and disrupt osmoregulation in amphibians. Some 40 percent of urban streams in the U.S. already have chloride levels that exceed the safe guidelines for aquatic life.”
“Runoff containing road salt can also cause oxygen depletion in bodies of water. ‘If runoff containing salt goes into a freshwater lake or stream, it will tend to sink towards the bottom, creating a dense layer that can inhibit gas exchange with the overlying water,’ says Juhl. ‘This can lead to the development of low oxygen conditions that are detrimental to fish and other aquatic organisms.’”
Do you want to measure your own local stream’s chloride content ? See Isaak Walton League: Protect streams from salt! for how to get a free kit. Here’s the measurement from Plum Run (the chloride level is shown by the peak of the yellowish area in the sensor on the right of the photo):
The West Chester Co-op is working hard to build a member-owned (cooperative) full-service grocery store in West Chester. The store will provide daily access to fresh, healthy, local food, and will be walkable for those in the Borough and have parking for those who don’t.
They now have over 300 members in their campaign to launch full-scale operations! The Co-op already has regular special events and a table on Saturdays at the West Chester Growers Market.
Cooperatives are businesses formed not to earn profits for investors but to serve the needs of their members. A cooperative offers our community the opportunity to build together something we all want.
The Food Co-op hired a consultant to produce an investment-grade projection of revenue for a store in our community; so we know it can work.
Cooperatives start through community support: many small investments from as broad a base as possible assure that the business reflects the community. The Co-op is building that equity base right now.
The Food Co-op is more than a grocery store: its mission is to enhance the well-being of the people of West Chester by promoting healthy and mindful eating, improving access to sustainably produced food, helping those in need to secure quality food, advancing sustainable and humane agriculture, supporting local farms, and building community through cooperative enterprise.
The Co-op seeks to bring transparency and accountability to every step of the food production and distribution process from farm to table, providing confidence for educated consumer choice and food that the community can trust. Nutritious food is a gift to the health and well-being of an entire population.
Member-owners make a one-time $400 investment (there is an installment plan and gift certificates are available). The Co-op is nearing its target to move into the next phase of development; your investment will help put them over the top.
You may email the Co-op here or join on-line. Please support our friends and community: we’re all on the same team for healthy environment and food!
Gail and Les Silberman, activists in Don’t Spray Me! and the West Chester Green Team, are leaving West Chester and moving to Woods Hole, MA. Their environmental colleagues here are so sorry to lose them from our community.
Both Gail and Les have contributed a great deal in a range of areas. Gail’s posts on the Next Door site brought in many new members to the Green Team’s Plastic-Free Please committee. The online responses suggested the depth of support in the community for such an initiative, which passed Borough Council last summer after a turnout of 200 residents advocated for it. Next month, Downingtown Borough Council plans to follow our lead and pass a ban on plastic bags and straws effective July 2, 2020. Even Philadelphia has been influenced by our work on plastics. Thank you, Gail, for your leadership.
We have particularly appreciated Les’ realistic insights into the personalities we work with. His advice on interactions with allies and those resistant to our goals has proven invaluable. His scientific and medical expertise have contributed to many fruitful discussions both through his membership on the Borough’s Sustainability Advisory Committee and on the Board of Don’t Spray Me.!
Both Gail and Les have enriched the community environmentally. They will be greatly missed.
Don’t Spray Me! and the West Chester Green Team offer them our heartfelt best wishes.
[Many thanks to all concerned!]
UPDATE: August 16, 2018 @ 1:26PM – Please be advised that the Mosquito Spraying scheduled for this evening, August 16 @ 8:00 PM has been DELAYED by agreement between the Borough and Chester County.
The Borough and Chester County will be continuing discussions on this matter as soon as possible and any further decisions to spray will be communicated to the public.
The wheels of democracy and of human and environmental rights are turning. The County should now put this spraying, still scheduled for this evening, on hold.
Last eve after lengthy public discussion, West Chester Borough Council passed three motions unanimously.
First was to instruct the Borough solicitor to draft an ordinance banning spraying in the Borough.
Second was to instruct the Borough Manager to notify the County to tell them not to spray the Borough.
Third was to instruct the solicitor to file an injunction to halt today’s scheduled spraying by the County.
This is representative government at its best! We are grateful to the 7 members of Borough Council and to Mayor Herrin and to all who participated in that epoch-making meeting.
Please stay tuned.
Background reading from the Community Bill of Rights adopted 3 years ago as part of the Borough’s Home Rule Charter, section 904:
(5)
Right to Water. All residents, natural communities and ecosystems in West Chester Borough possess a fundamental and inalienable right to sustainably access, use, consume, and preserve water drawn from natural water cycles that provide water necessary to sustain life within the Borough.
(6)
Right to Clean Air. All residents, natural communities and ecosystems in West Chester Borough possess a fundamental and inalienable right to breathe air untainted by toxins, carcinogens, particulates, and other substances known to cause harm to health.
(7)
Right to Peaceful Enjoyment of Home. Residents of West Chester Borough possess a fundamental and inalienable right to the peaceful enjoyment of their homes, free from interference, intrusion, nuisances, or impediments to access and occupation.
And we don’t want them to. Stay tuned.
Download the Health Dept. announcement here: West Chester Spray 8-16-18
We keep having to point out that the phrase “to prevent West Nile Virus” in the press release title makes no sense. The West Nile virus is carried in birds, especially crows, and then is picked up by mosquitoes that bite the birds, and those same mosquitoes can then bite people. But the transmission chain to humans must be really weak, because this whole year PA has had only one possible identified human case, not definitely verified and not critical.
About this particular spray plan: Note from the maps below that the proposed spray area would include almost all of the S. half of the Borough and most of the NE (including Marshall Square Park, where the Borough fended off spraying 3 years ago).
The County Health Department’s press release says: “People who are concerned about exposure to mosquito control products can reduce their potential for exposure by staying indoors with children and pets when their neighborhood is being sprayed.” That is a very low-level warning. Of course, everyone ought to be concerned about any pesticide being directly sprayed on them or infiltrating their dwellings.
But how does that advice play out in an urban area like downtown West Chester? What will people here be doing on a Thursday eve, other than sitting at home with their children and pets?
Although spraying is not scheduled right on Market and Gay Streets, it would pass really close to them, and of course spray drifts. Are people enjoying their outside drink or dinner in the center of town going to have methoprene drifting onto them and their food and into their lungs? Is West Chester going to earn the reputation of a place to avoid patronizing?
If just one hypersensitive person dining outside or inadvertently walking through the spray area has a serious adverse reaction, or one small asthmatic child in tow has to be rushed to the ER, that is going to be big liability. For whom?
For the County, which does the spraying? (Let’s be clear: the County decides when to spray, not the State.) The restaurant owner who could be said to have the duty to close down outdoors for the evening? The Business Improvement District, unless it acts to get downtown closed off? The Borough, if it does not make the decision to close the parking garages and post warning signs? This is a real morass. It’s not like spraying a rural area where houses are 500 feet apart with long driveways.
How about West Chester University? The whole campus north of Rosedate is in the spray area. Are all the students going to be told to stay in their rooms from 8 p.m. till the next day? How about those coming back from an off-campus job or the Library?
The Health Department really has not thought this through. If they wanted to make a more reasonable case, they would be proposing to spray only in the immediate vicinity of what are apparently the 3 trap sites with high readings: College Ave at the pumping station, Green Field, and Magnolia St.
The Health Department releases its info selectively to make its own pro-spraying case. Where are the other 28 traps in the Borough? What are their readings? Why do they want to spray the NE but not the NW? It’s full of mysteries, and that’s the way they seem to want it. But we don’t. “Trust us” doesn’t work any more, and especially now that Chester County has become all too familiar with the PA DEP, which is the state resource on both pipelines and mosquitoes.
When Don’t Spray Me! filed a Right To Know request, the Health Department said it did not know where it larvicided in 2015-17; and they also say they don’t have time to tell us where they larvicided this year. They say they spray only “after exhausting all other available mosquito control strategies” and they don’t even know where they have larvicided, which is the most effective anti-mosquito treatment in known breeding sites like storm drains and stagnant bodies of water?
If the HD can’t do better to explain its actions and consider the effects on a complex urban population, it needs to be stopped until there is greater accountability in the interest of the public and the environment.
NE West Chester:
Southern half of West Chester:
Excerpt from Bill Rettew, “Health Department set to spray for mosquitoes,” Daily Local News, 8/14/18:
“Spraying to control mosquitoes is still standard practice in many localities,” Herrin said, “but that doesn’t mean it works. The insecticide kills only adult mosquitoes, not larvae, and research suggests mosquito populations can bounce back quickly and even increase after an application.
“Research also suggests that rates of West Nile Virus cases are no different in cities that spray vs. those that do not. The Don’t Spray Me organization has done an excellent job helping our residents understand this and offering other, safer ways to help address the mosquito problem.”…
read the full article at Daily Local News
(en español: aquí)
Below is the letter being distributed to Borough residents by our network of Block Captains. If you haven’t received your letter, feel free to download it here: MayorHerrin_OutreachLetter_2018. A doorhanger with concrete suggestions on how to fight off mosquitoes will follow later. If you’d like to help us by becoming a Block Captain, see here.
download flyer here: Arbor Day 2018 Flyer FINAL 4.12.18[1]
dontsprayme 