The pesky bugs are relentless, buzzing in peoples’ ears and leaving pink, itchy bumps on your skin wherever they bite.
The Williston Area Vector Control District 1 is busy fogging at night and using Rick Marburger’s Aero Spraying Service during the day to spray. A month ago, the United States Air Force completed a mosquito control mission that killed a lot of larvae.
Residents continue to wonder why Williston suffers, however, with the pesky bugs. Many residents feel they aren’t seeing the benefits of what the Air Force, vector control and Aero Spraying have done, only because it’s difficult to see any bright side of the situation when they are attacked by mosquitoes on a daily basis.
No matter what vector control or any other agency does to ward off mosquitoes, the fact is they’ll always be around. It’s because of Williston’s proximity to the Missouri River, and what happens with the river when the weather warms up. The river bottom is five miles across, much bigger than the Red River to the east, said Fran Bosch, vector control director. It’s a much larger river with a larger flood plain, he said. When the temperatures rise, the river rises from the melting snow pack coming from Montana, and it rises so high it overflows.
When the river overflows, the water spilling over onto land covers mosquito eggs and incubates them until they hatch. Although it’s called the “June Rise” when the Missouri River rises in late spring, it doesn’t happen just once, Bosch said. There are several pulses that send water over the edge of the river.
Another problem that can’t be helped is mosquito eggs hatch at different times and don’t hatch at once, he said. That’s one of the reasons why even though the Air Force mission was deemed successful, many mosquitoes had yet to hatch by early June and the eggs are hatching now.
“For years now, these mosquito eggs don’t all hatch at the same time, and some studies show that they are viable for up to 15 years. So we could still have mosquitoes from the early 90s in there just waiting for the conditions to be right so they hatch,” Bosch said.
“And what we’re doing with this extensive larvaciding down on the riverbottom is cutting back on that supply of eggs that are in the soil, and the more we stop in the water, the more that won’t get in the air,” Bosch added.
The area is in its second major hatch of the year, followed by the second major flooding event that has caused the river to rise a foot more than it did earlier this spring, he said. That equates to hundreds of acres of land that’s freshly inundated with stagnant water, which is a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.
When it comes to using chemicals to kill mosquitoes, vector control also has to be cautious when treating certain lands. Public land owned by the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Fish and Wildlife Service can’t be fogged because the entities don’t allow it, Bosch said.
Instead, vector control has to use larvacide on that land to keep mosquitoes from turning into adults, but keeps them in the food chain. It doesn’t kill the bugs outright like the VectoBac chemical the Air Force uses, Bosch said.
The mosquito problem won’t lessen by much in a year’s time, and Williston is always going to have mosquitoes. The assistance from the Air Force, which plans to be back next year and possibly later this summer could produce a noticeable difference in a few years. So could the revenue vector control receives from the water bill surcharge people approved last year, which helps it to be able to buy more chemicals.
“This is not a process that’s going to happen just this year...it’s been a cancer that’s been building, we’re giving it initial chemotherapy treatment. In the next two to three years, we should see a drop in trap counts,” Bosch said.
Comments
Bob wrote on Jul 11, 2009 6:39 PM:
Steve Kemp wrote on Jul 9, 2009 11:49 PM:
The most common mosquito we have is Ades Vexan, which is a flood water mosquito and the female lives an average of 6 weeks. We primarily larvacide, that is where most of our money is spent, then we adulticide.
This year we were lucky to have two doctorate level entomologists from the US Air Force spend about 10 days with us to help solve our problem. We feel we are following the advice of some of the formost experts in the field of mosquito control.
Thanks, Steve Kemp, Williston Vector Control Board Secretary. "
Steve Kemp wrote on Jul 9, 2009 11:30 PM:
Now with regard to the fogging, yes we fog, however we don’t use any organophosphates, we use pyrethroids and we only fog during mosquito prime time during the evening hours when mosquitoes are active and on the wing. We don’t like to fog, but we feel we need to in order to protect the citizens of our community.
Thanks for your time, Steve Kemp, Williston Vector Board Secretary. "
wal wrote on Jul 8, 2009 7:38 PM:
Official motto: New blood is always welcomed here
Official perfume (required): Deep Woods Off
Official lawn ornament: anything with citrinela, bug zappers are optional
Official language: $@&^ @*# #@%$
Official Flag: anything made out of a mesh material
Official Dance: Rockin' the Baken Twist - you'll catch on quick since you will have no choice
You can smack your neighbor like you've always wanted to and say it was a mosquito, and he will thank you for it. "
Robert Domrese Williston Vector Control Director-1968-1975 wrote on Jul 7, 2009 7:04 PM:
What has happened is that most, if not all, of the animals that help control the mosquito population have been eliminated (poisoned) because of all the years of fogging and spraying. It has been my experience that mosquitos never breed in water that is moving or exposed to wave action. So massive arial spraying of river water does much more harm than good because natural predators of the mosquitoes are the animals that are eliminated.
When you are innundated with swarms of mosquitos I can understand why it is thought that it takes a lot of water to produce that many of the pests. That is not the case however, as it is a fact that very little water is needed to produce mosquitoes in large numbers.
I am afraid that even if the spraying is stopped now it will take years for the mosquito preditor population to build to the point where the mosquitos can be kept under control without expensive and environmentally damaging spraying and fogging. In other words you are not killing the mosquitoes where they are the most vulnerable, which is in their larval stage. But you're doing a very good job of killing everything else! "
resident wrote on Jul 6, 2009 8:43 AM:
Good Job wrote on Jul 5, 2009 7:26 AM:
Mosquito mom wrote on Jul 2, 2009 9:37 AM: