Mosquito season is here and Bay County Mosquito Control is doing its best to get mosquitoes under control. The annual spring woodland-pool treatment program marked the beginning of BCMC’s mosquito control season. Control efforts included aerial spraying (over 40,000 acres) using one helicopter (Clarke) and two fixed-wing aircraft (Earl’s Spraying Service, Inc.), with the focus on areas near cities, towns and large developments. We’re seeing few spring Aedes adults these days, but have shifted to the bothersome Aedes vexans and Coquillettidia perturbans adults collected in traps, both of which can be troublesome to residents.

Throughout the warm weather months, BCMC will be busy treating larval or adult mosquitoes originating from woodlots, floodplains, freshwater wetlands, grassy fields, wet meadows, roadside ditches, ponds, catch basins, as well as containers. We’ve treated ditches in townships that have received enough rain to trigger a mosquito hatch and have been back in woodlots and floodplains treating larvae. The number of complaint calls has increased as expected in areas near floodplains.

Two training sessions were held for both new and returning seasonal staff members to prepare them to test with the MDA as certified technicians. Most started working by mid May and will be with us until the end of August.

Public education efforts continued with information distributed regarding artificial containers and basic homeowner control techniques. Presentations were given at Kolb Elementary School, Auburn Elementary School, Handy Middle School and two summer daycares – Fremont Center and Center Plaza Daycare.

We continue to monitor for West Nile virus this season by testing American Crows, Blue Jays using the VecTest kit and by submitting mosquitoes to Dr. Walker’s lab at MSU. Through June 25, we have tested two Blue Jays that were both negative for WNV. Furthermore, we have submitted 10 Culex species mosquito pools containing 122 adult females (WNV testing) and 26 Coquillettidia perturbans pools containing 426 adult females (EEE testing) to MSU; results are pending.

A few other items of interest: the first of two tire drives was held May 15 with 2,361 tires collected; this first tire drive was held concurrently at the Bay County Fairgrounds and Pinconning County Park; Jake Britton of Clarke visited on May 20 to check the MMD’s of ULV machines for our entire fleet (thanks again, Jake); and we’re trying Adapco’s vehicle tracking equipment in one vehicle this summer.

NPDES. It’s been making it’s way to us for 10 years and continues getting closer by the day. You will read more about this elsewhere in this newsletter and as the year goes along. If you would like to get more details at this time on the EPA process check out their website:

http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/home.cfm?program_id=410 

Unfortunately, the Clean Water Act is not the only legal challenge we face today. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) on June 16, 2010 issued draft Biological Opinion (BiOp) to address the potential effects from 12 pesticides to Pacific salmon and steelhead listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. If you would like to review the BiOp (quite easy reading at only 945 pages of EPA legalese) check out the docket (EPA-HQ-OPP-2008-0654).

Back to the real world in Midland County; as you may have noticed, we did get some rain this spring. The woods were dry early in the spring and we almost started to hope that we might have a quiet year. We know better than to get our hopes up, though. With three waves of floodwater mosquitoes hatching out we have more than enough to keep ourselves busy. We are planning an extra weekend fogging before the 4th of July.

In addition to our regular treatment this year we will be evaluating Natular larvicide in catch basins and Envion water-dilutable adulticide. We will keep you informed. Have a good summer!

As a result of a warmer spring we have experienced hatches of various mosquito species 2-3 weeks earlier than normal. Spring mosquitoes started emerging as adults in late April but cool nights and windy conditions help to keep biting activity to a minimum for a couple weeks. Spraying for adult spring mosquitoes on a daily basis began on May 17th. We also start collecting significant numbers of Cq. Perturbans in early June. In mid-May we received some significant rainfall which we knew would produce a brood of floodwater mosquitoes; but were very surprised at how large the populations of mosquitoes were that emerged. Regretfully this hatch occurred during Memorial weekend and the following three weeks were busy with an expanded night spray shift, an early morning spray shift and weekend spray shifts. Finally by the end of June mosquito densities were somewhat normal.

Summer activities for our Education Department will include participation in the following events: Girl Scout Day Camp; Birds, Bugs (that’s us), Butterflies and Blooms at the Children’s Zoo; Children’ Fun Day, Truck and Bike Day at Haithco Park; and new this year we will be sharing a booth at the Saginaw County Fair with Saginaw County Parks.

Our agency hosted its yearly blood drive on June 9th with approximately 30 employees signing up to donate.

We will be working closely with the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources & Environment to have input in the development of National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Systems permits that will be required by April 2011. It is extremely important that this permit does not limit our ability to effectively larvicide.

This past winter we made adaptations to a few of our trucks which would allow them to spray at 15 mph in rural areas compared to 10 mph which has been the past practice. Evaluations for spraying at 15 mph are still being summarized but look very promising!

This summer we have plans to work with Michigan State University to look at the habitat and ecology of Ae. triseriatus mosquitoes in Saginaw County and their relationship to potential human cases of LaCrosse encephalitis.

Our third and final tire drive of the season will be held the week of July 26th-30th. The hours for this drive will be 2:30pm – 7:30pm to provide the convenience of evening tire drop off.

On March 24th and 25th we hosted a training session for our new seasonal employees as well as returning employees in need of recertifying. MDA representatives were available in house on the afternoon of the 25th to administer certification tests. Several members of the community also attended this testing session.

This year spring came early to Tuscola County. Woodlot larviciding started on April 5th with crews enjoying the nice weather. Trap counts throughout the end of April and through most of May were fairly light with the first large hatch occurring over the Memorial Day weekend. Since that weekend trap counts have continued to rise in many areas and have shown a variety of both spring and summer species.

As with the weather it seems that everything is early this year with our first catch of Coquillettidia perturbans coming in a New Jersey light trap on May 24th, with their numbers unusually high in many areas since.

Sewage lagoons and catch basins have both been showing signs of activity. Treatment in these areas began this week. Due to cool nights we did not start adulticiding until May 17th. This year our adulticiding crews are utilizing new spray route maps. As well as new maps we have also implemented a Long Drive program. It appears that this is going to be a very well received program with many of the citizens.