City tries new method to contain mosquitoes

By AMY SATTERWHITE / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Combating mosquito problems is nothing new for McMinnville’s Public Works Department, but this year, officials are trying something new.

Public Works Director Bill Brock said in addition to spraying a mist or fog into the air that acts as a repellent and kills some of the pests, as the city has done for years, the department plans to go to the source by employing a pellet larvicide to help kill mosquito eggs before they hatch.

“What spraying we do kills a few mosquitoes and runs the rest of them off,” he said, noting the department started spraying last week after a late start due to recent floods but plans to continue to spray regularly until the first frost.

“We’re going to go in to these low-lying, swampy areas and try to do some preventative mosquito control with these pellets. They’re supposed to kill or neutralize the larva or the mosquito eggs.”

The product can be quite costly, however, and at $11 per pound, Brock said it the pellets are supposed to be used at a ratio of 2 to 10 pounds an acre.

The city had about 46 pounds on hand early this week and had a few areas in mind where the pellets could be useful, including the Falcon Place subdivision, the high school, Mullican Street and Belmont Drive.

“It’s a battle that we’re going to fight and there’s no end to it,” Brock said. “We can’t start to even win the battle against mosquitoes, but we can do anything we can do try to prevent them.”

While concerns about mosquitoes’ abilities to spread the potentially deadly West Nile Virus to humans exist and the virus’ presence in area birds was confirmed by local and state health officials last year, Brock added the main goal of using the product is to try to enhance a public service.

“That will always be a consideration – anytime you can cut back on anything that can be deadly,” he said. “Since I’ve been here, we’ve always done mosquito spraying, but we’ve just kind of stepped it up this year.”