Mosquito permit draws concern

MOSES LAKE — The Grant County Mosquito Control Board worries they will no longer be able to spray pesticides for adult mosquitoes unless there is a documented threat to animal or human health.

The board gave a presentation during the last Moses Lake City Council and asked them to support efforts in preventing the state Department of Ecology from limiting their pesticide spraying.

Vector Ecologist Ann Moser explained there are four cycles to the mosquito life cycle. During the larval stage, the board sprays larvicide directly into Moses Lake and other water ?bodies where mosquitoes thrive. She said it is easiest to kill the mosquitoes during the larval stage. During the majority of their growth stages, they are in the water until they shed their casts and fly becoming a nuisance.

Ecology is not preventing the control board and other control boards across the state from using larvicide.

Moser said there are two types of mosquitoes pertaining to how they are sprayed. They are the nuisance and the vector mosquitoes.

Nuisance mosquitoes are aggressive, prefer humans and animals for their blood meals, are not strong carriers of disease, larger in size and are able to travel further distances.

Vector mosquitoes are carriers of disease, prefer birds and other animals to humans for their blood meals, are smaller and travel shorter distances.

She explained the board will no longer be permitted to spray for nuisance misquotes after July 1, if the draft permit process proposed by Ecology is approved without changes. Vector mosquitoes can only be sprayed for once they are a threat to animal and human health. Someone or an animal must be infected before action is permitted.

Board Manager Dan Couture explained the incubation period for a disease like West Nile Virus is about four weeks. The disease would be present for roughly one month until it is detected and the board would be permitted to spray for the mosquitoes afterward.

He said if the permit is not altered, people will begin seeing the mosquitoes in places they would not normally see them such as on the golf courses, the Laguna community, parks, Mar Don and at the Moses Lake aquatic park.

“After July 1, it’s going to get pretty messy,” he said.

Couture explained Ecology is regulating the types of pesticides being used in water under the Clean Water Act. The use of larvicides is not being halted partly because it is organic. The adulticide is not organic but it is permitted for use in water.

He said the board uses 0.45 of an ounce per acre of the adulticide.

Couture explained they are hoping to rally groups and people to put pressure on Ecology to amend the draft permit to allow for the use of adulticide.

Councilmember Bill Ecret asked if there is any scientific evidence of the effect of the adulticide in the water.

Couture said no.

“There’s not a lot of science behind it,” he said.

Councilmember Dick Deane motioned to write a letter on behalf of the city to Ecology asking them to amend the draft permit. Councilmember Brent Reese seconded and it passed unanimously. The letter will also be sent to 13th Legislative District representatives.

Couture encourages people to attend a public hearing on the permit slated for March 9 at 1 p.m. at the Moses Lake Fire Department. People can also send letters to Ecology at P.O. Box 47600, Olympia, WA 98504 care of the Water Quality Program.