The Public Works - Mosquito Control Bureau has begun its summer activities to reduce mosquito populations throughout the city.
From November through April, crews provide ditch maintenance services which Reduces the amount of standing water available to mosquitoes for egg laying and maturing. This involved no chemicals and is considered one of the more permanent forms of mosquito control.
From May through October, the Bureau’s day time personnel are larviciding (destruction of immature mosquitoes found in standing water). They go to known breeding sites throughout the City and treat standing water with materials which destroy the water borne stages of mosquitoes. This method of mosquito control kills insects before they get the chance to mature, fly and begin biting.
In a typical season, crews will treat about 1,000 acres of standing water against immature mosquitoes. The number of mosquitoes killed by larviciding before they ever get the chance to fly and bite is staggering.
During the times of the year when adult mosquitoes are active, the Bureau’s night time personnel apply pesticides from machines mounted in pickup trucks in areas of the City where there are large populations of adult mosquitoes. This activity, known as adulticiding, is probably the most well-known activity by the public, and the one that receives the most notoriety and attention from the public. It is, however, a late-stage effort to control adult mosquitoes that somehow manage to escape the previous larviciding efforts. Throughout a single summer, the Bureau’s personnel will perform adulticiding treatments on between 500,000 and 700,000 acres of area in the City.
The biology lab personnel play an extremely important role in our efforts by testing mosquitoes and sentinel chicken blood for diseases carried by mosquitoes. This information is used by the Mosquito Control Bureau to guide the locations of the adulticiding efforts.
To request services from the Mosquito Control Bureau, please call 757.385.1470 and identify your control request or mosquito problem or fill out the form below: