Letter to the editor — City needs to boost larviciding
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City council directed their administration to begin fogging for mosquitoes on Monday. While I disagree with their decision, I understand their reasons for it.
However, the consequence of this directive is that we may no longer have any more fogging chemical by the end of this year. Certainly, we’ll have about half of what we started with. And there’s no more coming. Per a CBC article from April 2024, the manufacturer of the chemical pulled out of what was apparently a niche market.
Perhaps the veteran members of council who know the machinations of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities can lobby higher levels of government to lower the barriers to that niche market, but don’t count on that happening fast.
With this in mind, the next council — in concert with their city manager — needs to take a hard and serious look at our practices, which attack mosquito populations while in their larval stages. The city’s website notes that just four staff are responsible for an area of 264 square kilometres.
We must double (perhaps triple) our commitments to larviciding. Given that we will now be fogging, it stands prima facie that we weren’t larviciding enough. Come the next high water season, there may be no fogging to mitigate the issue. We have to do the best we can, where we are, with what we have.
James Epp
Brandon