Katz wants to re-examine mosquito-control policy

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This article was published 22/06/2010 (5584 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG — Mayor Sam Katz wants to re-examine Winnipeg’s mosquito-control policy, while St. Vital Coun. Gord Steeves wants to take another look at the 28-year-old practice of placing pesticide-free buffer zones around individual homes.

Wednesday morning at a special meeting of city council’s executive policy committee, Katz will introduce a motion to re-examine the way Winnipeg controls nuisance mosquitoes by possibly speeding up the time it takes to order a fogging program.

The mayor also said he is open to the idea of replacing the pesticide malathion with permethrin, surmising Ottawa may outlaw malathion in the future.

If executive policy committee approves the motion, it will be walked on to Wednesday’s city council meeting agenda.

Steeves has authored a separate motion to ask the city’s Insect Control Branch to review what he calls the divisive practice of placing buffer zones around the homes of people who don’t want their properties fogged with malathion.

Steeves wants to look at a 1982 Clean Environment Commission decision that resulted in the buffer zones, as he wonders whether they are too large.

Steeves’ motion to council will be directed to city council’s protection and community services committee.

The city has been fogging for nuisance mosquitoes – mostly Aedes vexans, an aggressive biter that’s not considered a significant carrier of diseases dangerous to humans – since Saturday.

Tonight, the Insect Control Branch plans to fog parts of North Kildonan, all of South St. Boniface, most of St. Vital and all of St. Norbert, as well as pockets of northwest Winnipeg that were missed on Monday night.

The specific Insect Management Areas to be fogged are IMAs 1, 3, 13-22, 24-25, 43, 48 and 51. For a visual representation of malathion fogging activities, visit http://www.winnipeg.ca/cms/bugline/mosquitoes/fogging.stm.