City urged to bite on new mosquito fogging plan — even if price tag stings

The City of Winnipeg has options to battle mosquitoes if its fogging agent runs out, though all would come at a significant price.

With Winnipeg on track to run out of its fogging agent in about two to three years, the city cannot make a policy change to reduce mosquito bites per minute without increasing its insect control budget, a report states.

Since the DeltaGard fogging solution is no longer sold in Canada, Winnipeg can’t order more and “no new products have become available” that meet the city’s needs, it notes.

“It is likely that Winnipeg will not have an adult mosquito control program in the near future unless a suitable adulticide becomes available. Changes need to be made now to prepare for this possibility,” writes David Wade, superintendent of insect control, in the report.

Wade does not recommend specific action to address the issue but lists a few options the city could consider.

Those options include: increasing the maximum amount allowed in the insect control reserve to $5 million from $2 million to allow service to be ramped up when needed; creating a $200,000 master plan to reduce the number of sites that require mosquito treatment; spending $600,000 to $850,000 per year to boost larviciding efforts; and paying $13.5 million to renew the city’s insect control facilities.

Wade said all options would reduce the mosquito population and risk of bites but it’s up to elected officials to choose the path forward.

“Our time frame is getting shorter, for sure, so we do need to take action sooner than later,” he said in an interview.

An insect control facility upgrade was previously expected to cost $33.5 million but has now been scaled back, replacing a proposal for an entirely new complex with a plan to update the city’s existing facility at 3 Grey St., said Wade.

The project has no approved funding at this point.

Any increase to service levels would also require renewing the insect control facility, said Wade.

“Our facilities at Grey Street are very undersized for the amount of staff that we have working there. We couldn’t really increase staff or trucks or use the helicopters more unless we did an update to that facility first,” he said.

The report deems the facility “old and over capacity,” resulting in a need to rely on portable washrooms, change trailers, off-site parking and two additional work yards.

Wade said recent favourable weather has eased the demand on the current supply of DeltaGard. The city has not fogged this year and did so just once last year, he said.

Coun. Vivian Santos, chairwoman of the community services committee, was not available for an interview.

In a brief statement, she said she will seek further detail on the mosquito control options.

“More discussion is needed at committee to better understand the costs of the different options suggested by the administration. However, I am inclined to receive it as information (and not take action),” wrote Santos.

Coun. Matt Allard, a member of the community services committee, said he also does not plan to support new spending on mosquito control facilities, noting recent dry weather has reduced the need for fogging in recent years.

“Perhaps that’s something that continues over time, in which case I think we need to be very careful about investing scarce capital dollars if … it is becoming less and less of a problem,” said Allard (St. Boniface).

However, the councillor sees potential in the idea to change the city’s landscape to reduce the number of areas it treats for mosquitoes. The report suggests mosquito habitat could be eliminated by reducing standing water sites, if various city departments work together.

Allard said he hopes insect control can coordinate efforts to improve drainage within the master plan to reduce combined sewer overflows, since it includes “green infrastructure” funding to add vegetation that absorbs water.

“The takeaway are these options to permanently change the landscape… it’s a dollar spent that’s going to benefit Winnipeg forever,” said Allard.

The community services committee will debate the report on Monday.

The report resulted from a request that city staff find ways to reduce the “number of bites per minute” by mosquitoes.

Wade said areas with trap counts of 25 mosquitoes would likely see about one bite per minute while trap counts of 100 could trigger four bites per minute, if someone is outside between dusk and dawn without wearing repellent.

In Winnipeg, mosquito fogging is ordered when several key criteria are met, based on soil moisture, the weather forecast and the outlook for mosquitoes to emerge. The citywide trap count must also reach an average of at least 25 adult female mosquitoes for two consecutive nights, and at least one quadrant of the city must average at least 100 female mosquitoes on the same nights.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

X: @joyanne_pursaga