Franklin County Public Health has some exciting new changes for 2019 that include; partnering with Clarke Environmental Mosquito Management, the use of Organic Materials Review Institute products, offering spray notifications to residents, reduction of our carbon footprint, and the introduction of a program treating for nuisance/floodwater mosquitoes.
Franklin County Public Health is contracting and partnering with Clarke Environmental Mosquito Management to provide day-to-day mosquito management services for Franklin County. This includes mosquito trapping, larviciding, service requests and spraying. Franklin County Public Health administers the mosquito management program and oversees the operations of our contractor.
In 2019, Franklin County Public Health will begin incorporating more Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) listed pesticides into our mosquito management program. When a pesticide is OMRI listed, it means that it can be applied on and near organic crops. In cooperation with Clarke Environmental we will be using a variety of OMRI listed larvicides and our adulticide that will be used in our truck mounted sprayers is also OMRI listed and has no other additives.
This year, we are offering an option to sign up for email notifications prior to when FCPH will be spraying your area or zone. This is an alternative to the Do Not Spray registry. This will enable you to plan outdoor activities, bring pets inside, and close the doors and windows until after the spray truck has passed while still getting the benefits of mosquito control in your neighborhood.
In an effort to reduce our carbon footprint, many of the vehicles used by Clarke Environmental in the mosquito program this year will be hybrid vehicles. In addition, bicycles will also be used when canvassing neighborhoods and conducting storm drain treatments. Clarke will also be using electric truck mounted sprayers. These sprayers are not only very quiet, but will have zero emissions. Look for our new sprayers, but you probably won’t hear them.
In response to our jurisdictions requests and community support, we are now providing nuisance mosquito control for many of our communities. Nuisance mosquitoes are primarily floodwater species that can be aggressive biters and their populations increase suddenly with large rain events or continued rainy patterns. These mosquitoes are not typically disease carriers but make outdoor activities during the day and evening miserable. We use CDC light traps to monitor these nuisance mosquitoes and when we hit a defined threshold of 50 mosquitoes in a trap, we increase our larviciding efforts and consider spraying for adult mosquitoes.