Phil Goodman, Commissioner of District II and Board Chair of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on with the mosquito.
Mosquito numbers are pretty low right now in the Keys.
Goodman said, “We had a lot of rain and high tides previously, but last week, the weather really cooperated. We were able to get a lot of aerial missions, a lot of truck missions all up and down the Keys, and to bring the numbers of both the Aedes aegypti and the salt marsh mosquitoes down low, so that under everything was under really good control from what we’ve seen for the July 4 celebration.”
Aerial missions and truck missions will be routine throughout the summer.
Goodman said, “The problem is when the wind and rain events come in and we get behind and we catch up, but right now we’re in pretty good shape. You’ll see today we had an aerial mission in Key West for the Aedes aegypti, the aerial larvacide, liquid larvicide missions, and truck missions, and other aerial missions will be common for the next several months, all up and down the Keys. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate, so that we can really stay ahead of it, but it’s a constant thing for us. We still have a lot of inundation of mosquitoes from the Everglades. There’s for a number of reasons, the numbers of mosquitoes coming in, particularly in the upper part of the Middle Keys and into the Upper Keys all the way to Ocean Reef, is continuing to be pretty high. One thing that has really helped, though, we were able to negotiate some new contracts with some of the protected land managers, particularly in the Upper Keys, to allow us to start larviciding under some conditions this year. So we think this will help, but we’re not really sure how much that will help compared to offset what’s coming in from the Everglades, where we can’t treat. So we’re continuously looking at this. We’ve got several ideas of things that we’re working on to keep those numbers down. Right now, the numbers are pretty low, but when we get wind from the west, this happens again. Anytime you have a storm coming in, or sometimes just a rain event, the wind changes from the west, and it drives the mosquitoes in from the Everglades, so it’s a constant battle for us, but we are on top of it, doing everything we can to control it.”
There are no cases of mosquito-borne diseases in the Keys at this time.
Goodman said, “For the last month or so, there have been very few cases, even coming into Miami or anywhere in the state of Florida. So, right now it’s better than we’ve seen in a number of years. We can’t really explain it, because these diseases, particularly chikungunya and dengue fever, are still prevalent and a widespread epidemic in a lot of Central South American countries in Asia. Still, a lot of travelers coming into Miami from these locations, but so far the travel-related diseases have just really been very low for for the last month or more, so we’re hopeful that it’ll stay that way, but it’s a constant battle for us to continue to be sure that these diseases are not introduced by travelers, and when they are, the health department lets us know. We go into those neighborhoods and do a really thorough treatment for the Aedes aegypti mosquito to keep that from spreading. So far this has worked when we did have local travel related cases, but right now the Keys are really free from mosquito-borne diseases, and we’re working hard to keep it that way.”
How is the Wolbachia project going?
Goodman said, “Wolbachia is classified as a bio pesticide, along with several other types of bio pesticides that we’ve evaluated in the past. Right now we’re looking at the Wolbachia and we did last year and this year with pilot scale evaluations. This year mostly are all in the Middle Keys. We have test sites, and we also have control areas where there’s no Wolbachia being introduced, so that we can make a comparison to see how effective it is. We’re releasing for the total season from April to through September about 1.8 million mosquitoes will be released in those areas. We’re releasing them every Tuesday and Friday, and we’re seeing the numbers of the Aedes aegypti starting to really drop, and we have now, for the last month or so, seeing those numbers come down, it’s hard to make a real precise statement of how effective. We need to get the whole season and look at all of the data before we make to come to a conclusion of how successful it was, but it’s certainly bringing the numbers of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes down in those areas, but this is a very expensive process, very expensive project for us, so in the end it’ll probably have limited use because of the expense, but we still need to evaluate these because the chemicals that we use are becoming resistant to the Aedes aegypti, and only 3% of the mosquito population is the Aedes aegypti. The other 97% we are able to control with chemicals, and we have some new chemical that was introduced last year that’s really helping as well, but the Aedes aegypti is a special case, and some of the chemicals are resistant, so we’re trying to ward off the in the future not being able to control disease outbreaks should they happen by having some of these new technologies, so I think this is a very worthwhile project, and we’ll continue to evaluate these technologies.”
Could the property tax referendum affect Mosquito Control?
Goodman said, “The governor, for the last couple years, has been wanting to make changes in the way property taxes, ad valorem property taxes, are collected, and the legislature passed, and the governor signed this year a bill that will be on the ballot in November in the general election in November, asking the voters what they think. Do they want to look at this, which is really more or less giving additional monies off of your real estate property for people who have homestead, and also some breaks for businesses and non-homesteaded properties, and we’re all about saving money too. We love to save money, and I think mosquito control is really a good return on investment, but we will be impacted if this passes. It will not impact us this year. Next year it will impact some, and then subsequent years it will impact more and more our ability to raise funds for mosquito control, and the main reason is because it’s not well defined in this legislation whether mosquito control is a critical service or not. A lot of people haven’t really thought about it, but what would the Keys be like without mosquito control? We control about 90% of the mosquitoes, and when you’re talking about billions of mosquitoes that are coming in that are natural here, 90% is a lot, 10% still a lot, though. There’s still room for improvement, and we’re working on that. There was a lot of restrictions, but if you didn’t have that, it would be very difficult to live here, and property values would suffer, so, we want people to really think about this, like, say, we’re all about saving money as well, and we think we are a good value. Mosquito control is a good value for the residents of this county, but in November they’ll be asked what do they think, and not only here but all over the state. So I’m on the board of the Florida Mosquito Control Association, and all over the state mosquito controls are concerned about the impact. So, we’ll look and see what the voters think, and see what the legislature can do in the future to be sure that mosquito control is included as a critical service here to protect our quality of life and the public health, primarily.”
Dumping out standing water on your property is a major help to control mosquitos.
Goodman said, “If you walk around your property and you dump your water to keep the Aedes aegypti down, call Mosquito Control, or put in a service request through our app, or our website, or you can call us direct at 305-292-7190. Every area and every part of the keys is treated differently for mosquito control because of the vast number of different types of geography and topography that we have here, and where water resides all the time, or sometime in the vegetation, you may see mosquitoes on your property that we haven’t detected yet. So it’s very important to call us or give us a heads up. We’ll come out and inspect that same day or the next day at the latest to see if we can solve your mosquito problem. We’ve been out lately a lot, had results where people have left during the summertime and left their swimming pool or their hot tub unattended, which is causing a lot of breeding in the particular neighborhoods, so we’re able to find these things and solve these problems. A lot of times is those type of problems that we’re seeing, so please give us a call if we can be of any assistance. We like for people not to have old tires around their property. I know they have different uses, but they are also a great breathing site for, particularly, the Aedes aegypti mosquito, and once you get water in a tire, it’s very difficult to get it out, no matter how you turn that tire, you can’t get the water out. So it’s a really perfect natural breeding site for mosquitoes. There are surprisingly a large number of tires all up and down the Keys. It’s a constant job for us to see if we can get these removed and have people to remove them. For some reason, people like to keep old tires. It’s a lot more than you would think.”
Mosquitos breed really quickly.
Goodman said, “In our wetlands, mosquitoes breed at a rate of about 45,000 per square foot, if you can imagine that, on average, about 2 billion per acre, and this is not just one time in the season. This is every seven to 10 days, and with as hot as it is right now, that number of days is a little bit less. The hotter the temperature we have, the faster these mosquitoes go from the egg stage through the larvae to pupil to flying adults, usually in one week or less. So it’s a lot of mosquitoes, and we know where most of the breeding spots are, and we treat them. There are new breeding spots cropping up, and now we’re able to find them better than we did last year, using some new technology and lidar mapping. So we’re continually adding new technologies and growing to keep the community safe and to improve our quality of life, but every day is different, and it’s continues to repeat, because we are mosquito control, not mosquito extermination. Our job is not to eliminate mosquitoes, and really, you never could, and really, you never want to, because they do serve a purpose in the ecosystem, and that’s what the Everglades Restoration Project, right now, is to restore the ecosystem for the Everglades, and part of that ecosystem in the habitat that they’re restoring is mosquitoes. So, there’s a lot of mosquitoes. I think a lot more will be coming as this restoration project continues over the next several years. There’ll be more and more water. Right now, Florida is in pretty much of a drought, continuing, it’s maybe a little bit better than it was a month ago, but still the water level is low, and same in the Everglades, but still more water is going through there than ever, and it will continue to grow over the next several years as this project comes to fruition. One season here, can produce billions of offspring. If you can imagine one mosquito, tens of billions of offsprings. All you have to do is look at the, they have only about 100 eggs per time, and if you look at 100 to the sixth power, you’re already into the billions, and the sixth power is nothing compared to what could happen here. Every time it rains, it’s a new generation of mosquitoes breeding, so it’s a lot, but mosquito control, we’re here to control that, and we do, I think, a phenomenal job, but we’re working against Mother Nature in a lot of things, and with Mother Nature, so every day is something different.”
For more information, click here: https://www.keysmosquito.org/