THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 3, 1996 TAG: 9608030379
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 43 lines
Norfolk's war on mosquitoes is more like guerrilla warfare.
While exterminators in other Hampton Roads cities use thermal fogs to knock down airborne skeeters, their Norfolk peers go out on search-and-destroy missions that seek to eliminate the pesky biters before they turn into winged stingers.
Norfolk city exterminators respond to residents' complaints by searching the grounds of residences and neighborhoods for standing pools of water containing mosquito eggs or larvae. If infested water can't be dumped out - a large cistern or ditch that can't be drained, for example - the exterminators spray chemicals onto the water. That kills the eggs and larvae instantly.
In the winter, city exterminators check storm drains and tidal marshes for standing water that will become mosquito breeding grounds during the spring and summer. They open ditches and put down chemicals as necessary.
Agnes Flemming, director of the Vector Control unit of the Norfolk Department of Public Health, said that Norfolk's approach better protects the environment and more effectively controls the biters.
``We used to spray No. 2 fuel oil in ditches'' as a matter of course. ``It killed everything and was banned long ago. But it's the perception of older residents'' especially that that's the way to deal with the mosquito, she said. ``Now we use the least product for the most bang, spray specific to the stage of development. The chemical dissipates in three days.
``Others ride through the city and put out a thermal fog, but the problem we have with that is that these products are not larvacides, don't eliminate the source - they hit on the wing.''
In recent days, Norfolk's 11 Vector Control exterminators have been busy trying to keep up with the complaints of folks who just don't know what to do about the extra itches.
It's the scratchiest summer Brutus Bynum has seen during his 15 years as a Norfolk exterminator.
``We have a bloom of mosquitoes unlike any other I can remember,'' Bynum said Friday.
It's important to get the mosquitoes under control, said Flemming, because they carry disease; they are ``vectors'' of disease.
KEYWORDS: MOSQUITOES by CNB