The Tao and the Mosquito

Despite the fact it's a pleasant summer morning, we quickly pulled shut all of our windows. We knew this was necessary as the weird whirring sound slowly proceeded up our street. In a few moments, there he was -- probably getting paid minimum wage to spray a veil of poison all over the neighborhood!

In specific parts of South Bend -- including our neighborhood atop Nob Hill -- mosquitoes are a persistent problem come July and August. Try to go outside in the morning or near dusk and you'll be attacked by swarms of these disease carrying insects. Care to venture out unprotected and you can have hundreds of bites in short order.

To combat this problem each year, the City of South Bend takes the low road; they pay people to spray permethrin all over the place. This insecticide is a proven mosquito killer...sort of. It only works for a few days and is rendered ineffective by precipitation -- something we get a lot of here.

According to the Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides,

Permethrin, like all synthetic pyrethroids, is a neurotoxin. Symptoms include tremors, incoordination, elevated body temperature, increased aggressive behavior, and disruption of learning. Laboratory tests suggest that permethrin is more acutely toxic to children than to adults.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified permethrin as a carcinogen because it causes lung tumors in female mice and liver tumors in mice of both sexes. Permethrin inhibits the activity of the immune system in laboratory tests, and also binds to the receptors for a male sex hormone. It causes chromosome aberrations in human and hamster cells.

Permethrin is toxic to honey bees and other beneficial insects, fish, aquatic insects, crayfish, and shrimp. For many species, concentrations of less than one part per billion are lethal. Permethrin causes deformities and other developmental problems in tadpoles, and reduces the number of oxygen-carrying cells in the blood of birds.

Lovely!

Look. I realize the city must do SOMETHING. All the hype centered on West Nile Virus mandates that the city take action. Unfortunately, as is all too often, the strategy of killing adult bugs doesn't get at the root cause of the problem. It's nothing more than a toxic band-aid. It's a temporary fix that must be reapplied again and again and again.

If our dear city government was smart, they would attack this annual problem at its source -- the ponds near the affected neighborhoods. It is these ponds that serve as the breeding ground for this most pesky insect.

So, what strategies could the city employ to minimize the number of mosquitoes present while not harming the other critters and flora in the area? The most obvious strategy would be to use mosquito dunks.

A Natural Organic Ingredient Kills Mosquito Larvae That Feeds On It, Contains No Poisons. Will Continue To Kill For 30 Days, Completely Biodegradable, Place 1 Dunk Wherever Water Collects: Flower Pots, Overgrown Ponds, Gutters, Bird Baths, Will Not Harm Fish Or Other Animals, Each Dunk Covers 100 sq. ft. Of Water Surface Regardless Of Depth.

Of course, the city would need to buy several hundreds of the dunks and apply them once per month. Since they spend nearly $6,500/mo. to have young men spray permethrin all over the place, they would realize a substantial cost savings AND the poor blokes wouldn't be exposed to carcinogens!

In addition, they could stock the ponds with native fish that feed on mosquito larvae, place some nontoxic pheromone-based mosquito traps around the area to catch the few adult mosquitoes that survive the dunks and they could plant marigolds and other such plants that mosquitoes don't like around the ponds.

I've tried to discuss these many strategies with city staff, but they look at me as if I'm explaining calculus in Chinese. It's sad to say that Americans have been so weaned on the breast milk of pesticides that to suggest a different strategy makes far to many people suspect that I must be a card-carrying communist or, even worse, a treehugger.

So, each year we will continue to perform this grotesque dance. We will continue to poison the neighborhood, while killing a very small portion of the biting mosquitoes. In less than one week, you won't even know that anything was done today because the swarms will return in full force.

The only thing that can save us now is...the arrival of autumn!