Superintendent Christopher Horton outlined the reasons for the mosquito control at Thursday's meeting.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Berkshire County Mosquito Control Project will spend a quarter of a million dollars next year to fend off communicable diseases.

 

The board members stressed the seriousness of the threat West Nile and Eastern Equine Encephalitis poses to public health on Thursday when they set the $249,403 budget.

 

The budget is 3.7 percent more than last year, according to Superintendent Christopher Horton, and is split among the seven participating towns by percentage.

 

The organization monitors the mosquito population and looks for the presence of the disease. Mosquito testing is "absolutely critical to the program," McGrath said.

 

The benefits are twofold, McGrath said: the tests look for diseases as well as determine the general population of mosquitoes.  

 

The project also aims to reduce the mosquito population by killing larva and adult mosquitoes through several ways.

 

"The number one way is to keep water moving. Drainage work reduces the reliance on pesticides," said project Commissioner James McGrath.

 

Horton says a final resort is using adulticide spraying in neighborhoods with either high populations of mosquitoes or confirmed presence of the diseases. 

 

That spraying has become a heated debate in the city. Groups and individuals have been opposing the use of the chemical — Duet — that is sprayed throughout neighborhoods. Opponents claim the chemical causes health and environmental problems. They have pushed for alternative methods. Their pitch has led the city to push for alternative measures to be include in the program.

 

Residents in the towns have the option of opting out of having their property sprayed with the adulticide.

 

Historically, mosquito control projects were started to end a malaria outbreak in the 1940s and has been used by communities ever since.

 

Horton said a challenge in crafting a project plan each year is that the mosquito population and outbreak of disease are dependent on several factors. The differences in the types of terrain, the weather and change of seasons all affect the needs for mosquito control. To complicate matters, Horton explained, there are fifty species of mosquitoes.  

 

And the snowy winter will likely cause high population numbers in the spring. Mosquitoes lay eggs in places such as river flood plains and the flooding water triggers all of the eggs to hatch at once. With high level of snow, the melting will likely flood into a lot of areas and boost the mosquito population.

 

The high population last year led the organization to suggest and ultimately get the Board of Health's approval to administer the adulticide spray despite no confirmed cases of West Nile or EEE. Two years ago, West Nile was confirmed in the county on multiple tests.