Last Week’s Flooding, This Week’s Heat Together Make Perfect Mosquito Conditions
Residents are advised to use mosquito repellent and drain standing water around their homes before heading outside to celebrate the July 4 holiday. As water levels continue to decline following last week’s storm, the City of Jacksonville’s Mosquito Control Division will continue an aggressive effort to larvicide ditches, swamps and other potential breeding sites.
“To help curb the nuisance of mosquitoes for the upcoming holiday, we are encouraging all residents to drain standing water from empty containers around their property now,” said John Shellhorn, Division Chief for Mosquito Control. “Good places to look for standing water include gutters, troughs, work buckets and flower pot basins.”
To deter pests while outdoors, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends using a repellent that contains one of the following ingredients: DEET, Picardin (KBR3023), or oil of lemon eucalyptus.
Temperature and precipitation are primary factors that influence mosquito breeding—something residents should keep in mind as the temperatures continue to hover near triple digits this week.
A mosquito can breed in one teaspoon of water and can develop into a biting adult in less than a week, something that raises concerns after Tropical Depression Debby caused flooding in many areas of the city last week. Increasing temperature accelerates the rate of mosquito larval development and increased rainfall creates additional breeding sites for mosquitoes.
“Our staff was busy last week mixing hundreds of gallons adulticide which will be dispensed to the fog trucks for spraying this week,” said Shellhorn. “Daily operations will now focus on larviciding by ground and air. Aerial fogging took place this morning.”
Jacksonville’s Mosquito Control Division provides service to one of the largest cities geographically in the United States with a boundary encompassing 840 square miles with an abundance of shoreline and marshes and a population approaching 900,000.
Citizens with mosquito concerns should call 630-CITY (2489) or visit
www.coj.net and type “Mosquito Control” in the Search area.