It’s June again, and lurking on the banks of urban and suburban water holes are mosquito eggs. Now awash in recent rainwater, the larvae are springing into adulthood.
But mosquito abatement teams are trying to get to them first.
It has become a sign of the season as common as the mosquito itself: mosquito mercenaries who each summer wade into standing waters, hunting the enemy where it breeds.
And technology has been added to the arsenals of those who track down the pests.
One outfit, Clarke Environmental Mosquito Management, with its staff of 135, includes a cartographer and chopper pilots, and plots its field strategy using the benefits of computer technology and guerrilla combat tactics.
Among the fighters is Clark Wood, who chuckles at the notion that he is at war.
“There’s a phrase that we use,” said the vice president of Clarke Environmental. “Integrated pest management.”
In a real sense, however, Roselle-based Clarke Environmental is waging war on the mosquito in McHenry County, specifically, mosquito larvae. And for eight county municipalities, the company provides the only regional mosquito-fighting force for the area.
“It’s a very scientific operation,” Wood said. “It’s come a long way in the last 50 years.”
These annoying insects have invaded just about every municipality in the Chicago area, and in some communities, mosquito-abatement practices are changing, especially since the anti-pesticide movement.
Participating in a larvicide program, which involves killing the eggs with a bacteria during calculated hatching periods, is gaining popularity in many communities.
Mosquito spraying is by far the most controversial abatement method. Some communities, such as Wonder Lake, opted to discontinue their spraying programs after residents actively campaigned against using the toxic sprays.
“As much as I hate to admit it,” said Wonder Lake Village President Kate Topf, “spraying seems to be only a temporary Band-Aid controlling the live mosquito populations two to three days at best, and the cost is $1,800 (for four treatments).”
Unlike some other counties, McHenry County has never formed a mosquito-abatement district to organize and finance the spraying of adult and larval mosquitoes. The money has never been designated for one, said Pat McNulty, director of environmental health for the McHenry County Health Department.
That means unincorporated areas of the county and villages that choose not to treat mosquito problems are left swatting.
“They’re on their own,” McNulty said.
This summer, Clarke is bringing some relief to Cary, Crystal Lake, Fox River Grove, Johnsburg, Lakewood, McCullom Lake, McHenry and Union with everything from villagewide treatments to park district spray sweeps.
In all, Clarke serves 150 municipalities in the Chicago area.
Another difference in McHenry County is that there is no county-affiliated mosquito-abatement district, such as the Northwest Mosquito Abatement District, which serves 240 square miles of the northwest suburbs, including 23 villages and eight townships.
The advantage of such regional coverage by one entity is that uniform spray coverage reaches a larger area, said Glenn Levinson, director of the Northwest Mosquito Abatement District.
Some mosquitoes can fly as many as 20 miles from a hatching point.
“They’re fighting a losing battle the smaller the territory they are trying to defend,” Levinson said. “But there is certainly room for private enterprise in mosquito control. In the absence of abatement, something is better than nothing.”
That’s where Clarke comes in. This year, the company, with a core staff of about 25, has hired 110 summer workers, mostly college students, to help it control mosquitoes.
Like nearby abatement districts, Clarke prefers to go after mosquitoes before they become full-fledged, whining and biting adults.
Clarke has designated 338 breeding sites in a 36-mile area in and around McHenry Township alone, 210 of which they check regularly during the summer. Breeding sites can range from stagnant ponds, creeks, woodland pools and sewage-treatment lagoons to subdivision ponds for storm-water runoff.
At most sites, enemy species No. 1 is the Aedes Vexans, or the common flood-water mosquito.
“It’s our dominant nuisance species in Northern Illinois,” Wood said. Recently, the pest has been worse than normal because rainfall for May was about 5 inches above average, Clarke reported.
“We’re just feeling the consequences now,” Wood said. Mosquitoes tend to lay eggs just above the surface of still water that is likely to flood. The eggs can sit dormant for as long as two to four years awaiting water cover. After a good rain, the larvae can develop into bloodthirsty adults within 15 to 18 days.
McHenry Township this summer will dole out $37,870 to treat its worst breeding sites, sharing some of the cost with the municipalities within the township.
That translates to about $1 a resident, which is money well-spent, leaders say.
“If we didn’t have some mosquito abatement, residents would be carried off,” said Albert Adams, McHenry Township president. “Mosquitoes here have always been bad.”
Dr. Linn Haramis, an entomologist with the Illinois Department of Public Health, said the average citizen definitely would notice the difference between a treated area and an untreated one.
“I don’t think we’ll ever get rid of mosquitoes,” Haramis said.
“All we can do is try to control them in certain areas. These are tough little critters.”
