GRIC Environmental Health Urges Members to Mosquito Proof Their Property

November 3, 2017

Richard Bracha

Community Health Education Specialist

Tribal Health Department

The GRIC Environmental Health Services Program would like to remind Community members to empty or dispose of any likely mosquito harborages around their property.  As quickly as the rain showers come down, the Gila River lands become a spawning area for pesky mosquito larvae.  The mosquito can complete their life cycle in four days.

The many areas of standing water the rains produce now provide new breeding areas for mosquitoes to reproduce.  Property owners should be on the lookout for anything that can hold water such as the following:  dog bowls, buckets, planters, wading pools, and bottles.  It only takes a bottle cap full of water for a mosquito to produce larvae.  Please be persistent and patient when it rains and empty standing water around your home every three to four days.  

In order to decrease mosquito populations throughout the Gila River Community, the Environmental Health Services Program conducts fogging between dusk and dawn.  Fogging is applying pesticide in the form of a fine mist.  The challenges fogging presents have environmental and safety concerns.  Applications are most beneficial with calm winds and no rain.  Drift is also a concern while conducting fogging. 

The GRIC Environmental Health Services Program is very careful when applying pesticide as not to disrupt any other beneficial insect populations or over fogging that ultimately produces pesticide resistant mosquitoes.  An increase in the number of mosquitoes caught during routine trapping or the presence of West Nile Virus in these mosquitoes or in humans can justify a planned fogging regimen.   If fogging is going to be conducted in your community and a notice has been put out, keep your loved ones inside as much as you can for the duration of the set fogging time.

So, as the loud truck with the yellow warning light slowly drives through your community spewing out fogging pesticide, please be courteous and not follow the truck or run behind it. 

The GRIC Environmental Health Services Program would like to thank you for your cooperation and if you have any concerns about the fogging please call (520)562-5100 and ask to speak with a representative of the Environmental Health Services Program.