The Texas Department of State Health Services is expanding its effort to control mosquitoes after Hurricane Harvey and will begin aerial mosquito spraying over a section of Austin County at dusk Sunday, September 17 and will continue until 5 AM as well as Monday, September 18, 2017 at 8 pm. Spraying over the targeted area of Austin County will be completed by Tuesday, September 19, 2017 at 5 am.
DSHS is working in coordination with counties throughout the affected areas that have requested mosquito control assistance to prevent mosquitoes from interrupting recovery efforts and to reduce the threat of mosquito-borne diseases.
As of now only part of Austin County will be sprayed. The area to be sprayed will be East of Hwy 36 and South of I-10. Plan is still for a Sunday night spraying. They have to do pre and post trapping. There are also some issues of getting enough chemical. This is the same chemical most cities spray to control mosquitos. If there is a delay, we may get sprayed Monday or Tuesday night.
Aerial application of insecticide, when applied according to label instructions by a licensed professional, is the most effective way to reduce the number of mosquitoes in a large area and does not present a risk to people, pets or other animals.
Concerns have been raised that the mosquito spraying may negatively affect honey bees. According to Texas A&M AgriLife experts, it is accurate that the pesticide used for mosquito spraying will harm bees, but spraying at dusk and early in the morning helps reduce and prevent harm to bees because bees do not fly at these times. The Texas Apiary Inspection Services have reportedly notified all licensed beekeepers and the Texas Beekeepers Association in the affected areas prior to spraying operations occurring.
For more information regarding aerial spraying please visit the following:
http://dshs.texas.gov/news/releases/2017/20170906.aspx
http://dshs.texas.gov/news/releases/2017/Questions-AerialMosquitoControl.aspx