Thursday night’s chemical bombardment of mosquitoes from a low-flying plane in Ada County went well before being interrupted by a storm. Weather permitting, the process will continue Friday night.
Brian Wilbur, Director of the Ada County Mosquito Abatement District, says the contracted plane sprayed parts of Star and Eagle around 10 p.m. Thursday. That gave the Dibrom Concentrate, which is a short-lived chemical, time to work before the rain moved in.
“Realistically, it lasts about 40 minutes in the environment," Wilbur says. "So when you have an hour, it’s done all the work it’s gonna do and it’s in the progress of degradation anyway and so the rain won’t have any issue.”
Wilbur thinks the storm actually helped. Mosquitoes become very active in the humidity right before a rain, which means more of them were likely hit by the chemicals.
Targeted areas Friday will include Eagle and Star and, possibly part of the Harris Ranch neighborhood in east Boise.
Wilbur says he’s never seen this many mosquitoes show up this early in the season.
“Our average over the last three years has been just under 800 mosquitoes that we’ll catch in our traps in a week. It alarmed us when we caught 4,035 in just one week. The following night we caught over 3,000 in just one trap.”
Wilbur says he'll know by next week, after checking mosquito traps, how successful the application was.
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