Yes, today is Earth Day.
The cause is a little closer to my heart this year than in some years previous, because of our family's litter pickup project from earlier this spring.
Besides making our community just a nicer-looking place, the litter-pickup efforts have another benefit, which I was reminded of in an e-mail I got recently from the York County West Nile Virus Program Coordinator, Thomas Smith.
As part of Earth Day, the e-mail release said, you're invited to participate in the Great American Cleanup of Pennsylvania. Why? Because organizing and participating in a neighborhood or community cleanup is the most effective method to eliminate mosquitoes.
It goes on to say that York County is now home to 27 different species of mosquitoes (eww!). The most common types breed predominately in artificial water reservoirs created by humans.
Those can be anything from a bottle cap to a swimming pool, or tires, buckets, tarps and roadside trash.
Here's a scary fact: One bucket or tire in someone's backyard can breed hundreds of mosquitoes a year.
Anyway, if you are willing to help clean up at least your yard or a surrounding area, you might help prevent West Nile - of which there's been a human case in York County every year since 2002.
Want to know what you should tackle specifically? Read on. And take a look at the photos in this entry, which are examples of things you DON'T want to have!
Tips to eliminate standing water include:
· Disposing of tin cans, plastic containers, ceramic pots or similar water-holding containers that have accumulated on your property. Drill holes in the bottom of containers left outdoors so water can properly drain, eliminating breeding areas.
· Dispose of waste tires properly.
· Clean clogged roof gutters on an annual basis.
· Turn over plastic wading pools, wheelbarrows and birdbaths when not in use.
· Aerating ornamental pools or stocking them with fish.
· Maintain swimming pools properly. Swimming pool covers should be removed in early spring. The water on top of pool covers warms up faster and will breed many mosquitoes in the spring.
· Alter your landscape to eliminate standing water that collects on your property.
· Participate in the Great American Cleanup of Pennsylvania! How clean or dirty is your community? Any roadside trash, bottles, cans, food wrappers, and plastic bags will hold water and may breed mosquitoes. For details on the Great event, visit gacofpa.org or call 877-772-3673, ext. 113.
Tips to repel mosquitoes:
· Replace incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent light bulbs. Mosquitoes are not attracted to fluorescent light bulbs.
· Clean up pet waste around your yard. Asian Tiger mosquitoes use the odor of pet waste for seeking a host for a blood meal.
· Prune shrubs and hedges to allow better air flow to reduce areas adult mosquitoes can rest in.
· Don't dump lawn clippings or other debris in community retention ponds and storm drains. Retention ponds are engineered not to breed mosquitoes, but residents create mosquito problems by using them as dump sites.
· When going outside wear light colored, loose fitting, long sleeve shirt, long pants, socks and shoes.
· When going outside be sure to wear a repellent. A repellent containing DEET is recommended. Other repellents with the active ingredient of Picaridin or Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus are also available. Please use the repellent that works best for you and your family. Please read the label.
· Finally if you have done everything to clean up your yard and still have mosquito problems and cannot enjoy your deck or patio, use a fan while outside to keep the air moving. Mosquitoes are weak fliers and do not like the wind. This will help keep the mosquitoes away.
Learn more by calling 840-2375 or visiting the Cooperative Extension Web site.
Awesome blog post. Very informative. Will never look at a strewn bottle cap the same way again. Nor will I walk by one without disposing of it properly.