St. Charles County Department of Public Health’s Division of Environmental Health and Protection staff are hard at work combatting mosquitos. Homeowners are encouraged to join in the effort to eliminate the pests before they become a nuisance and potentially spread disease.
“Mosquito control is a year-round effort, but during warmer months, when they are most active, we ramp up our work to proactively treat for mosquitos and respond to requests and concerns,” says Ryan Tilley, Division Director of Environmental Health and Protection.
Homeowners play an important role in reducing the mosquitos in their community as well, says Tilley. Because mosquitos mostly stay within a few miles of their breeding site, denying them access to standing water they use for breeding can make a big difference in the immediate area, Tilley says.
“Routine cleaning of the gutters on your house is the number one thing residents can do to help, as well as addressing any other standing water,” Tilley notes. “Unused pools, bird baths, and water features without running water can all become habitat for mosquitos if they aren’t regularly cleaned.”
In 2022, County staff covered 239 miles spraying pesticides for adult mosquitos, in addition to 103 hours spent treating mosquito breeding habitats with larvicide. Tilley says the most effective way to reduce mosquito numbers is to eliminate or treat pools of standing water where they breed.
“Targeting developing larva in the water has the greatest impact and is more environmentally friendly than spraying,” says Tilley. “When choosing where to apply larvicide, we look for standing water in publicly accessible areas, like drainage ditches or retention ponds, particularly in areas that have a history of high activity.”
When adult mosquitos become a major nuisance or threat to public health in an area, Division staff use truck-mounted pesticide sprayers to reduce the population in that area. St. Charles County Mosquito Control services are provided in unincorporated St. Charles County and contracted for Augusta, Cottleville, Dardenne Prairie, Flint Hill, Lake Saint Louis, Portage des Sioux, St. Paul, Weldon Spring, Weldon Spring Heights, and Wentzville. Residents of those areas can go online to sccmo.org/mosquito and click the “Notify Staff of Mosquito Concerns” link to request services.
The cities of O’Fallon, St. Charles and St. Peters operate their own mosquito control programs. Residents of those cities should contact their respective city halls for treatment concerns.