'Nature is healing': Edmonton votes to forgo some pesticides, rely on natural mosquito control

The city voted to take a more natural approach to manage mosquito populations this season.

Since 1974, the City of Edmonton has had a mosquito control program, including an aerial component for the past decade to target biting mosquitoes.

The aerial program deployed granular pellets, the size of cat litter, from helicopters at low altitudes into stagnant bodies of water to reduce the number of mosquito larvae that hatch.

That program is complemented by ground applications of pesticides by city crews to roadside ditches and other temporary water bodies only.

All of the pesiticides used are approved by Health Canada and recommended by the World Health Organization.

On Monday, council voted 9-4 to spend the $507,000 that would normally go toward the aerial program and create an education campaign and biological pest control measures.

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi and councillors Tim Cartmell, Sarah Hamilton, and Karen Principe voted against the new direction.

Michael Janz, ward papastew councillor, proposed the motion, saying it would help the city balance the need to maintain ecological biodiversity and the "nuisance factor" mosquitoes can create.

"This allows us to spend the money, I think, more responsibly going forward," he told council.

He suggested the city consider using bat boxes, introducing dragonflies into known mosquito habitats, and encouraging Edmontonians through an education campaign to address standing water on their property or use oscillating fans as ways to discourage mosquitoes.

"Hopefully, after a while, through these interventions, I think we won't even need to be spending it all because nature will have healed, and the excess prey, the mosquitoes right now that we have, one day the predators will catch up to them," Janz said.

"It will take some adjustments, but nature is healing," he added.

Representing sipiwiyiniwak, Hamilton said while she supports conservation efforts, "there's a lot of environmental mitigations that are taken."

"Cutting the budgets for something that people have seen value in and have spoken to the value that they see in the program to me is unwise," Hamilton added.

According to a report to city council, without the aerial program, the number of mosquitoes within the city would "most likely" increase, especially during years with large amounts of precipitation.

Cartmell presented a motion to delay the shift in mosquito mitigation by a year to give Edmontonians time to respond and for the city to gather feedback and additional data. That was voted down, with only Sohi, Cartmell, Hamilton, Principe, and Andrew Knack supporting.

Erin Rutherford, ward Anirniq councillor, said she supported the shift to natural pest control to lessen the impact on birds and other migratory species in the Edmonton region.

"While the research showed very clearly that this isn't that harmful, I think we always have to look from a whole ecosystem perspective," Rutherford told councillors.

"I do worry about the biodiversity crisis we are in right now and the amount of birdlife, for example, that rely on the (mosquito) larvae to survive."