From the Press of Atlantic City, 1/29/2010-Rob Spahr, Staff Writer
Photo courtesy Press of Atlantic City, Edward Lea
The state Department of Agriculture announced Thursday that the only place in the entire state that will qualify for its Aerial Gypsy Moth Suppression Program this year is a 99-acre property in Mullica Township.
But officials there have no interest in taking part in the program.
Secretary of Agriculture Douglas H. Fisher attributed the decreased need for gypsy moth spraying to a variety of factors, including a combination of treatments in 2009, the impact of predatory parasites and an increase in a natural fungus that kills the caterpillars.
"However, the gypsy moth has not been eradicated from the state," Fisher said in a release. "We found some isolated scattered pockets as a result of our surveys, therefore, continued monitoring is necessary to suppress the tree-killing insect in the future."
The Department of Agriculture estimated that the moths have caused varying degrees of defoliation of forested land - between 1,910 and 800,000 acres - every year since 1970, and that two to three years of significant defoliation can kill an otherwise healthy tree.
Last year, the Gypsy Moth Aerial Spray program covered 35,816 acres of wooded areas and park land throughout 15 counties and 55 municipalities. To qualify for the voluntary spray program, a forest must have an average of more than 500 gypsy egg masses per acre and be at least 50 acres in size.
The only area that met those standards this year is a 99-acre tract in the Nesco section of Mullica Township, which Mullica Township Mayor Michael St. Amour is the site of a former tire dump. The Atlantic County Board of Chosen Freeholders recently announced plans to spend $267,000 in grant funding through the Department of Environmental Protection to remove debris from the property.
"My opinion is that we wouldn't be in favor of taking part in the program," St. Amour said. "That acreage is very small and due to the cyclical nature of gypsy moths and also the damp weather that really curtailed what the threat is."
St. Amour said the financial impact on taxpayers would not have been great, but he said he did not feel gypsy moths posed enough of a threat for any chemicals to be spray in the rural community.
"I'm generally not in favor of spreading these toxins as it is," he said. "But I don't believe there is a consensus to move forward with it at all, at this point."
The Department of Agriculture plans to conduct an aerial survey of the state in July to determine the extent of tree damage from gypsy moth caterpillars this year and where it will survey next fall.
To read updated article on other local municipalities regarding this, click this link.
7 comments:
Its too bad that the previous owners of the property were not so circumspect about not wanting to spread toxins too. Part of the property served as a smelter to reclaim metals from car batteries and wire that are now in the ground and water there. It was not just used as a convenient, out-of-the-way place to illegally store tires. Previous administrations looked the other way while this was all going on, even after a huge tire fire there in the late 80s that burned for three days, pumping hazardous toxins into the air over Nesco, and years of unpaid property taxes. Now Mullica has a big, expensive mess on its hands to clean up due to our previous elected officials' long-standing negligence.
Maybe the Mayor should investigate this offer before turning it down. The approved spraying method is to use BT which is not a pesticide but a bacteria that is harmless to every living creature but the gypsy moth caterpillar. I thought Keep Mullica Green would want to save the trees.
This was decided at the December 8, 2009 committee meeting, under former Mayor Janet Forman. All of committee was in agreement on this issue. Spraying would have cost the taxpayers $4,000.
The meeting minutes reflect this, as seen below:
Discuss Gypsy Moth Participation: Clerk explained based upon the survey results from the Department of Agriculture, approximately 99 acres at $39.44 per acre is being recommended to be sprayed. Clerk reported last year the requested acreage was 3,315. Clerk requested a consensus of Committee to either participate or not. Mr. St. Amour noted the acreage has been decreased by 97% and since he is not a proponent of spraying he suggested not participating as we have done in the past. Mr. St. Amour made a motion to that affect seconded by Mr. Kennedy. RCV: Yeas: Ms. Chasey, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Graebener, Mr. St. Amour, Mayor Forman.
re 12:01 pm
Do you see at the end of this post where it says "click here"? Well click it and go read the "comments" under the Press article.
Maybe that will make you think about this "harmless" bacteria it a different light.
Keep Mullica Green wants to save the trees from being cut down by developers. They're trying to cut down the pollution in this Twp. and clean up the contamination sites.
Mother Nature takes care of everything in cycles and interfering could bring on worst problems than the caterpillars.
At least this was one of the few times that Chasey and Forman had enough sense to agree with St. Amour and not waste our money or cause us more problems.
I never wanted my property sprayed. If you have a bad problem,you should take care of the matter yourselves.
There are a lot of local people that advertise spraying,so you will be helping our local businesses by contacting them.
re:12:01pm
I agree that this was one decision that Chasey and Forman were involved in that I felt was the right way to go. The other one was getting rid of the skate park. That was an insurance hazard and a large financial burden.
Not only is BT possibly injurous to human beings, one must also consider the death of species other than Gypsy Moths. There are many caterpillers which belong to much more desireable species of moths and butterflies that are also infected with BT when it is sprayed. The other forms of life that are destroyed by BT are important links in the food and fertilization processes in nature. They are natural to the ecology, and were not imported here the way the Gypsy Moth was. When the GM Caterpillers were everywhere, did anyone else notice that the spiders were feeding on them? How many other types of predators suddenly took advantage of the food source? When the next series of dry weather events takes place, perhaps there will be other forms of life that will aid in the supression of the infestation... until the next wet cycle. BT may kill the young of those species too.
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