Parks and recreation head Keith Anderson had the sad duty to inform city council June 27 that, indeed, the bloodsuckers are coming back.
"I anticipate it being a huge problem", said Anderson, in informing council his department is already working hard to deal with an increasing mosquito population this summer.
The unwanted residents develop in standing water, and with the flooding and the more recent wet weather that is becoming an increasing concern for those trying to control the mosquito population. Mosquitoes were a big problem last year, when wet weather made the moisture situation much worse than it is this year.
Anderson told council that in the river valley area the city has a permit to spray a biological insecticide in the area. They had already done six rounds of mosquito treatment already, he said, using that biological insecticide.
His comments were in response to an inquiry from Councillor Grace Lang, who noticed what appeared to be mosquito fogging going on in Saskatoon. She was wondering if something similar was in store for North Battleford.
Andeerson said North Battleford did not plan any fogging and had not done fogging for years. He also didn't believe Saskatoon was doing fogging either and said what they were likely doing was spraying pellets of bacteria to control mosquitoes.
Anderson also said there is no threat of West Nile Virus for the moment, as the type of mosquitoes that carry that virus do not appear until mid-July at the earliest. However, they do plan to be on the lookout for those mosquitoes as well.
