Mosquito fighter Gary Hazelton marks a sewer grate with paint after dropping larvicide into the sewer to prevent West Nile virus.
West Nile mosquito busters
August 26, 2008
Feature Writer
About 1,200 times a day, Gary Hazelton stops his red Honda scooter, spoons a quarter teaspoon of mosquito larvicide into a storm sewer and on the upswing sprays paint on the metal grating before riding off to the next drain in the road.
Hazelton is part of a little-known team of workers that helps keep the GTA free of mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus. The pelletlike larvicide kills mosquitoes by wrecking their digestive system before they mature.
Mosquitoes that carry the virus breed in the water in catch basins – those sewers in the road outside your house.
This summer, 115,000 Toronto catch basins and another 87,000 in Peel were treated three and, in some cases, four times. In fact, most Ontario municipalities have larvicide programs, contracting out the work to companies like the Canadian Centre for Mosquito Management, the Winnipeg-based enterprise that employs Hazelton.
Since the program began in Toronto, the number of human cases of West Nile reported to Toronto Public Health has dropped from a high of 166 in 2002 to four in 2007. A 28-year-old Markham woman tested positive for the virus earlier this month, becoming the first confirmed case in Ontario this year.
No cases have yet been reported in Toronto, but the next few weeks are when people are more likely to acquire West Nile, says Dan Kartzalis, the manager responsible for overseeing the larvicide program at Toronto Public Health.
The first weeks of summer give the virus time to incubate and intensify among the bird and mosquito populations, making this the time when precautionary measures are most important.
"We all cross our fingers at this time," says Kartzalis.
Still, the sight of a stranger on a scooter armed with chemicals and spray paint shocks people. Occasionally, Mississauga homeowners will run out after Hazelton to find out what he's up to. He was once stopped by police – someone had called to report suspicious activity in the neighbourhood.
"It looks odd to be dumping something in the sewer," says Hazelton, 27, who splits his time between his summer job in the GTA and studying political science at Concordia University in Montreal.
"Usually as soon as you mention that you're getting rid of mosquitoes, people are pretty positive about that. Nobody is a fan of mosquitoes."
Mosquito larvae can mature in as little as five days under ideal conditions, but the larvicide – a methoprene pellet – is effective for up to 30 days. It's applied about every 30 days from June to September, and is not harmful to humans.
It takes seven people working five days a week all summer to keep the West Nile mosquitoes under control in Toronto; it takes five people in Peel.
Hazelton doesn't wear mosquito repellent and, in fact, rarely sees mosquitoes at all – he's killing them in the larval stage. He wears long-sleeved pants and a long-sleeved shirt for protection. Besides, he's used to winged irritants. He worked tree planting in northern Ontario. He grew up in Sault Ste. Marie.
Hazelton gets up at 5 a.m. to do busy streets before they congest with traffic. He works between eight and 10 hours a day, doing an average of 1,200 catch basins a day, at 19 cents each plus a performance bonus of three cents a piece.
The best neighbourhoods are the suburban ones. The streets are quiet and the catch basins unobstructed by parked cars.
Deborah Smith, 25, does the downtown streets of Toronto, where people sometimes chase her down, screaming, because they think they're getting a parking ticket.
"Usually it takes three minutes worth of a good conversation to calm them down," she says. "It has to sink in first."