Those biting pests have cost millions for one Mid-Atlantic state.
A mosquito boom due to the wet spring and summer is threatening to deplete Delaware's budget for pest control.
The News Journal reports that much of the $2 million pest control budget is gone just three months into the fiscal year.
Bill Meredith, the mosquito control administrator for the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, says record rains have led to a tripling of pesticide ground-fogging efforts. Also aerial spraying has quadrupled in recent months.
“We had to fall back on our final line of defense and do a lot of adulticiding,” from trucks and aircraft, Meredith told the paper.
Meredith says the summer rains produced new broods of mosquitoes every few days. Public complaints about the mosquito boom have multiplied.
Local
Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.
Officials say they had little alternative to spraying because of concerns over West Nile virus and other diseases.
