Aerial Mosquito Spraying is a Dangerous Idea

The Salt Lake City Mosquito Abatement District (SCLMAD) is planning to use the US Air Force to spray pesticides over 43,000 acres in the Northwest Quadrant of Salt Lake City within the Great Salt Lake ecosystem. This plan is part of the scheme to construct the Utah Inland Port.

“We must not allow a cure worse than the disease,”  said Dr. Moench. “The incidence of severe outcomes from West Nile virus is so low that preventing those outcomes should not be allowed to eclipse the long list of health and environmental concerns from pesticide use.”

The district is accepting public comment through March 31.Please submit your comments at www.slcmad.org/notices.html or email service@slcmad.org to oppose the unnecessary and harmful use of pesticides.

8 reasons why this is a terrible idea:

1. Pesticides in general, including those intended for use by SLCMAD, represent a widespread risk to human health even at low doses.
2. Pesticide spraying is a significant contributor to local air pollution because it creates toxic VOCs in the atmosphere and increases ozone.
3. Spraying is not effective in reducing mosquito populations because of rapid evolution of genetic resistance and damage to the populations of mosquito predators.
4. We must not allow a cure worse than the disease. The incidence of severe outcomes from West Nile Virus is so low that preventing those outcomes should not be allowed to eclipse the long list of other health and environmental concerns from pesticide use.
5. Spraying does not reduce the incidence of WNV.
6. Claims of safety for pesticide spraying use faulty logic and faulty science. Insecticides are potent neurologic poisons, proven to harm brain development in children, including causing autism.
7. There are multiple oversights, inadequacies, omissions, inconsistencies, and errors in the SLCMAD’s Environmental Assessment.
8. Pesticide spraying has adverse impacts on beneficial insects, bird populations, wildlife, the ecosystem of the Great Salt Lake and beyond.
9. There are Better Ways to Control Mosquitoes.

“I think it’s really inappropriate to use C-130’s to spray a sensitive wetland like this,” a woman stated.
Dr. Brian Moench of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment says the pesticides are neurotoxins which will attach to particles suspended in our polluted air and eventually wind up in the lungs of residents throughout the Salt Lake Valley.

“It is inaccurate for anyone, including the Mosquito Abatement District to say that this won’t have an impact on human health,” Dr. Moench told ABC4 News. “We have all these studies that show that these chemicals are really potent neurotoxins and have many other health consequences such as precipitating things like infertility, reproductive problems and even cancer.”

https://www.abc4.com/news/potent-neurotoxins-commenters-voice-concerns-over-slc-aerial-mosquito-spraying-plan/

Again, please submit you public comment before March 31 at www.slcmad.org/notices.html or email service@slcmad.org to oppose the unnecessary and harmful use of pesticides.

Now environmentalists, public health advocates, bird lovers and west-side organizers are urging them to shut down the spraying altogether, arguing that aerial applications may pose a far bigger threat than the pesky, blood-sucking insects the chemicals are intended to kill.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2021/03/19/aerial-mosquito-spraying/