Working Together

It’s more than encouraging that the efforts of the East Hampton Town Trustees, activists and resident volunteers are paying big dividends in Accabonac Harbor, and potentially setting a precedent for an even bigger impact throughout Suffolk County once its successes become unmistakable.

The issue is the spraying of methoprene, an effective way to control mosquito populations but at the risk of damaging ecosystems. For years, environmentalists have targeted Suffolk County Vector Control’s practice of spraying marshes to control mosquitoes as potentially devastating the delicate balance between the insects and the other marsh dwellers that feed on them. Moreover, the genetic similarities between mosquito larva and shellfish create concerns that the chemical is actively harmful to the aquatic populations.

But the county has been working for several years with the Trustees and residents around the harbor — including Edwina Von Gal, founder of the Perfect Earth Project, a nonprofit that encourages nontoxic solutions for lawn, garden and landscaping — and that collaboration has been a success. The amount of the harbor where methoprene is applied has been reduced by four-fifths, in the name of targeting the places where mosquitoes actually breed, instead of blanketing the harbor with poisons. That’s due to the work of volunteer “citizen scientists” who helped to pinpoint the places in the marsh where treatment is reasonable — and excludes a great swath where it does little good, and possibly much harm.

The county’s Mosquito Control Division has a difficult mission: Diseases borne by the insects are a growing concern among a spreading area, as fatal cases of Eastern equine encephalitis in New England demonstrated this year. But it’s important to be strategic in the use of such powerful insecticides, and to consider other tactics, such as encouraging better drainage of some parts of the marsh — something Vector Control is now doing, to its credit.

The successes on Accabonac Harbor show that when adversaries can become partners, much can be accomplished.