New Chief to Help Decide on Spraying
By Anne Danahy, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.
Jun. 29–BELLEFONTE — Centre County officials plan to fill a gypsy moth coordinator position soon, and that person will collect information from residents to help decide which areas qualify for spraying in the spring.
The county plans to participate in the state’s gypsy moth suppression program next year, which means the county will be responsible for tracking the problem and letting the state know which residential areas should be sprayed in the spring. The state handles state lands.
“We need to move quickly,” said Chris Exarchos, chairman of the Board of Commissioners.
He said the county is looking at all its options, including appointing someone internally and hiring a contractor, to fill the job.
The county plans has to let the state know by the July 15 deadline.
County Administrator Tim Boyde said that between July 1 and Aug. 31, the coordinator will continue to collect information from residents with gypsy moths so those areas can be targeted for egg mass counts. That information will be used with aerial photography that the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources is doing to help determine which areas to spray in the spring.
The county has already starting collecting information and the Centre Region Council of Governments office forwarded information it gathered to the county too.
Participating in the state program means the county pays a per-acre fee for the biological insecticide spraying in forested residential and local government areas. This year counties that participated paid $12 an acre, half of the $25 an acre they initially were told they would have to chip in. The price drop came after extra federal funding was made available, according to the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
DCNR spokesman Terry Brady said Gov. Ed Rendell’s proposed budget for next year asks for $3 million more in forest pest management funding than this year’s $2.1 million. That money will help cover some of the costs.
Brady said spraying is not effective until the spring when foliage has emerged and the gypsy moth eggs have become small caterpillars.
Even with spraying, factors such as weather and timing have an effect on how well it works. Brady said a naturally occurring virus is usually what is responsible for collapsing the population every few years.
In 1990, 4 million acres were affected statewide. According to early estimates, between 1 million and 1.3 million acres statewide were defoliated by the leaf-eating caterpillars this year. That is up from about 700,000 acres last year. Next year could be even worse.
But having gypsy moths does not automatically qualify property for spraying in the county program.
County planner Matt Milliron said the property must be forested and residential and have trees that are vulnerable species, such as oaks. An area also must be at least 25 contiguous acres of forested land to qualify under the state program.
Milliron said few counties pick up the cost of the program and most pass it on to municipalities. That leaves it up to the municipalities to decide how to pay for it. Centre County commissioners have said municipalities will be responsible for individual requests.
Anne Danahy can be reached at 231-4648.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.
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