Assessment of Reactive Catch Basin Larvicide Treatments Toward Improved Water Quality Using FourStar(®) Briquets and CocoBear™ Larvicide Oil.

Because it is often logistically impossible to monitor all catch basins within an operational area, local mosquito control programs will preemptively treat catch basins with larvicides each season. However, these larvicides can, ostensibly, be considered water quality pollutants. To experimentally reduce the use of larvicides toward improving water quality, 30 basins within a small 0.7-km(2) residential area were monitored weekly for the presence of larvae and pupae for 14 wk in the summer of 2013. Once a basin was found to reach a threshold of 12 mosquitoes per dip sample, it received a FourStar® Briquet (a 180-day briquet formulation of 6% Bacillus sphaericus and 1% B. thuringiensis israelensis). Each week a FourStar-treated basin surpassed this threshold, it was treated with an application of CocoBear™ oil (10% mineral oil). By the end of trials, all but one basin received a briquet and 13 required at least 4 treatments of CocoBear, suggesting that preemptive treatment is appropriate for the study area.