Winnipeg is the only major Canadian city to conduct a large-scale spraying effort against nuisance mosquitoes.Dave Chidley/The Canadian Press
When city councillor Gord Steeves checks his office answering machine during skeeter season, he needs to cover his ears.
"We hear all kinds of complaints, but by far the most vitriolic come when the mosquito counts get high," he said. "The acrimony and the angst get to levels where it's scary."
And right now, after the wettest spring ever recorded on the Prairies, that hostility is verging on violence - mainly against the 1,606 Winnipeggers who have opted out of the city's mosquito-spraying program over health concerns about the chemical deployed in the mass execution of the droning pests.
Under city policy, a 100-metre no-spray zone is placed around these homes, creating mosquito breeding grounds as big as city blocks and incurring the enmity of neighbours who'd rather enjoy bite-free nights.
At Mr. Steeves's urging, the city is taking action. On Wednesday, it forwarded to the province a recommendation to shrink the buffer zones. Mr. Steeves sees it as a way to prevent neighbourhood dust-ups, while chemical-adverse residents regard it as an abandonment of a council commitment to pursue an environmentally friendly bug battle.
"With this level of acrimony, I'm genuinely concerned that there will be an incident," Mr. Steeves said. "That's the base cause of my concern. In this city, if people don't get to enjoy their summer, they feel cheated."
Neighbourhoods have been doused with the chemical malathion since 1969, the year DDT was phased out as a weapon against the city's blood-sucking hordes. Winnipeg is the only major Canadian city to conduct a large-scale spraying effort against nuisance mosquitoes.
While studies have shown that malathion destroys populations of insects other than mosquitoes, its long-term effects on human health are unclear. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has stated there is "suggestive evidence of carcinogenicity," but not enough to classify it as a full-blown carcinogen.
That's all the warning Anne Lindsey needs. A buffer-zone registrant for at least 20 years, she's heard all the neighbourhood bickering, but "for me, the right to breathe trumps the right to eradicate mosquitoes."
Ms. Lindsey lives with an asthma sufferer and said he would have to go to the hospital if exposed to malathion.
"I know people who have to leave the city entirely when they're fogging," said Ms. Lindsey, executive director of Manitoba Eco-Network. "People tell me to mind my own business, but I'm concerned for my own family and other peoples' families. It's not good for children to be exposed to these chemicals."
To a certain extent, the city agrees. When Taz Stuart was hired as the city's bug czar in 2004, he persuaded council it could kick its chemical dependence by using biological agents and natural predators such as minnows and dragonflies. But the approach is still evolving.
One local researcher has been experimenting with another insect, the phantom midge, as a promising natural predator of mosquitoes. But even he admits that a chemical-free solution is a long way off.
"I'm optimistic, but I don't think that will happen very soon," said Mahmood Iranpour, an entomologist at the University of Manitoba. "You can't blame the city for spraying. In my opinion, they really don't have any other choices at this point."
The contentious buffer-zone issue ultimately depends on the province, which licenses the use of pesticides. Conservation Minister Bill Blaikie has expressed a willingness to address the issue.
Mr. Steeves, who claims that support for fogging in the city hovers somewhere over 90 per cent, hopes that decision comes soon.
"There are legitimate concerns about health and the like out there, but 100 metres seems intuitively too large," said Mr. Steeves, who noted that malathion is available in hardware stores. "Neighbours are buying this and fogging the heck out of their yards regardless, so the buffer zones are really not achieving the end they should be. It's a situation of people cutting off the nose to spite the face."