A mosquito trapDespite being one of the coldest days of the year so far, Steinbach City Council updated their Mosquito Control Policy Tuesday evening.

Councillor Michael Zwaagstra says they decided to make some changes to the parameters that govern fogging buffer zones.

"One of the changes is to reflect the fact that any buffer zones will follow whatever the provincial guidelines are so instead of specifying a particular number of metres, we know the provincial standards sometimes change and so now the policy will simply say we will follow whatever the provincially mandated buffer zones happen to be."

If Steinbach residents do not want their yards to be fogged for nuisance mosquitoes they can register for a buffer zone to be placed around their property. The original Mosquito Control Policy laid out a 100-metre buffer zone, however, with this update, Steinbach will follow the provincial mandate with is currently set at 90 metres.

Zwaagstra says they will also be using a new product during any future fogging. He notes Malathion is no longer on the market, so in the future, the city will use a product called Deltamethrin which is sold under the product name DeltaGard.

"This is a product that had been deemed to be more environmentally friendly than Malathion and it has been extensively reviewed by Health Canada and has been determined to be safe for both humans and animals as it is properly used and applied. So if we do need to fog for adult mosquitoes that is the product that we would be using."

DeltaGard does cost approximately 80% more than Malathion, however, Zwaagstra says this shouldn’t be much of an issue considering the total cost to fog all of Steinbach would still come in under $10,000 and Steinbach almost never fogs.

Finally, Zwaagstra says they made a slight change to the wording of the Mosquito Control Policy. He notes initially there were some statements that seemed to indicate fogging for adult mosquitoes should not take place even if their mosquito trap thresholds were met. He adds they just want to make sure that residents know, weather permitting, fogging will take place if mosquito thresholds are met.