Keven Burnett, Executive Director of the Stapleton MCA, says he has been getting lots of calls about mosquitoes. The MCA has hired a contractor to monitor the situation to see what types of mosquitoes Stapleton is getting and where. The counts have been done using traps located in the Bluff Lake Nature Center, the East-West Greenway and the Northfield ponds behind Target. Two more test areas are being added: the Bluff Lake neighborhood and near Jetstream pool or the Uplands area.

“We are doing very active larviciding in the stormwater areas, and we’re mapping where we’re getting complaints from to see how that needs to shape the future of our program. The larvicide we spread out is a very benign organic non-toxic product. It is the basis for just about every mosquito management program that I’m aware of,” says Burnett.

Since mosquitoes emanate from Bluff Lake Nature Center into the Stapleton neighborhoods, the MCA has been working with Bluff Lake to be sure they get enough of the long lasting larvicide product to adequately cover their entire facility—which they did in early June.

“Certainly the biggest issue is who’s supposed to be taking care of this? Is it the city, is it Department of Environmental Health, is it Parks and Rec, is it us, is it the Park Creek Metro District?  We’re really trying to understand where that responsibility lies,” says Burnett.

Burnett is currently trying to get more information on adult mosquito spraying of the pesticide Aqualuer 20-20. He says, “The spray will last for 30 minutes and it will knock down everything in that 30 minutes, including bees and a lot of the stuff that supports our ecosystem in our native areas. But then after 30 minutes it becomes useless. And you can’t spray every day for nuisance mosquitoes, so it’s really about when there is truly a public health threat that you want to be directing your spray. But we’re not sure we even have the authority to spray on a Denver city street or property. Every property we’re talking about is Denver city property or right-of-way.

“We’re being very proactive in putting together a comprehensive mosquito management program that can be executed throughout the summer,” says Burnett, but he points out that there is a lot of undeveloped land and they need to work with all parties to effectively manage the problem.

Trap counts and information on pesticides is posted at StapletonCommunity.com > what we do  > community maintenance.