Most people look forward to spring. The weather warms up. The plants start to bloom. The insects come back... well maybe they're excited about everything except the bugs.
Bugs stick, bite, suck and sting but mainly just annoy, and as the winter season fades, insects start the one thing we hate more than them annoying us, mating and making more insects.
But thankfully Coastal Carolina University Associate Professor of Biology John Hutchens says swarms of bugs shouldn't be any worse than years prior. "To my knowledge, this spring is going to be a normal mating season for insects," he says. "We didn't get a lot of rain in the past few months, but we didn't get too little either."
Hutchens says there may be an assumption there are more insects. "The bugs will still be outside because of the weather but people will also be outside because of the weather too. So you just may hear more people talking about the bugs."
Talking about the bugs is something Horry County Stormwater Management's Tom Garigen does for a living. His crews monitor the insect situation and rely on temperatures and weather. "We usually start spraying and fogging in mid-May," says Garingen. "We've gotten phone calls from people complaining about the bugs, but we're trying to hold off as long as possible."
A small new briquette-like material is helping the department save on gas and still combat the bug population. "Chemicals that are completely safe to humans and animals are in this brick that we put into storm drains. The brick kills any breeding of insects in those drains for 180 days."
The department used the bricks last year and Garigen says they did the job. "We plan to use these as long as possible. They've helped us cutback during a time when we've had to tighten our belts."
Stormwater's funds were drained last fall when heavy rain soaked the area, which created more allowed insects to thrive and multiply. "Last fall really killed our budget," he says.
Garigen says for the last three years, the county department's budget flattened because there's less growth in Horry County. Increasing cost for fuel and chemicals and this flattening budget have caused Stormwater to use money as sparingly as possible.
Their fiscal year ends June 31. "We have reserves. So I'm pretty confident we can make it to the end of the June."
