Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty...from pests

The quote "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" has been attributed to Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, but most likely was first penned by Wendell Phillips, the abolitionist and defender of Native Americans' rights from Massachusetts.  The same quote could be applied accurately to the effort to keep our country free from disruptions caused by exotic pests.  Without continual vigilance, our country would be overrun (more than it already is) with exotic pests and new pest problems.

A recent five-kilo rice interception at DFW airport contained
evidence of khapra beetle, a notorious quarantine pest. Photo
by Customs and Border Protection.

This point came home to me again recently as I read one of the regular reports I receive from Morris Bigham, Chief Agriculture Specialist for Customs and Border Protection at the Dallas /Fort Worth International (DFW) airport.  Every month various pests are intercepted from the luggage of travelers at airports like DFW.  Mostly these folks are not nefarious smugglers, but average people who are either ignorant of the laws prohibiting transportation of foods and pest, or who think the law doesn't really apply to them.

Take just one example from the latest report:

"On February 06, 2012 a passenger arrived at DFW International Airport from India... The passenger was referred to agriculture secondary for inspection. The passenger did not declare any items of agriculture interest...and a verbal declaration was unattainable due to a language barrier. During the inspection of the passenger’s luggage, 5 kilograms [about 10 lbs] of rice was discovered. The rice was seized and quarantined for further inspected. Upon further inspection of the rice, a coleoptera [beetle] cast skin was found. Tentative identification of Trogoderma granarium [khapra beetle] was given for the cast skin. As a result, the specimen was forwarded to the local USDA Area Identifier for further identification. The rice was destroyed by steam sterilization. On February 29, 2012, final identification of the pest was received, confirming the tentative identification of Trogoderma granarium...a quarantine significant pest."

If you're like most people, you've probably never heard of khapra beetle, but it is one of the most destructive pests of stored grain in the world. According to Wikipedia, "infestations are difficult to control because of the insect's ability to survive without food for long periods, its preference for dry conditions and low-moisture food, and its resistance to many insecticides."  The only real protection we in the U.S. have from this beetle are the dedicated men and women charged with the behind-the-scenes task of inspecting luggage and shipped grain from overseas.  Last month at DFW airport alone USDA/APHIS intercepted 348 passenger and 45 cargoes with pest evidence.  It's amazing to me that with all the international travel that we have managed to keep khapra beetle, and many other pests like it, out of the country so long.

Perhaps it's stories like this that make me not laugh at stories people tell when they brag about how they smuggled something in from a foreign junket.  A sad (for me, because I like her as an actor) example of this occurred on the Tonight Show a couple of month ago. Guest Sandra Bullock let slip on the show that she had smuggled holiday sausage into the country as part of a family tradition. Of course it was all great fun, and the audience enjoyed the anecdote, but it left me feeling a little like listening to a joke about the antics of a drunk driver.  Pretty funny until you know someone who's an alcoholic, or who has lost a loved one from a drunk driving incident.

So as you're eating your whole grain cereal tomorrow think about those good folks from the Homeland Security agencies and the work they are doing to keep your breakfast affordable and pest free.

A meeting for schools AND PMPs

Past TIPMAPS meetings have included presentations by
Regulatory officials such as then TDA Assistant
Commissioner of Pesticide Programs, Jimmy Bush.

This November will mark the fourth year that Texas school IPM coordinators have gotten together for their annual TIPMAPS (Texas IPM Affiliates for Public Schools) networking and educational conference on integrated pest management for school facilities.  If you want to talk with an enthusiastic group about IPM, this is the place to be.

A handful of PMPs have attended this meeting in the past, but the doors are open to much wider participation. TIPMAPS welcomes pest control contractors to attend and become members, and the meeting could be a great way to make contacts with new school districts as well as building stronger relations with the districts you are already servicing.  In addition, I guarantee that you will gain insight into how school IPM programs operate under the Texas school IPM rules and regulations. Associate membership for pest control professionals, manufacturers and other vendors is $100 per year.  Click here for an application.

The 2012 TIPMAPS meeting will be held November 14-15 in San Marcos, TX at the Embassy Suites.  Vendor booths are two for one this year ($500 for both the Facility Masters and TIPMAPS meetings), and regular registration for the two-day TIPMAPS meeting is $125. The facilities are top-notch, the speakers are engaging, and CEUs are offered; so if your business is involved in servicing Texas school districts, this may be one meeting to get on the calendar early.  Hotel rooms will be limited, so it's recommended to make your reservations early (by Oct 22 to get the group rate) by clicking on this special link, or when calling the hotel directly, by mentioning the group name TASBO/group code TAI (phone 512 805 5340).

To learn more about the conference go to http://www.tasbo.org/about-the-conference-mao-tfm To learn more about TIPMAPS, visit their website at http://tipmaps.org/

Bed bug control in public housing

Last month the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published its official guidance for public housing authorities and managers of Section 8 (federally subsidized) housing.  If you do pest control work for public housing, you should be familiar with this new document.

Click here for the guidance notice PIH-2012-17 and here for guidance on prevention and safe removal of bed bugs.  Thanks to Allison Taisey and her blog on IPM in multifamily housing for this update.

Gee, I love my job

Today's IPM Coordinator training class at
Plano Independent School District.

As I write, I'm sitting in a mostly dark room listening to my Texas AgriLife colleagues Don Renchie and Janet Hurley walk a group of almost 40 school IPM Coordinators through a long list of rules and regulations about how pesticides must be used in Texas public schools.  In between jokes, back-and-forth banter, and scribbling pens, learning is taking place and it's a beautiful thing. 

Given a choice, I suspect most of us would probably not choose to spend our day watching a PowerPoint slide show and listening to speakers for hours. But there is little boring about this session between a group of eager learners and an entertaining speaker (and if you know Dr. Don Renchie, you know what I mean).  I know the efforts made by Janet Hurley to keep this training interesting, relevant, and interactive.  A wireless audience response system gets students interacting with us trainers, and shows both the class and the trainers how well the message is being conveyed.  Refreshments are handy and (at least today) the chairs are comfortable. Life is good.

I've found few things more satisfying that imparting knowledge to a motivated group of adult learners.  Some of my personal best friends are teachers and find great fulfillment in teaching children important life skills. Personally, give me a group of adults.  Sure kids are cute, and their innocence and naivete is engaging; but adults need education just as much as the kids. Adults are easily bored, often critical, sometimes prejudiced and usually forgetful; but nothing in my book is better than giving adult learners skills that they need to excel in their jobs and/or life. The rewards outweigh the pains.

School IPM coordinators, and the PMPs who work for them, are given the weighty responsibility of keeping  school districts pest-free while balancing pesticide risks.  This isn't easy.  Coordinators have to first master a dozen or so pages of laws and regulations; they have to learn tongue-twisting pesticide names and their properties; they have to organize reams of records; they have to fight for scarce  budget dollars; they have to counsel frustrated principals, teachers and sometimes parents; and they have to be ready for unannounced visits from state inspectors.  Few of them asked for their jobs as IPM coordinator, rather they were assigned the position usually on top of several other jobs. 

Watching and listening to classes like this respond to speakers and ask intelligent and probing questions is highly satisfying.  Over the years I watched some of our IPM class and PMP alumni work their way up through the food chain in their school districts and pest control companies.  I've seen people who were initially reluctant to be assigned the job of "bug killer" only to embrace the position and take great satisfaction in their new job. I like to think that I and my colleagues have played a part in the pride and high performance of more than a few of these men and women.  And that's why I love my job.

CEU Opportunity in Dallas next week

Live in north Texas and still need your CEU credits for 2012? Our office at the Texas AgriLife Center at Dallas will be offering a 5-hour training next week on Thursday, March 1.  Speakers will include Melody Lee (TDA), Dr. Jim McAfee (Extension), Micah Pace (Texas Forest Service), Rob Cook (US EPA) and myself.  You can preregister through Monday, or register the day of the training (you save $15 by pre-registering).  

To register online, go to   https://agriliferegister.tamu.edu/events/index.cfm.  Search on the keyword "IPM" and select the link for 2012 Spring IPM Seminar at the Dallas location.  When you get there, click on the Enroll Now button.  A flier with the schedule, titles of talks and location is available by clicking here.

This is always a good conference, and the food is good too. I hope to see some of you next week.

Pyrethroid label changes hit the streets soon

You can recognize a pyrethroid insecticide by
reading the active ingredient list.  Pyrethroid
common names end with  the suffixes "-thrin"
(such as bifenthrin) or -ate (such as esfenvalerate).

The past few years has seen a major shift in the insecticides the pest control industry uses to provide long-term, residual control of general insect pests.  In the 1990s and early 2000s, chlorpyrifos, diazinon and assorted other organophosphate (OP) and carbamate insecticides dominated much of the pest management professional and consumer pesticide markets. Passage of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, and a conscious effort by U.S. EPA regulators to wean the country from OPs, created a regulatory environment that favored pesticides with lower toxicity potential for human and wildlife. Indeed, a recent study by Alison Clune and colleagues from Emory University provides experimental evidence that levels of OP metabolites in human urine decreased significantly between 1999 and 2004.

This decline in OP and carbamate use in pest control opened the door for increased use of pyrethroid insecticides. For the most part, pyrethroids have proven to be good substitutes for the older insecticides; however in recent years there have been growing concerns that pyrethroids might not be as environmentally safe as originally thought. Specifically, pyrethroid residues are increasingly being found in sediment at the bottom of urban streams and rivers, where they are toxic to some aquatic insects and other invertebrates.

What this means for the average pest control technician is that there will be changes over the next few months in wording on all pyrethroid labels to minimize the risk of stormwater contamination from structural pest control.  PestWeb just published a nice summary of the new rules and timelines for implementation, and the Pyrethroid Working Group (a pesticide industry coalition) also summarized the upcoming changes and offers the opportunity to sign up for email alerts on changes to regulatory alerts on pyrethroid insecticides.

It's always important to read pesticide labels, but this change means that all PMPs should be especially alert to changes in the labels of these commonly used products.  The biggest changes will be in how pyrethroids are applied to outdoor impervious surfaces. All applications made to sidewalks, driveways, patios, porches and structural surfaces (such as windows, doors, and eaves) will be limited to spot and crack-and-crevice applications only (around windows and doorways this is defined as a spray band no more than a one-inch wide). In addition, if you are in the habit of using pyrethroid insecticides to treat sewer lids or walls for cockroaches, this type of application will be specifically prohibited.

Insect Superbowl Ad

I may be one of the few Americans who didn't see this ad when it came out during the Superbowl (I missed the first half), but since one of our pest management agents forwarded it today, I am now up-to-speed.

The animation on the ad is impressive, and the artists obviously did their homework in designing their lovable bugs. I identified a caterpillar, bumble bee, ants, grasshopper, lady beetles, a praying mantis, dragonfly, and (the star of the lineup, in my opinion) a jumping spider--all rendered pretty accurately from an anatomical perspective, if not a behavioral one.

It's fun to see insects being included in popular culture, especially when people are encouraged to see the world from a new (insect) perspective.  But in real life cars are not especially kind to insects.  Some of you may remember that about a year ago Dutch biologist Arnold van Vliet decided to estimate annual insect mortality due to cars.  After enlisting 250 drivers and counting insect mortality on a small part of each car (the license plate), he estimated nearly a trillion insect fatalities caused by cars every six months in the Netherlands alone.  Extrapolated to the U.S., where we drive our 200 million cars about 2.5 trillion miles annually, blogger Stephen Messenger estimates this would mean we're killing around 32.5 trillion insects on the front grills of our Tahoes, Camrys and Ford F-150s each year.

Chevrolet may be doing the insect world little good by introducing its fancy new sports car, but at least its ad is clever.