Black Fly Control Program Director John Reilly spoke to the North Elba Town Council on June 11 about the persistence of the Tri-Lakes’ black fly population, which fluctuates, but is slightly higher than last year despite the program’s efforts to suppress the insects using BTI since 1994. Though he said the program’s method of suppression is effective, Reilly called for greater participation in these efforts from local communities, especially Saranac Lake, saying that hiring more personnel will be necessary in order for the suppression to achieve a successful outcome.

North Elba’s Black Fly Control Program sends workers into the wilderness to treat black fly hot spots with the BTI insecticide, or Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis. The current treatment area of the program covers waterways in North Elba, and the town of St. Armand allows the program to extend into their sector as well, according to Reilly. The total area is about 100-square-miles, with 250 waterways, all of which the program treats for a period of 15 to 17 weeks.

North Elba is just one of 24 municipalities and associations in the park that spends annual budget funds to suppress black fly populations through the application of BTI, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which issues BTI treatment permits. While the neighboring towns of Wilmington, Jay and Keene don’t have their own black fly programs like North Elba, they all contract Kathy Vanselow, of Gansevoort-based Bioconservation, Inc., to treat waterways in their towns.

North Elba’s Black Fly Program workers are paid employees, because of the demanding nature of the job, according to Reilly. The program recruits through local newspapers, job advertisements at seasonal workplaces such as Whiteface, and online. The town allocates around $100,000 per year for the program.

Black Fly Control Program Director John Reilly explains the biology of black fly larvae at the North Elba town board meeting on June 11. (Enterprise photo — Galen Halasz)

Reilly said he has a “good crew” but that as temperatures rise every year, so do black fly populations. The mid-March thaw this year could have been an advantage in a way, since it meant being able to start treatment sooner, but Reilly said that because the streams proceeded to freeze over again, temporarily halting treatment. He said there weren’t many people to help with the treatment at that time of year anyway, because most of the program’s workers have full-time jobs that make it hard for them to take time off earlier in the year if the water is only going to refreeze and make any work they do for the program at that time futile. He currently has four full time employees and four part time employees, but he said he would like to have a crew of six full time employees next year.

The adult black flies can live for around two to three weeks, so if the program misses treating a hatch, locals will have to spend a fortnight itching bug bites that Reilly is trying to prevent from happening in the first place.

Reilly said his hypothesis is that black flies are also coming into North Elba from outside the town. He pointed out that sometimes waves of black flies only seem to last for four or five days rather than the two weeks that they are supposed to, suggesting that they have already spent some of their lifespan migrating to reach the town from elsewhere. This is why Reilly is calling on other communities to participate — more black flies for one town seems to mean more black flies for everyone.

“It would help if outlying communities did this. … Saranac Lake especially, because it’s to the west (of North Elba),” he said, explaining that the black flies are likely hitching a ride on the prevailing winds from that direction, which could possibly help the insects travel up to 10 miles, although going quite that far would be rare.

Reilly said that neither the village of Saranac Lake nor the town of Harrietstown has ever had any sort of black fly suppression program but that they have the means to do it. Harrietstown town Supervisor Jordanna Mallach said that she does not know for certain about what the town has done in the past, but she is not aware of Harrietstown or Saranac Lake having such a program now or contracting anyone else do suppress black flies for them. She has not yet looked into whether or not they have the ability to do so.

Black Fly Conrtol Program Director John Reilly talks about the black fly life cycle at the North Elba town board meeting on June 11. (Enterprise photo — Galen Halasz)

North Elba town Councilman Jason Leon questioned whether the town should initiate “a collaborative process with the Village of Saranac Lake and Harrietstown” to get a black fly suppression program started there that might “minimize their experience (of black flies) and ours.”

Even with a Saranac Lake suppression program, Reilly said there is an area near Moose and McKenzie mountains that would be too dangerous for anyone to treat due to the rough terrain.

Staffing for suppression efforts with earlier thaws is also still a problem, whether or not Saranac Lake starts a program. The certification process for new employees is time consuming and costs $450 along with a $100 one-time exam fee, as stipulated by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Then the certification is valid for only three years.

Despite the potential obstacles, the board members in attendance agreed that the overall benefit from increased participation in suppression efforts would be worthwhile, saying that what Reilly had been doing so far has already made a positive difference.

“It’s just, how do we adjust moving forward, if we do have to communicate within other surrounding communities,” Leon said.

Reilly said that he would like to start giving talks on this subject annually; having an open house for the public that might even encourage recruitment for suppression programs. He wants to give more people an accurate understanding of the reality when it comes to black flies and what it takes to keep them in check.

“There’s just a lot of misinformation that’s out there,” he said.

Reilly said that as of June 25 there have been no further talks about collaborating with Saranac Lake to start a suppression program.

About half of the town’s total BTI treatment area — which includes around 250 miles of waterways — is on private land, Reilly told the Enterprise last June, while the other half is on state land.

Reilly said that every year, around 5% of landowners deny black fly field technicians’ requests to treat waterways on their property.

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Climate change impact

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Because recent springs have been getting warmer, the time that black flies start hatching is now a few weeks earlier than it used to be, and it appears that they are all hatching around the same time — the very beginning of spring according to Reilly. He said the more frequent and intense wind storms happening in this region may lead to an increase in the amount of flies that are blown in from outlying communities beyond the treatment area.

Warmer winters are also having a hand in increasing the black fly population.

“Over a mild winter, they kind of get primed to hatch. … Instead of staying completely dormant, they’re really, really ready once spring time comes,” he said.

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Black fly suppression methods

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At the beginning of their life cycle, black flies hatch from eggs as larvae, which attach to leaf dams and rocks to feed on small particles of plant matter and bacteria that flow into their mouths. The program’s method is to spray BTI into and around streams and let the larvae ingest it as they feed.

The program aims to kill the black flies while they are still larvae, before they develop into pupae, because once they pupate, the insects don’t feed on stream-borne organic matter anymore, meaning that they will no longer ingest the BTI. A single female black fly can lay from 200 to 600 eggs, which are so small that they are barely visible to the naked eye. Generally though, Reilly said, they are able to get to the black flies while they are still in those initial stages, with 95% to 100% kill rates in the areas they treat. They try to use 50 to 60 gallons of BTI per year, enough to kill billions of black fly larvae according to Reilly.

Program workers decide how much BTI to use in each location and how much to dilute it in the water by measuring the width, depth and velocity of the stream. They keep a record of all their calculations in the North Elba Town Hall and send a report to the DEC as well.

Although BTI is effective in killing black flies, Reily said it is non-toxic to humans and even to other insects. He said it would be safe for a camp to use a BTI-treated stream as its source of drinking water.

To reduce contact with black flies, Reilly told the Enterprise last year that he recommends wearing light-colored clothing, applying bug repellent and avoiding perfumes or colognes. Reilly prefers bug repellents with lemon eucalyptus oil.

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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that North Elba’s Black Fly Control program is looking to hire six additional full time workers. The program is looking to have a crew of six full time workers next year; currently, the crew has four full-time and four part-time staff. The article also incorrectly stated that treatments of early streams were ineffective due to the streams freezing over again, but these treatments actually were effective and were only halted by the streams refreezing. The article also inadvertently attributed a quote to Black Fly Control Program Director John Reilly. The Enterprise regrets the errors.