这是同一件事吗？，
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TheAlmightyGod
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蚊子怎么老是和那里的人过去不？ 难道他们的血更香？
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剿灭蚊子，最好用转基因方法，让蚊子不再盯人。
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Mosquito referendum? The buzz on $35 levy that may sting Kanata North
Kelly Egan, Ottawa CitizenPublished on: January 31, 2016 | Last Updated: January 31, 2016 7:19 PM EST
. James Gathany / CDC
The quirkiest tips come over the backyard fence — from readers with an infallible news sense, of things worth telling. Long may they live.
Did we know, someone writes, about the great mosquito debate raging in Kanata, to be concluded with a mail-in referendum?
It sounded looney-tunes, part of the urban legend of Kanata as the west-end kingdom where clotheslines are banned and hapless homeowners are sent to prison if they paint the garage the wrong shade of beige.
No. Every word is true.
Kanata North is in the middle of a ward-wide vote on whether the city should undertake a mosquito massacre by using a biological treatment in the ponds and ditches near the South March Highlands and other natural areas.
Kanata Lakes, Morgan’s Grant, Beaverbrook, Village Green, Heritage Hills, Kanata Estates, Kizell Pond and Richardson Ridge are reported to be among the most affected neighbourhoods.
Some residents there have complained that mosquito swarms are so bad that outdoor activity is just about impossible and even using soccer fields is to do battle with flocks of these flying monkeys ready to swoop down and drain the blood of our children, if not abduct them entirely.
Pressured to do something, Kanata North Coun. Marianne Wilkinson has sent ballots to some 11,100 households asking if each is prepared to pay about $35 to fund the program, which will have a total cost of about $300,000.
The program consists of a biological treatment that uses so-called Bti, a group of bacteria that attack the larvae of mosquitoes and black flies. They don’t kill adult mosquitoes but are said to drastically reduce reproduction rates, thus reducing the population by as much as 80 per cent.
Importantly, testing has shown that Bti has virtually no effect on humans, fish, birds or even other types of insects. It is widely used in Canadian cities, and federal and provincial regulators have approved its use.
“You could drink the stuff,” said Wilkinson.
Well, predictably, the stings and arrows have begun.
There seems to be two competing camps. Why, one argues, is it the city’s job — but everyone’s property tax expense — to rid certain neighbourhoods of flying pests, when residents have willingly, even enthusiastically, decided to live near a current or former wetland?
Alternatively, if the city owns and controls these natural areas, and has built expensive playing fields and parks nearby (not to mention approved subdivisions), does it not have an obligation to mitigate the effects of harmful pests that are ruining the suburban dream?
For about 10 years, Alastair Mills-McEwan has lived on Knudson Drive, his property backing onto the fourth hole of the Kanata Lakes golf course.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mosquito,” he said one day last week. He sympathizes with neighbourhoods that are being overrun, but doesn’t agree that everyone in the ward should share the cost — in effect, a tax without measurable benefit for many.
“This is why property taxes are so high. It’s because municipal government is involved in all sorts of things that should either be done by other people or shouldn’t be done at all.”
He’s also suspicious about the process. How many returned ballots, for instance, are needed for a legitimate expression of public opinion? (And it’s one house, one vote, even if six people occupy the premises.)
Wilkinson, meanwhile, says she’s taking a neutral position on the issue while endeavouring to measure public opinion and willingness to pay.
“The ones who are overwhelmed with mosquitoes are absolutely adamant about it,” she says.
She said the firm that would do the work is the one the city uses to attack the West Nile problem. She said the bacteria would be sprayed into ponds from backpack canisters and, in some cases, possibly dropped from helicopters.
The $35, she wrote in her information sheet, “should be a savings to most households” when they consider the yearly expenses for mosquito repelling products.
Another thought. The city built the Terry Fox Drive extension through environmentally sensitive lands, even installing four wildlife tunnels so woodland creatures could safely migrate away from traffic. And now we’re going to zap the bugs we don’t like?
I hear that buzzing sound, too: The nanny state with her fly swatter.
(Public meetings are scheduled for Monday, Feb. 1, at St. John’s Anglican Church, on Sandhill Road, from 7-9 p.m., and Feb. 6, 10 a.m. to noon, at the Mlacak Centre.)
