The Town of Altona is saving on fogging this summer due to the unusual lack of adult mosquitoes.
    
Altona Public Works Manager, Clint Derksen, says the town will only fog once the number of mosquitoes combined with a number of other factors reaches a rating of 15.

The town has four mosquito traps, one in each corner of the community, and each weekday morning they are brought back to the town shop to be counted.  "We have a big table the province provides for us," said Derksen. "We enter our numbers in there combined with their numbers, which includes precipitation, temperature trending, soil conditions, larval development, and probability of emergence.  With all those numbers, we basically have to get a 15 in order to go fogging."  Derksen noted the closest to that this summer was a day in July when the number reached 13.

Derksen says the town has a chemical on hand at all times in case the need to fog arises, so the savings the town is experiencing this year is due to not having to pay the overtime hours built up during the fogging process.

In 2016, Altona fogged for mosquitoes six times, while this year to date, fogging has not been required at all.

The town also continues to run its larviciding program, which Derksen says is the best bet in mosquito defence.

Meanwhile, even with the lack of adult mosquitoes this summer, Derksen still encourages residents to limit standing water around their properties.