Suffolk Closeup: Once it was ospreys, now it’s lobsters

The recent finding of the mosquito-killing pesticides methoprene and resmethrin in weak and dying lobsters from the middle of Long Island Sound has great meaning for Suffolk County, where both pesticides are used extensively by county government.

Lobstermen in Connecticut and independent researchers have attributed what has been a massive die-off of lobsters in the Sound to the pesticides. The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s recent finding is “decisive” in showing the link, a former member of the Suffolk County Council on Environmental Quality, Dr. John Potente, said last week.

“Lobsters have virtually vanished from portions of the seabed off Connecticut,” according to a story on the website of Connecticut TV station WCCT last week. It says that the “new study confirms what many have known”— pesticides have been the cause.

Suffolk County has a long history of using pesticides in a big way. Suffolk, indeed, also had a role in the banning of DDT in the United States. The publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson’s landmark book “Silent Spring” was key, but another factor was a lawsuit challenging the Suffolk County Mosquito Control Commission’s use of DDT. The agency was spraying DDT with abandon. Among other impacts, the DDT was causing the shells of the area’s signature bird, the osprey, to become paper-thin and break in the nest.

The environmental group behind the lawsuit here broadened its attack and evolved into the national Environmental Defense Fund, headquartered for years in Suffolk because of its roots here battling Suffolk County’s use of DDT.

DDT is long gone and the majestic osprey has been able to return in large numbers but the chemical industry has been busy peddling other pesticides that are toxic to marine, bird and animal life. Pesticides kill insects, yes, but their reach often goes beyond bugs.

The Suffolk County Mosquito Control Commission is also long gone, succeeded by the Division of Vector Control of the Suffolk County Department of Health Services. It has been a big booster of pesticides, too.

In 2007, four members of Suffolk’s Council on Environmental Quality — set up to be the environmental watchdog for county government — resigned after a large majority of the Suffolk Legislature approved a mosquito control program developed by the Division of Vector Control that involved extensive application of pesticides, especially methoprene and resmethrin (its trade name, Scourge). The plan had been rejected by the CEQ.

“We did our research and homework,” Dr. Potente, one of the four, told the legislature in 2007. The CEQ, he testified, had found “damning evidence” that the die-off of Long Island Sound lobsters was connected to methoprene and resmethrin. The legislature voted 13-3 to ignore CEQ and adopt Vector Control’s program using methoprene and resmethrin and both are still being used intensely today in Suffolk.

Peconic Baykeeper Kevin McAllister, a strong critic of the proposed Suffolk mosquito control program in 2007 — as well as previous programs and those since — focused on the latest lobster discovery when he testified against the pesticide program last week before the Suffolk Legislature’s Environment, Planning and Agriculture Committee.

Connecticut’s discovery demonstrates the deadly impacts in the environment of the pesticides utilized by Suffolk’s Division of Vector Control, he said. He called it “nonsense” that the pesticides are needed to deal with West Nile virus. Mosquitoes carrying West Nile are almost always found in freshwater wetlands, he said, which are not targeted for spraying as are saltwater wetlands. Later, he commented that the Suffolk “mosquito control program has run amok.”

Legislator Edward Romaine of Center Moriches, who fought and voted against the mosquito control program in 2007, told the same committee, “The Connecticut experience signifies that Suffolk County has to pay far more attention to pesticides that it uses and their long-term effect on the environment.”

Suffolk legislators and county administration after administration have let the Division of Vector Control get its way, said Mr. Romaine, whose district includes Shelter Island. “You cannot turn a blind eye and let the ‘experts’ do what they want. These chemicals may be causing more damage” than any mosquito-borne disease.

The Division of Vector Control must be taken on, as was the Suffolk County Mosquito Control Commission 50 years ago, and its wanton use of pesticides stopped.