{"id":29094,"date":"2025-06-30T09:57:52","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T13:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/?p=29094"},"modified":"2025-06-30T09:57:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T13:57:52","slug":"public-notice-update-maryland-agencies-to-treat-potomac-river-for-black-fly-control-on-june-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/press-release\/2025\/06\/30\/public-notice-update-maryland-agencies-to-treat-potomac-river-for-black-fly-control-on-june-30\/","title":{"rendered":"PUBLIC NOTICE UPDATE: Maryland Agencies to Treat Potomac River for Black Fly Control on June 30"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;font-size: 12pt\"><strong>ANNAPOLIS, MD (June 30, 2025)<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The\u00a0<strong>Maryland Department of Agriculture<\/strong>\u2014in partnership with the\u00a0<a href=\"blank\">Department of Natural Resources<\/a>\u2014will treat a targeted area of the\u00a0<strong>Potomac River<\/strong> near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, as part of a pilot program to control black fly populations in the area. Treatment is scheduled to occur on Monday, June 30.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;font-size: 12pt\">MDA will apply a Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti)-based larvicide via helicopter (Bell 206 Long Ranger, green and white paint scheme.\u00a0Tail number is N641HA). Bti is a naturally occurring bacteria found in soils. It is a bacterial insecticide, not a chemical, and is only harmful to a very limited variety of organisms, including midge, black fly, and mosquito larvae and a few other aquatic Dipteran (flies) insects.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;font-size: 12pt\">The treatment may cause temporary discoloration of the water, but it is completely nontoxic and is not harmful to humans, fish, crabs or other aquatic invertebrates.\u00a0A fact sheet on Bti can be found\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mda.maryland.gov\/plants-pests\/Documents\/bti.factsheet.pdf\">here.\u200b<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;font-size: 12pt\">The Black Fly Suppression Pilot Program was established in 2016. For more information on the program, please visit MDA\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mda.maryland.gov\/plants-pests\/Pages\/Black-Fly-Program.aspx\">website<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;font-size: 12pt\"># # #<\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;font-size: 12pt\">Follow Maryland Department of Agriculture on Facebook\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/mdagdept\">@MdAgDept<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ANNAPOLIS, MD (June 30, 2025)\u00a0\u2013 The\u00a0Maryland Department of Agriculture\u2014in partnership with the\u00a0Department of Natural Resources\u2014will treat a targeted area of the\u00a0Potomac River near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, as part of a pilot program to control black fly populations in the area. Treatment is scheduled to occur on Monday, June 30.\u00a0\u00a0 MDA will apply a Bacillus<a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/press-release\/2025\/06\/30\/public-notice-update-maryland-agencies-to-treat-potomac-river-for-black-fly-control-on-june-30\/\">&nbsp;&nbsp;Read the Rest&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29095,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29094\/revisions\/29095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}