{"id":29744,"date":"2026-05-11T12:29:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T16:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/?p=29744"},"modified":"2026-05-11T12:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T16:29:14","slug":"public-notice-maryland-agencies-to-treat-potomac-river-for-black-fly-control-on-may-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/press-release\/2026\/05\/11\/public-notice-maryland-agencies-to-treat-potomac-river-for-black-fly-control-on-may-1\/","title":{"rendered":"PUBLIC NOTICE: Maryland Agencies to Treat Potomac River for Black Fly Control on May 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;font-size: 12pt\"><strong>ANNAPOLIS, MD (May 11, 2026) <\/strong>\u2013 The Maryland Department of Agriculture, in partnership with the Department of Natural Resources, will treat a targeted area of the Potomac River near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia to control black fly populations in the area. Treatment is scheduled to occur on Tuesday, May 12, 2026 between 9:00 a.m. \u2013 10:00 a.m. ET.<b><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;font-size: 12pt\">A green-and-gold Bell 206 Long Ranger helicopter will apply a Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti)-based larvicide throughout the targeted area. The helicopter\u2019s tail number is N637HA. Bti is a bacterial insecticide, not a chemical, that is naturally-occurring in soils. It is harmful to a limited variety of organisms, including midges, black flies, mosquito larvae and a few other species of aquatic insects.<b><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;font-size: 12pt\">The treatment may cause a temporary discoloration of the water but is harmless and will dissipate naturally. The treatment will not impact drinking water supplies, fish, crabs or other aquatic organisms outside the targeted insect groups.\u00a0<\/span><b><\/b><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;font-size: 12pt\">The Black Fly Program was established in 2016 in response to resident concerns in Washington County. Additional information about the program, including<span style=\"color: #000000\"> <span style=\"color: #0a44cf\"><a style=\"color: #0a44cf\" href=\"https:\/\/mda.maryland.gov\/plants-pests\/Documents\/bti.factsheet.pdf\">further details about Bti<\/a><\/span><\/span>, is available on the Maryland Department of Agriculture\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/mda.maryland.gov\/plants-pests\/pages\/black-fly-program.aspx\">Black Fly Program website<\/a>.\u00a0<b><br \/>\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;font-size: 12pt\">####\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ANNAPOLIS, MD (May 11, 2026) \u2013 The Maryland Department of Agriculture, in partnership with the Department of Natural Resources, will treat a targeted area of the Potomac River near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia to control black fly populations in the area. Treatment is scheduled to occur on Tuesday, May 12, 2026 between 9:00 a.m. \u2013<a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/press-release\/2026\/05\/11\/public-notice-maryland-agencies-to-treat-potomac-river-for-black-fly-control-on-may-1\/\">&nbsp;&nbsp;Read the Rest&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251,"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":[403,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mda-newsroom","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\/29744","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\/251"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29745,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29744\/revisions\/29745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}