While lawns brown and water restrictions tighten, Burnaby’s chafer beetles are poised to thrive next spring.
Metro Vancouver moved to Stage 3 water restrictions Tuesday morning, ramping up water conservation measures, including a ban on all lawn sprinkling with treated drinking water.
The timing couldn’t be worse for residents looking to use nematodes to control European chafer beetles.
This is the time of year the nematodes should be applied to lawns, and the microscopic groundworms require two weeks of daily watering to effectively destroy beetle larvae.
But Burnaby deputy director of engineering Dipak Dattani told the NOW that, in keeping with the latest water restrictions, the city stopped issuing permits Monday that would allow nematode users to be exempt from the sprinkling ban.
Local residents who ordered subsidized nematodes from the city in June and picked them up before Metro Vancouver clamped down on sprinkling this week will be allowed to sprinkle their lawns for two weeks if they were issued exemption permits, but no new permits will be issued and existing exemptions will not be extended, Dattani said.
However, the deputy director was optimistic the nematodes of those who have existing permits would be effective, especially if short periods of rain, like those on Tuesday, continued.
“They just need enough of the ground to be moist to be mobile,” said Dattani of the nematodes. “After that they will just search out the larvae.”
Dry weather prompted B.C. to declare a Level 4 drought last week, and Metro Vancouver has moved to Stage 3 water restrictions for the first time in 12 years in order to head off potential water shortages in the future.
“We have implemented Stage 3 water use restrictions to help ensure that we have the necessary supply of water through the early fall for use in our homes and businesses, and for critical community needs such as fire suppression,” Metro chief administrative officer Carol Mason told the Vancouver Sun.
For more information on activities restricted under Stage 3, visit www.metrovancouver.org.
– with files from the Vancouver Sun.
