Geelong council plans new mozzie spray program amid cancer cluster claims

Bellarine Peninsula residents are opposing an aerial mosquito-control program which would allow Geelong council to drop larvicide from drones.

A helicopter drops a chemical from a hopper onto wetlands at Barwon Heads plagued with mosquito larva in 2012.

Residents are opposing a controversial aerial mosquito-control program which would allow Geelong council to drop larvicide from drones across the Bellarine Peninsula and Surf Coast, citing health concerns.

The City of Greater Geelong is proposing to undertake a new mosquito management program in its RAMSAR wetland areas, which extend into surrounding council areas.

The program would see larvicide applied to 52 mosquito breeding sites using ground-based methods, and an additional aerial application via drones over six years from late 2024 to late 2030, to minimise health risks from mosquito-borne diseases.

City of Greater Geelong executive director Anthony Basford said council had been working with the environment department on the application, ensuring strict health and environmental standards.

He said the larvicides – Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis and S-methoprene – were approved by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority and not liquid-based or sprayed.

“The larvicide is delivered in granules, sand, pellets or briquettes and dropped from a drone for accuracy and efficiency,” he said.

Council has run similar programs in the past, using helicopters instead of drones, but its previous aerial treatment licence expired in 2021.

The controversy follows a Senate inquiry investigating the link between a council mosquito management program, which included aerial drops, and a possible cancer cluster and auto-immune disease cases on the Bellarine Peninsula from the 1980s.

The inquiry, which handed down its report in 2021, found no cancer clusters or elevated risk of cancer on the Bellarine – but some locals are not convinced.

Barwon Heads Ross Harrison, who founded the Discovery 3227 group that gave evidence to the inquiry, said many felt the investigation was limited.

“The Senate inquiry raised significant concerns about how council went about their aerial treatment program, and they were supposed to do key things to address that,” he said.

“They were supposed to come back to the community to explain the program and they haven’t done that.”

“Now they want to start another aerial program.”

Discover 3227 members Ross Harrison and Prue McKechnie. Picture: Alan Barber

Mr Harrison said residents had lost trust in the program after an organophosphate insecticide locals feared was unsafe, which is legal in Australia but now banned in the EU and parts of the USA, was used by council between 1984 and 1987 and in 1998, and was on council’s stocktake list until as late as 2009.

Mr Basford said permit application details had been released for public comment, and council would respond to feedback before sending the application and reaction back to the federal environment department for consideration and approval.

The inquiry did detail a 24 per cent increase in breast cancer in Barwon Heads, but stated the numbers were explainable in a high socio-economic status area – a recognised risk factor for breast cancer.

The committee recommended the framework for mosquito management in Victoria, unchanged since 2004, be updated.

The Senate inquiry’s final report acknowledged limitations in data, but concluded further studies would be unnecessary.

This masthead is not suggesting the former mosquito management program or the proposed plans by council cause cancer.

Originally published as Geelong council plans new mozzie spray program amid cancer cluster claims