Swarms of flying insects are driving away outdoor enthusiasts across Baltimore County’s eastern shorelines but spraying efforts are making a dent in the population.
Midges, which often look like mosquitos, don’t bite humans but are more like gnats.
County officials said they are seeing progress in their effort to get a handle on the midges' mayhem.
Troy Cook recently was fishing at Cox’s Point Park on Back River in Essex. He knows all about midge swarms.
“They really come in a swarm,” said Cook. “They like swarm all over you. So when you first get out here, they get on everything like the car. They get in the car.”
Becky Waugh was feeding ducks nearby and shared a recent experience of her own.
“I was sitting over at the picnic table and just sitting there relaxing,” Waugh said. “I think one flew up my nose. And you know you got to keep blowing until you get it out.”
For Sam Weaver, midges are more than a nuisance. He owns Weaver Marine Service on Back River in Essex, which has been a family-run business since 1945. He’s been on Back River his whole life.
“I had a boat when I was five,” Weaver said. “If you gave a kid a boat today at five you’d probably get locked up.”
While the midges have always been a part of life on Back River, Weaver said they’ve gotten much worse in recent years.
“If it warms up for a couple of days you get them,” Weaver said. “They have a thermometer built in them. If it gets too cold they can’t stand it. If it gets too hot they can’t stand it. Any time the temperature is right. We had them in February.”
Weaver said swarms of midges diving into customers' faces have left him with fewer visitors and a file cabinet full of complaints.
“Great marina. Great people. Great everything. Can’t stand the bugs. My nephew left with a million and a half dollar yacht and took it to the Eastern Shore,” he said.
Karen Wynn and Weaver co-founded the Maryland Waterways Foundation, and have been building the case for years that other businesses are affected too because those people who have left aren’t going out to dinner or buying gas in the county.
Wynn sifted through piles of paperwork she had stashed in boxes under a pool table to try to get government help to remediate the midges.
“Letters from businesses,” Wynn said. “We’ve got letters from elected officials.”
It eventually paid off. In April, Baltimore County and the state launched an aerial attack on the midges.
A helicopter has been flying over a 1,200-acre section of Back River every few weeks, spraying it with BTI, a naturally-occurring bacteria used as a pesticide.
When he announced the program, County Executive Johnny Olszewski said the bacteria only kills flying insect larvae.
“This will have absolutely no impact on water, human health or fish, only midge, fly and mosquito larvae,” Olszewski said during a news conference.
Scott Larzelere, the nuisance insect coordinator for the state agriculture department, said the BTI particles find their way to the midge larvae where they quietly feed at the bottom of Back River, killing them before they can make their way to the surface and become annoying.
“They make little tube homes basically, so you’re trying to get it down to them as quick as possible before it gets washed out,” Larzalere said.
The big reason why Back River is loaded with midges is the troubled city-owned Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant. The state has taken over the running of the plant and is making emergency repairs.
Larzelere said the plant has dumped excess nitrogen and phosphates in the Back River for years.
“Which is basically food to grow algae and then that either live or dead is the food for the midges,” Larzelere said.
Midges are plentiful inside the treatment plant as well. For months, the county has been asking the state to treat midges inside the facility.
Erica Palmisano, Olszewski’s press secretary, said county and state officials as well as plant managers met Tuesday “to begin developing a plan for midge remediation treatment inside the plant.”
Meanwhile, county environmentalists are making regular checks of 53 sites in Back River by boat to find out whether the spraying is doing any good.
Neal Eshleman, the county’s biological program manager, is at the helm while Watershed Management and Monitoring Supervisor Kevin Brittingham collects the samples.
They use an eight foot claw, called an Ekman Dredge, to scoop up six inches square of sediment from each of the sites.
Brittingham dumps the mud onto a screen. He then hoses the sediment down so it’s washed away. He can then count the midge larvae that remain on the screen.
At this site he counted 20 midge larvae, down from 50 larvae last time it was checked.
Ellen Kobler, the coordinator for communications for the county’s environmental protection and sustainability department, said the spraying program has been paused for now because there are lower levels of midge larvae.
Sam Weaver said it is making a difference at his marina.
When he gives a bush a good shake, dozens of midges take to the air. He said not that long ago it would have been hundreds.
It’s a delicate balance of diminishing the population without removing them from the local food chain, officials said.
“If you’re out here in the springtime, the swallows are in here, the ducks are in here,” Brittingham said. “The seagulls are here. All of the birds are in here just feeding, gorging themselves on midge larvae and pupae. The fish are doing the same thing, just gorging themselves.”
Wynn, co-founder of the Maryland Waterways Foundation, said another problem is that commercial fishermen have been heavily fishing bottom feeders like catfish and carp that feed on Back River’s midge larvae.
“These are unregulated fish,” Wynn said. “They’re considered junk fish. That is something we are trying to work towards, getting some regulations on them because no fish should be unregulated, and no species wiped out.”
Larzelere, with the state agriculture department, said it’s a matter of opinion as to whether commercial fishing in Back River is contributing to the midge explosion. But what is known for sure is that fixing the treatment plant is key to fighting midges.
He said the midges also benefit from people living near Back River with leaky septic systems or who use nitrogen-rich fertilizers on their lawns.
“It’s not just the treatment plant, it’s humans,” Larzelere said. “We are the problem.”
Larzelere said they’re getting calls throughout the area, up to the Gunpowder River, asking for help with midges. But Back River is getting the treatment first because it has the biggest problem.
The county has a website where people can report midge swarm sightings. There are comments from people complaining about midges along the Back River such as “This is ridiculous” and “Literally everywhere again.”
Fighting midges isn’t cheap. The county plans to spend $7.5 million over five years on the spraying. The state has agreed to cover half of the cost for the first two years.
But it’s unclear what might happen after the money runs out.
“What’s it going to take to really make an effect on the midge densities in Back River?” Brittingham asked.
Larzelere said the midges problem can be solved. But it will take government help to do it. And it will take time.
He said cleaning up the damage done by the Back River sewage plant alone could take a generation.
In 2016, midges were a political football between Gov. Larry Hogan and County Executive Kevin Kamenetz. At the time Kamenetz was considering running to become Maryland’s governor. Gov. Hogan offered to split the cost with the county for a midge remediation program. That went nowhere. Kamenetz died from a heart attack in 2018.
Larzelere said he has no interest in that earlier political skirmish.
“They can screw up all they want and I’ll go and fix it,” Larzelere said. “That’s my job.”
In 2017, the governor signed an executive order to establish a pilot program of midge remediation which began the aerial spraying program.
Throughout the tussle over what to do about the midges, Sam Weaver’s business at the marina took a hit. He said he invested $1.5 million to repair the damage done to his docks by Hurricane Isabel in 2003.
Weaver said his marina was full the first two years after the repairs were made. But that has changed.
Weaver said he should be making around $250,000 yearly from the marina but now he’s lucky to make $100,000 this year.
“It’s been more than half empty for the last ten years,” Weaver said.
