Food Fight: Termite Baiting In The Crescent City

Termites like New Orleans for the same reasons visitors do: It’s got some of the best food in the world, has hundreds of old buildings to explore, is a major port city, and has a nice, warm climate.

Too bad for the termites; they are not the type of tourists New Orleans wants to host. For the last 50 years, aggressive Formosan termites have been making a meal of the Crescent City, and the problem has grown to epic proportions. As residents have witnessed, neither homes nor museums, nor the boundaries between them, are being held sacred.

Thankfully, city officials are not standing idlely by while the Formosans, along with native subterranean termites, go about their business. An estimated $15 million is spent each year by the city alone to defend and reclaim its grounds and buildings, not to mention its trees, historic sites, and infrastructure, from the Formosan termite. Another $211 million is spent by city residents and businesses trying to ward off Formosans, according to the Louisiana Pest Control Association.

One individual who has been at the forefront of this fight has been Ed Bordes, the director of the city’s Mosquito Control Board (MCB). It’s his belief that termite control, especially Formosan termite control, is an important challenge to be dealt with and overcome in the “City That Care Forgot.”

“We have the most severe infestation of Formosan termites in the world,” said Bordes, who adds that New Orleans’ colonies may contain up to 60 million termites. “With those numbers, any control system you have out there is going to be challenged.”

The Recruit AG bait station is a component of the Sentricon™ Termite Colony Elimination System.

UNWELCOME IMMIGRANTS. According to Bordes, the Formosan termite, native to China, first came into New Orleans in the early 1940s, from three major entry sites. One was at the 8th Naval District in Algiers, a naval base located on the west bank of the Mississippi River, east of the French Quarter. It is believed that ships carrying materials infested with Formosan termites returned from the Pacific to this base in the early 1940s, after World War II.

The second major entry of Formosans is said to have occurred in a similar fashion, at Camp LeRoy Johnson, located on the shore of Lake Ponchartrain north of the French Quarter. A third entry point has been identified at the Port of Embarkation, where returning civilian ships likely brought Formosans home along with the passengers.

Although the Formosans came into the city in the early 40s, it took until 1966 for the Formosan termite to be identified in New Orleans, says Bordes. Today Formosan termites are established in 27 parrishes in the state, according to figures from the Louisiana Pest Control Association. The Formosans are attacking not only homes and buildings, but also many of the city’s crop of oak trees, which is considered the largest standing crop of live oaks in the United States. Officials believe up to 50% of the trees may be infected.

What’s worse, the Formosans have also attacked the city’s infrastructure. They’ve been found gnawing on such things as creosote utility poles, underground telephone cables, underground concrete vaults, traffic control switch boxes, plastic pool liners, railroad ties, lime mortar and seals on high pressure water lines. Bordes’ main concern is what could come next.

“I’ve surveyed termite scientists, and they told me that Formosan termites will become an agricultural pest,” said Bordes. “The bottom line is we have to stop it at this point in time and address it while it’s an urban pest and not an agricultural pest.”

Recruit AG stations can be stacked to deliver the active ingredient to foraging termites.

A FUNDRAISING MISSION. Looking at all he’s done, many would say Bordes, who’s job it is to manage the control of pests in New Orleans city buildings, has gone above and beyond the call of duty where termite control is concerned.

A big part of Bordes’ work has been seeking funding to provide termite control to many of the historic buildings located in downtown New Orleans and in the French Quarter. Some of these buildings include Perseverance Hall, where the mayor’s office is located; Gallier Hall, the original city hall; and such famous Jackson Square landmarks as the Presbytere, the Cabildo and Madame John’s Legacy.

Funding from numerous sources has allowed the Mosquito Control Board to begin controlling Formosans in many of its most historic and valued buildings. Two such organizations include the Department of the Interior and the National Center for Prevention, Technology and Training. In 1996 the Board raised $70,000 for termite control through grants from these and other institutions, and expected to raise another $70,000 to $100,000 from similar grants in 1997. And in the last two years, New Orleans’ mayor, Marc H. Morial has allocated a total of $200,000 to help fund control efforts. In addition, several manufacturers and suppliers are working with the MCB to research various control methods.

“The fundraising is giving us somewhere in the neighborhood of $200,000 a year to do termite control in public buildings and historic areas, and that’s where we’re concentrating,” said Bordes, who added the board is now working with close to 20 historic and government buildings and has achieved control in probably 16 of those buildings. “It has helped us and has brought the problem to the forefront. We now have many groups that are interested in working with us and trying to preserve these buildings.” With Bordes serving as an expert on the problem, the mayor has also placed the topic of termite control on his agenda and carried it to the U.S. legislature in hopes of securing federal assistance. (See related story, September 1996 PCT, NewsWorthy.)

The other part of Bordes’ work is finding and testing new control methods for use against the Formosan termite. In this area, he’s looked at termite detection devices of all kinds, along with the newest termiticides, and of course, baits.

From left, Dr. Eric Benson, Roman Dycus and Ed Freytag inspect wood blocks buried in Jackson Square for termite activity.

HELP FROM THE INDUSTRY. One of the manufacturers that has been wholeheartedly involved in New Orleans’ war against the Formosan has been DowElanco, manufacturer of the Sentricon™ Termite Colony Elimination System. DowElanco started conducting its research on termite baiting in New Orleans in 1993, long before its Sentricon system went on the market. At that time, DowElanco technical service and development representatives began testing the system at various sites throughout the country. New Orleans, with its intense termite pressure, high water table and multitude of infested structures — many of them historic landmarks — was pegged as a good place to test the Sentricon System, the first termite bait on the market.

Eric Benson, the technical service and development specialist covering Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, began overseeing the New Orleans research in 1994. An entomologist with a doctorate in urban entomology, Benson’s main responsibilities have been to help develop and enhance DowElanco’s Sentricon System, and to study its effects on both Formosan and native subterranean termites.

Although Bordes was interested in DowElanco’s work from the start, he was able to become more of a participant in 1996, when the MCB received additional funding assistance from the city of New Orleans. It was then that the board hired two termite entomologists, Roman Dycus and Ed Freytag, and was able to devote more manpower to DowElanco’s research, being conducted at various sites throughout New Orleans.

It was at this point the two organizations’ work became mutually beneficial: The MCB now had researchers available, in addition to lab and office facilities that DowElanco could use. And Bordes saw that the MCB could, in return, learn a lot about Formosans, and help to control them more effectively by working with DowElanco.

“Once we realized how much help we could give them, they decided to work a little more closely with us,” Bordes said. And besides providing research assistance and lab facilities, the MCB was also able to supply a hungry Formosan termite colony, which happened to be infesting the MCB’s building in the spring of 1996.

Among the facilities being studied and treated by DowElanco and the MCB is the historic Upper Pontalbas Apartments, along with the entire city block on which it sits. Built in the 1850s, the Pontalbas Apartments are the oldest apartment buildings in the United States. (The Pontalbas actually consists of “upper” and “lower” apartments, with each large building being located on opposite sides of Jackson Square.)

At the apartments, research focused on studying the effectiveness of DowElanco’s newly developed above-ground bait station, Recruit AG, as well as further studies of in-ground baiting at locations with little or no soil access. DowElanco has obtained a two-year Experimental Use Permit to study and refine the above-ground technology. Recruit AG is designed to be a component of the Sentricon Termite Colony Elimination System. The French Quarter was selected as an ideal site to analyze the effectiveness of Recruit AG, because of its unique construction characteristics.

“In the French Quarter, there’s not a lot of ground area,” said Benson. “Therefore, you have to be creative in what you’re doing there.” Working at the Upper Pontalbas Apartments located on the west side of Jackson Square, presented some unique treatment situations for the research team.

The four-story apartment building occupies an area of 120,000 square feet, and shares a wall with a number of buildings on the back side, leaving very few open ground spaces. Like most structures in the French Quarter, the apartments and buildings behind it feature common-wall construction. The entire structure, including the apartments and the shops on the back side, takes up an entire street block in the French Quarter, which is circled by a sidewalk. With little or no soil contact for large amounts of the city block, treating for termites with traditional methods or fumigation was not feasible, Bordes said. According to Benson, the structure likely contained several colonies, a few of them being aerial colonies.

Baiting is also more challenging in situations with little soil access. To overcome this difficulty, the team installed a ring of stations around the entire city block by coring holes through the sidewalks using a concrete corer, in order to reach the soil below. A bait station, augmented and supported with potting soil, was placed into each hole, and the holes were then covered with specially designed water-tight caps developed by the MCB. A total of 70 stations were placed completely along the city block bordering the Upper Pontalbas. The researchers also placed 170 in-ground stations and eight above-ground stations inside the apartment building.

Plans are currently underway to add up to 70 more in-ground stations inside the buildings on the back-side of the Pontalbas, Bordes said. Actual baiting began in July 1995, and was continuing as of press time. As of late April, there was still termite activity detected at the Pontalbas, said Benson, but widespread success was evident, and he and Bordes are confident that complete elimination of several of the infesting colonies is not far away.

The research team also baited Jackson Square itself, placing a ring of approximately 100 in-ground stations around it. But before baits were installed at Jackson Square, the area was monitored with wood blocks to determine if termites from the Square were actually foraging into the Pontalbas Apartments, using the triple-mark-recapture method. It was found that, in fact, they were.

Several other research sites, including a New Orleans fire station, the New Orleans Nature and Science Center, and the MCB’s laboratory building were also used as test sites for Recruit AG. The colonies at these sites have all been eliminated and are being monitored using in-ground Sentricon stations to detect any future termite colonies.

The Mosquito Control Board designed a metal cap to be used with Sentricon stations placed in concrete

THE RESEARCH CONTINUES. According to Benson, DowElanco is in the second year of its Experimental Use Permit on Recruit AG, which will continue through 1997. And it seems, in light of the team’s success with both in-ground and above-ground baiting, the research focus is beginning to shift.

“We got a lot of good data from 1996,” said Benson. “The data we compiled last year identified a good station type for us and the efficacy of above-ground baiting.” DowElanco has been granted Special Local Needs registration for Recruit AG for use in several states. The commercial station is a larger above-ground version of the research station containing more matrix volume.

Bordes is also hopeful about above-ground and in-ground baiting and believes that the technology for controlling the voracious Formosan termite is now beginning to catch up with the problem itself. The key in this step, he says, has been the development and gradual refinement of termite baiting.

“Baiting is the best thing I’ve seen in the last 10 years since we lost chlordane,” said Bordes. “What we need now is the enhancement of the tools we have,” he said. “If there is a missing link, it’s the fact that we’re working with a subterranean termite and we need to find out where it’s at, so we can put the bait right under its nose.”

To this end, Bordes and others at the Mosquito Control Board, along with several manufacturers, continue to study Formosan termites, in the French Quarter and elsewhere, using just about every new detection device and technology available. The battle may not be over, but with every day of success, and each colony destroyed, more and more ground is reclaimed.

The author is associate editor of PCT.