Shipping Container Fumigated Following FST Discovery in California

A shipping container originating from China that had made its way to Eastvale, Calif. (after docking in the San Pedro port) was fumigated Aug. 17, following the discovery of Formosan subterranean termites (FSTs).

Technicians from Quality Pest Services tarp a shipping container as part of a fumigation following the discovery of Formosan subterranean termites.
Technicians from Quality Pest Services tarp a shipping container as part of a fumigation following the discovery of Formosan subterranean termites.
Photo: Dong-Hwan Choe

Brad Harbison, Senior News Editor

Published August 31, 2023
© Chow-Yang Lee
Formosan subterranean termites inside the container (top) and mud tubes under the shipping container.

EASTVALE, Calif. – A shipping container originating from China that had made its way to Eastvale, Calif. (after docking in the San Pedro port) was fumigated Aug. 17, following the discovery of Formosan subterranean termites (FSTs).

The initial discovery was made by Matt Cromwell, technical account manager at Ecolab Pest Elimination, Los Angeles, who alerted Lee Whitmore, president of Anaheim, Calif.-based Quality Pest Services (which Ecolab subcontracted with for this job). Whitmore recognized that the soldiers looked “abnormal” and that they might be FSTs. He sent photos to Dr. Chow-Yang Lee, professor at the University of California, Riverside, and Matt Fabry, business development manager at Douglas Products, manufacturer of Vikane gas fumigant.

Lee and his team, along with Cromwell, Whitmore and Fabry, visited the site on Aug. 14, and brought back samples to the UCR lab, where Lee confirmed they were Formosan subterranean termites.

The group decided fumigation was the best treatment strategy. “Because Dr. Lee did establish that they were for Formosan subterranean termites and because the container did not have any ground-to-soil contact, we knew that the colony was completely isolated to the container. And that is what made fumigation the correct treatment to eliminate the colony,” Fabry said.
 
© Dong-Hwan Choe
Pictured (from left to right): Matt Cromwell, Dr. Chow-Yang Lee, Mario Barajas, Constantino Molgado, German Cabuto, Matt Fabry, Ramon Acosta, Rafael Murillo and Lee Whitmore.
Whitmore and his team fumigated the container – a standard 40-foot, 2,700 cubic feet shipping container – on Aug. 17.  “It was a pretty standard fumigation, but we offloaded hundreds of boxes of snow boots to allow us to visually inspect the entire container and assess whether there were any signs of alates and to allow for better circulation of the fumigant,” Whitmore said.
 
Whitmore said the application was done at four times the standard drywood termite application rate and held for two days longer than what was required.  “We conducted a visual inspection upon completion of the aeration and all the termites were dead,” he said.
 
Lee added that “fortunately no swarmers were found” and that the group would not be visiting the original port of entry (San Pedro) to inspect for more FSTs as that would be like “trying to find a needle in a haystack” and they don’t know where the container sat at the port when it was there.
 

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