Congress cut the program, so homeowners now will have to foot the bill for treatment
Operation Full Stop, the 13-year-old federal program that pays for Formosan termite treatments of buildings and other spaces in the French Quarter, is about to come to a dead stop, the victim of congressional efforts to cut the federal budget.
View full sizeA termite-monitoring station attached to a light pole under a street lamp on Burgundy Street in the French Quarter on Tuesday. The end of the program coincides with the time of year when the termites are most visible. Alates, the reproductive version of the insect, begin swarming in April, reach their peak on Mother's Day, and taper off through July.
Money for the program was cut by Congress as part of $6 billion in budget reductions included in a March 17 continuing resolution. The resolution was required to keep the federal government running in the absence of a final vote on the 2011 budget.
The result: Property owners will have to pay for the service themselves.
Private annual contracts for termite treatments generally cost between $750 and $1,000 for a home, with initial treatments sometimes costing twice as much. Commercial buildings can be much more expensive.
Letters sent March 22
The LSU AgCenter, which has been administering the program, sent letters to pest control operators and property owners on March 22 announcing its end.
View full sizeTermites crawl from a crevice in an apartment in the French Quarter. "Research on the Formosan termite in support of Operation Full Stop has shown that new colonies of Formosan termites will invade areas which previously were successfully treated," the letter said. "Owners are therefore cautioned and advised of the need to maintain termite contracts for lasting protection against this serious structural pest."
The experimental termite treatment program was aimed at testing whether treating every building in a neighborhood could reduce the damage caused by the destructive wood-eating insects, which cost the New Orleans area an estimated $300 million for treatments and repairs each year.
A post-war boom
The invasive Formosan termite was brought from Japan, Okinawa and other Far East sites to the United States through several ports, including New Orleans, at the end of World War II. Nests were believed to be kick-started in Algiers and at the former site of Camp Leroy Johnson on Lake Pontchartrain by the burial of infested wood used to pack equipment brought back from the war.
The French Quarter was chosen for the unusual experiment in part because it represented a difficult termite-killing ground: numerous 200-year-old or older two- and three-story buildings were sandwiched into a small area, with wooden foundations sitting on earth and shared brick walls with weak mortar that the termites could tunnel through.
The Formosan termite uses a variety of methods to infest those buildings. Some termites establish nests in upper walls or rooftops where water is available from leaks. Those nests often are not connected to the ground, where traditional liquid termiticides might have been a threat. Other insects travel in and out of buildings to forage, returning to nests in untreated trees or buildings.
View full sizeSwarming Formosan termites flock to the nearest light source, in this case the distinctive lamp posts surrounding Jackson Square in the French Quarter. The treatments resulted in a 45 percent to 60 percent reduction in the number of alates, the flying, reproductive versions of the insects, within two years of treatment of each of five zones in the French Quarter, according to a recent scientific paper co-authored by Frank Guillot, an entomologist overseeing the experimental program for the federal Agricultural Research Service.
The program was expanded in 2003 to include detailed inspections of buildings to identify interior hot-spots where termites were active. Some bait stations placed beneath sidewalks to monitor the travel of foraging insects also were laced with termiticide to increase the chances of killing active nests.
Bait stations also were added along the French Market, railroad tracks and levee along the river, much of which had never been treated for termites in the past.
Bills will start coming
Several French Quarter property owners already have contacted Terminix, one of the private pest control firms participating in the program, said Ed Martin, an entomologist and owner of the New Orleans franchise.
"We have sent a letter to all of our customers telling them to contact their senators and representatives, and to let them know what's going on, and that we would be sending anybody due for renewal after April 15 a bill," Martin said.
He also has contacted other operators who are treating buildings in the Quarter and suggested they send similar letters.
"Some of our customers have called us and said, 'Can I pay in 90 days?,' and some have called us and said they can't pay it at all," he said. "So we're going to lose some of the pressure on that giant population of termites down there. We don't want to lose the French Quarter, and some people just don't have the interest that most people have in protecting it."
No more earmarks
The March congressional resolution cut about $3.4 million from Operation Full Stop's proposed 2011 budget, which would leave about $3.2 million proposed for the program by the Obama administration. But Guillot said he expects that money to be cut when either another supplemental appropriation or a final budget is approved.
In part, that's because the program has been financed in recent years through last-minute additions to the budgets by U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., which are considered earmarks. Members of both the House and the Senate this year have pledged not to include earmarks in the 2011 or 2012 budgets.
Guillot said the program still has enough money from its fiscal year 2010 appropriation to pay for treatments for contracts renewed before April 15 and for monitoring of termites in the French Quarter through this termite-swarming season.
In addition to the potential end of treatment contracts, the cuts eliminated two Agricultural Research Service positions and five inspectors working for the LSU AgCenter. If the remaining part of the project budget is cut, it would eliminate another 27 researchers at the Agriculture Research Service's Southern Regional Research Center in New Orleans, Guillot said.
There's little chance of the program receiving money from the state, said Dennis Ring, who oversees its operations within the LSU AgCenter.
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Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3327.