Presenter
Presented by Mr. Ravenstahl
Title
Resolution authorizing the Mayor, the Department of Public Works, Bureau of Environmental Services to reinstate a city rodent control program in coordination with the Allegheny County Health Department.
Body
WHEREAS, it is estimated that the United States has some 100,000,000 rats. Rats cause enormous economic loss, consuming or contaminating vast quantities of food and destroy property when they cause fires by gnawing the insulation from electric wires. Each rat damages between $1 and $10 worth of food and other materials per year, and contaminates 5 to 10 times more. Thus, rats may cost the United States between $500 Million and $1 Billion annually in terms of direct economic losses; and,
WHEREAS, Rats and mice are responsible for spread of diseases, either directly, as by contamination of human food or indirectly, by way of rodent fleas and mites. Diseases spread by rats include rat-bite fever, leptospi rosis salmonellosis, trichinosis, murine typhus fever plague, rickettsialpox, lymphocytic choriomeningitis; and,
WHEREAS, in any urban center, controlling rat populations is a matter of public health and is widely recognized as a municipal service function. To rely upon citizen action in controlling the rat populations is ineffective at best and potentially dangerous at worst due to inappropriate applications of poisons that pose a threat to protected wildlife and domesticated pets. Controlling rat populations, not individual rats, is the key to a successful rodent-control program in a community; and,
WHEREAS, the Allegheny County Department of Health (ACHD) requires municipal employees to be a certified municipal pest control operator (PCO) in order to place bait or use pesticide. The ACHD offers the required training program and provides annual continuing training needed to keep the certification up to date. Furthermore, the ACHD provides technical assistance in identification of food and s...
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