Centre Wellington council considers termite management options ranging from $200,000 to $300,000 per year that a local expert presented.
At Monday's council meeting, termite expert Paul Balfoort of Balson Pest Control Inc. gave council options of termite management such as borate rod treatments, soil injections and soil treatments called ultra set and Dragnet, and Nematode application.
“The township has had a good start with the data collected and getting a handle of the scope of what the issue is based on the data provided by Dr. Myles,” said Balfoort.
“I have a management program in place where I will be presenting something to council or staff with options and the costs of these options, which I believe is a lot better than giving out one option. I estimate the management program would be $200,000 to 300,000 a year.”
Coun. Ian MacRae pointed out council’s forecasted budget of $60,000 per year for the next four years on a termite management program, and asked Balfoort if he believes this is sufficient funding.
“Sixty thousand a year is not sufficient to create a management program that would reduce the population of termites, and it would not be sufficient to take care of those 487 homes that have been identified,” said Balfoort.
Balson Pest Control Inc. previously worked with the City of Kitchener for a year to help them fix their termite problem, which piqued many of the councillors’ interest.
“The municipality of Kitchener did their program where if termites were found, residents were given an order from the building department and they had to comply with whatever the order said,” explained Balfoort.
“If they didn’t comply in 60-90 days, the municipality would order us to treat the property and the municipality would take care of the financial end from there from gaining the finances from the homeowner.”
Balfoort noted that the average cost per household with the Kitchener project was $3,400 to $4,000.
“I think the council needs to decide on what the end goal of this project is as that is key to creating a termite management program; does the township want an actual treatment plan for each house or does it want a program that holds people accountable to do things?”
Mayor Kelly Linton pointed out that it is important for council to decide what the end goal is, and that council will need to reconvene to further discuss these options at a later date.
