palachian Integrated Pest Management

palachian Integrated Pest Management Program, and plans are underway to spray much of that area in the spring in an effort to control the moths.

So far, since the gypsy moth escaped from a laboratory outside Boston in the early 1870’s, nothing has stopped its slow movement south. During this past summer, however, federal researchers reported several outbreaks of a fungus that proved fatal to the moths.

Previously unknown, the biologists speculated that the fungus may have been related to the unusually wet spring and early summer. They rushed to identify and isolate it, hoping that it might prove effective in coming years against the caterpillars.

Though the county has expressed reluctance to become involved in spraying to control the moths, it is possible that an outcry by residents may force the Board of Supervisors to relent. Spraying in other areas has proved ineffective over time, since as soon as it is stopped, the moth populations boom artifically.

The county’s gypsy-moth coordinator, Mary Dobrovir, plans several meetings in early January to inform landowners about the control measures planned by the AIPM program.

Avtex

When the winds were right, some of the county’s residents have smelled Front Royal’s Avtex Fibers plant for years.

But the stink didn’t gain widespread attention until late last year, when the plant threatened to shut down in the face of millions of dollars in fines levied by the state for air and water pollution and workersafety violations.

Virginia Senator John Warner worked out an agreement with the Department of Defense which guaranteed a government contract for carbonized rayon yam used in rocket nozzles, for which the aging plant was the sole supplier.

However, Avtex was back in the news by this past spring, after the Environmental Protection Agency charged that the plant was responsible for unsafe levels of PCBs in the