[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to First Friday and
[00:00:12] Speaker C: happy almost 4th of July.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Our first guest today is Julie Warren. She is our. I keep forgetting your title. I think of you as our, our official archivist, but you are actually.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: That works as well. I'm in charge of the archives of the Georgetown Library. So that's the. That's exactly pretty, pretty close.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: And over our phenomenal digital library that is just such a wonderful resource. I love going through and looking at the old pictures. But we're here today to talk about something that we're going to be doing tomorrow. And then over the next month or so tomorrow, we are going to be opening a time capsule that was encapsulated in 1976. So we'll be seeing what is is in there has been sitting in the courthouse walls for 50 years. And then Jolie, we are doing a new time capsule. And you are the chair, the time capsule committee. So Julie is going to be talking with us a little bit about the, the new time capsule project, which should be very exciting, hopefully for the people of 2076.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Right. So we are, we've been working for a few months now on pulling together a committee, and the committee has been working to pull together ideas of what we want to put into the new capsule. It's not as easy as you would think. You can't just throw anything into a time capsule. Not only is it basin issue, but we also have to make sure that what we put in there will still be there in 50 years and still be readable, usable, and hopefully not completely just decomposed.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: So and the, the usable part is interesting because, you know, we've read that There is a 16 millimeter video in the current time capsule we're about to open. And do we have anything to play that on, Julie?
[00:01:50] Speaker A: We do not currently, but luckily there are companies out there that can help us with that. So we're going to take advantage of that situation.
We also have in the current Capsul that's still in the wall right now, but will open tomorrow. We have slides and microfilm, but luckily the library has machines that can help us to read those. And we'll scan the slides and really be able to take a look at what Georgetown looked like in 1976.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: So one of the challenges is, of course, figuring out what technology is going to be like in 50 years. And as much as it has advanced just in my lifetime, which does not span 50 years yet, I, I can't even imagine.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Right. So we do have a reader that we're going to put things On. But we are working with the county to do some wonderful drone footage that really show us what the county looks like right now, specifically focusing on areas that will be possibly greatly changed in 50 years. So we want to kind of document what everything looks like right now.
So we'll have digital media. And so, yeah, the challenge is to figure out what to put that digital media onto. And so we think we have a solution for that. But, you know, we don't know for sure because one never knows what next week holds, much less 50 years from now.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Absolutely. Some of the areas that I know we focused on, though, were the. The site where the steel mill is currently being demolished and when the. The first time capsule went in. That, of course, was one of the top three industries that were kind of featured products from that. Those three industries are supposed to be in the time capsule, and now all three of those industries are no longer operating. It was the same steel mill, the paper mill, and Oneida, which I think was a fabric plant in Andrews. Those are all gone. So who knows what will be happening 50 years from now.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: Right. It's really interesting to see what they were focusing on in 1976 and that you mentioned the 16 millimeter film, but it actually, from what we understand, had some footage of what Andrews looked like in 1976, heavily focusing on the factories and the work that was going on in Andrews. And so it's really going to be interesting to see how things have changed and what they were focusing on, what. What everything looked like.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And we are hoping to, of course, have that film digitized. And then since it focuses on Andrews, we want to have a premiere in Andrews. Right. Talk with us about that.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: So we've spoken with the Andrews Library, and we're hoping to have a little film premiere of that 16 millimeter film. And it's going to be a great time to really reminisce and hopefully bring in the crowds of Andrews that live there the last 50, 60 years, hopefully, and can kind of share. Share with us who the people are and what the memories are of Andrews.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure that some of the people who will be featured in that film are probably gone, but hopefully there's some young people.
It's going to be very exciting to see, I think.
So what are some of the other things that we are wanting to put in this new time capsule?
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Well, we're still working with our committee and some of the groups. We want to make sure that there's representation for everybody in Georgetown County. So we're working with different Organizations to give us coins, letters, newspapers, things that can kind of show what life is like in 2026.
It's a big year for us for so many reasons. But we also want to make sure that everybody has a voice in that time capsule.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
So I know that one of the things that was suggested was Carolina gold rice seed.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: So we've got some of that that's going to go in there.
Trying to remember some of the other things that were decided on to go into the capsule.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: I know the library is putting in some library cards. They will hopefully still be in existence in 50 years, although it may all be digital at this point or something. We don't. We don't know what you'll be scanning in 50 years.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: I really hope they will still have physical hardback, like paper books, though.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
I think some of the organizations are giving us challenge coins. I know the Francis Marion Museum has given us some of that. The Sheriff's department's given us some challenge coins. So a lot of metal things, which hopefully will be a good sign.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
And we are still looking for items that may be able to go in there. So we are asking for the public's help, right?
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Yes. So if they have people have an idea of something that they think should be included, they could certainly reach out to me at the Georgetown Library and talk to me at any time during the next couple of months. We're going to be hopefully putting the new capsule in sometime in August. That's our goal. But anytime in the next month or so, if they want to reach out and give me an idea, give you an idea, we'll be glad to consider it.
[00:06:22] Speaker B: And we're, of course, looking for items that would be meaningful and kind of representative for what life is like right now. Right.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: It has to be pretty small, though, in size, because our capsule is actually pretty tiny.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: It's about like that.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: And then lengthwise, longwise. The items that are currently in this capsule from 1976 will be on display at the Georgetown library.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Those tell us about the event on July 20th.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: So we actually have an event on July 20th where we will have a sort of show and tell of the items. We'll have scanned most of the negatives and the slides and everything that's in there. All the media that's currently in the capsule, a lot of that will be out and we'll be able to have like a. Just a show and tell and let you see the photos and the images, see those items that have come out from the different factories and things that were in Georgetown. And we'll really just take a little step back into 1976 and see what. What was in there.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: I think that's just going to be so exciting. I'm really looking forward to that program. I know that the actual time capsule opening is going to be hard for a lot of people to attend, being that it's on the 4th of July and there's so much happening that day. But this will give everybody a chance to really take their time and kind of see in depth what was in that capsule. Because I know just from talking to. We had Steve Candle on our last podcast, and he talked about it because he, of course, was on the original committee and just the.
The. The gravitas that they put into determining what all was going to go into that. So it will. We. We certainly want to.
To. I can't think of the word, but give it the. The respect and attention that it deserves for all the effort they put into it.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's literally a glimpse into the past and to see what was going on and what literally Georgetown was. Was like at that time.
So we'll have those for everybody to see on July 20th. We'll also eventually have the digital collections. The photographs also eventually be on our digital library, which you can find on our website.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: Okay. And I will just add a quick note. We have been looking for photos from 1976, the celebration, and so far we
[00:08:23] Speaker A: have come up with really nothing much.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
So I actually spoke a couple days ago to a representative from the Daughters of the American Revolution, because they were given to me as a likely place that would have some. And they said they have a ton of stuff from 1926, but nothing from 1976.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: So we don't either. We have newspapers, but there was not a lot of photographs in those newspapers at that time, and we don't have any collections. We have some that predate that time. We have early 1970s, but nothing 1976.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: So if you were watching this and you were around here when we celebrated the 200th in 1976 and you have photos, we would love to see them.
[00:09:05] Speaker C: Reach out to Julie.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: We'll get them into the digital library and then they'll have them as these celebrations go forward in the future.
So, Julie, anything else you can think of to add?
[00:09:14] Speaker A: I think that's it. We just hope that everybody, if you can come out on July 4th and see the capsule being pulled out, we hope you can attend. If not, we hope to see you on July 20th.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: Yep. And that event on the 4th will be at 9:30am in County Council chambers in the old Courthouse on Scriven Street. And the one on the 20th, I believe we scheduled for 3:30 to 6:30pm
[00:09:34] Speaker A: I think so, yes. At the Georgetown Library.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: All right, Julian, thank you so much. And I can't wait to see you tomorrow for the time capsule opening.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Yep, we'll be there.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Our next guest is Robin Mears with our mosquito control division, also our Stormwater division. You kind of have to do double duty between those depending on the the season.
And right now it is, of course, peak mosquito season.
We just did an aerial spray in June, and that was probably our most popular.
Popular is probably the wrong word. Our most commented on Facebook post of the month. Everybody has opinions about mosquito control.
So Robin, you and I are going to work on some videos and things, some more information. But our goal today is to just kind of answer some of those questions that people have about mosquito control and shed a light on how it works, as well as offer some tips on what people can do at their homes to alleviate the need for mosquito control. Kind of keep those populations down in your own yard. So, Robin, talk with us a little bit about mosquito control and what you guys get up to, you know, during this time of year when mosquito is. Mosquitoes are everywhere.
[00:10:46] Speaker D: Yeah. Well, a lot of people don't realize that we're actually mandated by the state to do mosquito control. And the operative word here is control. We're not going to alleviate them. We're not going to annihilate them. We don't want to. They're part of the food chain.
But we do want to control them. And we want to control them because we want to minimize any possibility of a disease. The problem with mosquitoes is that they do carry, at least the ones that are here in the low country. They all carry diseases of one kind or another. Yeah, we've been very fortunate that, you know, we've really not had a problem down here at least in the last five or six years that I'm aware of.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: But that's probably because we make efforts to control it.
[00:11:30] Speaker D: That's true. We, if we get any indication, and we have had some instances where folks have traveled and have brought back, you know, one of these diseases that we always worry about. And we've been able to, you know, take care of it when we found out about it. You know, we take steps. We have procedures that allow us to mitigate any possibility of, you know, any kind of a transmission or any kind of expansion. And we've been successful in that. We've had. To my knowledge, we've had four, maybe five incidences since I've been here. And all of those were contained?
[00:12:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:11] Speaker D: Nothing. There were no outbreaks of any type that we were aware of.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Now, you and I went out and we shot some videos last week, and I learned some really interesting things, starting with, you know, how far a mosquito actually travels in its lifespan. So it sounds like most of the ones that are in my yard, I'm breeding there. They're. They're my mosquitoes.
[00:12:31] Speaker D: That's correct.
Mosquitoes only travel a couple of hundred feet from where they're hatched out or from where the larva turns into a mosquito. And I want to make a note here. There's no such thing as a juvenile mosquito. When it hatches out, it's fully adult and fully ready to go and fully ready to bite.
So just need to be aware of that. But, yeah, they only travel a couple hundred feet. So if there's a lot of mosquitoes in your yard, they're either coming from your yard or your neighbor's yard or
[00:13:01] Speaker B: I'm hatching them somewhere.
[00:13:03] Speaker D: That's right. They're right there.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Okay. And I was also really surprised to learn how little water it actually takes to hatch, you know, hundreds of mosquitoes.
[00:13:12] Speaker D: Right.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: You said like, a bottle cap can hold how many?
[00:13:15] Speaker D: At least 100 eggs that we're aware of. And if they lay 100 eggs in a bottle cap and it's warm enough, they're going to hatch.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: So talk with me a little bit about what residents can do at their homes to, you know, keep these mosquitoes from. From growing in their yards, basically.
[00:13:32] Speaker D: Yeah. The number one thing is to look. If you're having a lot of mosquitoes, then you need to find the source. And that could be a puddle of water.
It could be a child's toy.
It could be a tarp with wrinkles in it. It could be a bird bath, or it could be. Let's see, we saw a fire pit that had a little bit of water in it. So a lot of things that you would not necessarily think about as long as they hold water and like you said, as. As little as a bottle cap full of water, then more than likely a mosquito is going to lay eggs in it.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:08] Speaker D: And those are the things you need to look for and you need to get rid of.
Try to get them dried out as quick as possible. Now, if you.
We can go a little further here. And when it comes to the things like ditches and the catch basins, those grates that you have in your yard and that are in the street, those are absolute nurseries for mosquito raising. So if you have anything of that nature, you might want to call the county and just say, you know, hey, I've got a big ditch here. It's got a lot of water in it, you know, and then we can find out either how to get it drained or we can treat it, you know, one way or the other.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: And you would treat it, I'm assuming, with like larvae side. That's one of the big tools that you use to keep mosquitoes from hatching, Right, Right.
[00:14:55] Speaker D: We have. We don't have anything that kills mosquito eggs. That's one thing that the industry is actually working on.
But we can eliminate the larva once the egg hatches out into the larval stage. We have products that we can put in ditches that will kill the larva for mosquitoes and flies and things like that, but it won't harm, you know, if they're mosquitofish in there or tadpoles or stuff like that, it doesn't harm them.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Okay, that's great.
So. And you can buy these. I can dump those in my own ditches and stuff, right?
[00:15:30] Speaker D: That's correct. Yeah. A lot of times we just will simply give you, you know, most of it comes in little packets and you can just go out and treat the. And it usually lasts 30 to 60 days. So, you know, you would have to retreat it over the course of the summer.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.
So let's also talk about aerial spraying, because that is what started a whole lot of conversation earlier this month. People have lots of questions about that, about how the decisions are made. So walk me through what happens before an aerial spray. Exactly. What happens when we aerial spray and you know, why we reserve that for. For such limited, limited occurrences.
[00:16:11] Speaker D: Yeah, well, first of all, we do try to. That is our.
That's our treatment of last resort, if you will. It's really designed for storms, you know, hurricanes, tropical storms or heavy rain events, because then we're going to have what we call a mass hatching. You know, it's going to be an outbreak, if you will. That's what we really try to reserve spraying with the plane for. And that's what it's really designed for.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Those are the big guns. So.
[00:16:41] Speaker D: Yeah, that's right. So when you have those type of events, you can pretty much count on that. You know, we're going to have to do that.
It can even get to the point where the state will actually fly planes that the. That are Air Force planes.
They can spray a lot more than we can with the local guys.
But anyway, back to how the decision is made.
You know, we. We notice the. We are constantly monitoring the mosquito activity within the county. We do surveillance. We go out and we stand, and we'd see how many mosquitoes light on us. That's.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: I don't want that job.
[00:17:15] Speaker D: Yep. That's called a landing count. But we also use traps.
We use what we call qualified observers. We have people all over the county that we kind of trust that have a little bit of knowledge about mosquito populations, and they tell us when things are starting to increase.
And just like this last spring, we were noticing both our trap counts and our surveillance counts were starting to go up. Plus the phone calls and the emails were coming in a little bit more frequently. And our councilmen and our staff, right up to the administrator were being called more. So we knew that. But once again, we did our own surveillance. We went out, we checked the places where we thought that they would be the worst, and sure enough, we were finding the numbers. And, you know, when the number we. We don't really have a threshold, but when the numbers are starting to increase, you know, pretty significantly over a week or two, then, you know, we talk to. And the person that actually makes the decision is our director and director of public services. And we, you know, let them know. They're also talking to councilmen. They're talking to people that are being called. They're being called. And we all see, okay, now it's time to kind of pull the trigger.
[00:18:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:35] Speaker D: And then what dictates when we actually can spray is that the contractor that we use is also used by other counties.
In this past case, we had to wait for them. They had already been contracted to spray Charleston county, so we had to wait till they completed that, and then they could come and take care of us. So there's sometimes there's a little bit of a scheduling issue, but what we try to do is we schedule it so that we're. We're catching the outbreak at its peak. That's what we try to do.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: And we have to do these at very specific times of day, right?
[00:19:13] Speaker D: Yeah. This has to be done very early in the morning for several reasons. First of all, that's when mosquitoes are flying. And this particular product that we use, which is called Nailed it, only kills the mosquitoes that are flying. It does not.
It doesn't stay in the environment. And that's by design.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Because it would also kill other things. That we don't want to kill.
[00:19:35] Speaker D: That's correct. Plus early in the morning, usually the pollinators are not out. The bees, the butterflies, other dragonflies, things like that. They're not out early in the morning.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: So we're talking like sunrise, pre sunrise, right before sunrise.
[00:19:52] Speaker D: Because our planes don't, don't really fly in the dark. They have the capability, but they would rather fly once they have enough light they could see. So this past time, I think they started at 5:30 and by 7:30 they were done.
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Yeah, that's about when I heard them was around 5:30. Now this is also incredibly expensive.
[00:20:12] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Like how expensive?
[00:20:14] Speaker D: Well, the little bit of area that we sprayed this time, for instance, it was just the Santee and then the area up around South Island Road, Maryville, and up through the greater Georgetown area, that's all we sprayed this time. And that unfortunately cost around $100,000 between the plane and the chemical.
[00:20:40] Speaker B: So there are a lot of reasons that we don't like to conduct aerial sprays. Yeah, we, we save it for last resorts when we can. So our main, other than larva siding, our, our main means of control is the, the truck sprays, right?
[00:20:54] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: And we use something very different for truck sprays.
[00:20:57] Speaker D: Right, Right. We use essential oils. The product is made up of about six essential oils. And then we combine that with agricultural product called a surfactant, which helps it to cling to plants.
And so this product stays in the environment, but it doesn't, it's not harmful to the environment.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: It's safe for pollinators.
[00:21:21] Speaker D: Much safer. Yes, that's, that's true. And so we use that and we spray on a schedule and we just increase the number of drivers that we had this year. So we're, we're making use of our, making better use of our trucks. They're spraying both in the morning and in the evening with different drivers. And so that allows us to cover more routes. We have, just for any of your information, we have about 40 routes within the county.
So we're able to hit most of them at least every two weeks. Most of them we heat, we hit every week, especially the hot spots.
[00:21:57] Speaker B: Okay. And that brings up another issue we kind of talked about.
Please don't talk to our truck drivers. They would love to talk to you, but then they're not getting their work done.
So we, we would rather people not approach the truck and talk to our truck drivers.
[00:22:11] Speaker D: Right, Right. Yeah. If you have a question about what something they're doing or you think they're going Too fast or they're not spraying enough or whatever. Please call our hotline, tell us in the message that you know, it's regarding the truck drivers and we'll get back to you and find out what the issue is and take care of it. But all of our guys are very good. We get very few complaints on the truck drivers.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Right, right. That's wonderful. Well, Robin, what else can you tell us about mosquitoes or mosquito control?
[00:22:42] Speaker D: Just that again, you know, we need your help.
You know, we can't just the amount of work we do in the county. There's only three of us and then there's the drivers and so we can only do so much. We. We are really trying very hard to make mosquito control in our county more of a preventative thing, which is where the larva sighting comes in. But again, you know, it's you. We can't really go out with a spray truck and larva side we don't have it.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Sounds like we'll give you larval tablets though.
[00:23:18] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: To treat your.
[00:23:19] Speaker D: For a lot of people will, you know, for a lot of situations. Or we'll either come and treat it ourselves. Some of some of the products we have to handle ourselves, but there's a lot of things that, you know, we can give you that you can put, you know, in your yard.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Okay, great. Robin, thank you so much for joining us and thank you for what you do and good luck this season. If you'd like to volunteer to be a landing count person. I. I think we. We have some openings.
[00:23:46] Speaker D: Not really.
Yeah,
[00:23:52] Speaker C: that's it for this month's first Friday with Georgetown County. Thanks so much for joining us. As always, I'd like to bring you a list of important events to note coming up this month.
As usual, there are several public meetings scheduled this month. The Board of Elections and Voter Registration will meet on Wednesday, July 8 at 5:30pm at the office of Elections and Voter Registration on Hazard Street.
The Library Board will meet the following week on Thursday, July 16th at 5:30pm at the Georgetown Library on Cleland Street. The Planning Commission will also meet on July 16th at 5:30pm in County Council chambers.
County Council will meet on Tuesday, July 21 at 5:30pm in County Council Chambers. As a reminder, Council only meets once per month in June, July and August. August as well as November and December. If you can't make it to the County Council or Planning Commission meetings, be sure to watch our live
[email protected] gtcountysc lastly, the Tourism Management Commission will meet on Thursday, July 23 at 1pm Looking for things to do with the family this summer? Your local library branch has several exciting programs to choose from, ranging from from yoga to a special presentation from Riverbank Zoo. Check out the library's calendar on our website for a full list of events, and be sure to come out to
[00:25:16] Speaker B: your local library this month for summer reading.
[00:25:19] Speaker C: Lastly, as a reminder, county offices, the landfill and recycling centers are closed today in observance of Independence Day. Any facilities normally open on Saturdays will also be closed tomorrow, July 4th. For more events, please visit our website gtcountysc.gov Join us next month for another First Friday with Georgetown County.
