The midges are back, and they’re worse than ever.

The tiny flies that have terrorized marina owners on the Back River for two decades have extended their reach to the Middle River peninsula, bugging boaters, commuters and restaurant patrons who are trying to enjoy outdoor dining in one of Baltimore County’s most scenic spots.

“You can’t walk out your door without them getting in your face immediately,” said Debbie Keatts, president of the Bauernschmidt Manor Improvement Association, a tight-knit community along Middle River. “You’re trying to get in and out of your car and they cling to you. There are a lot of them, and they’re in swarms.”

A mile and a half away, Matt Kozlowski is feeling the same pain on Rockaway Beach Avenue. The peninsula where he lives is about 10 miles east of downtown Baltimore, with the Back and Middle rivers on each side flowing into the Chesapeake Bay.

Sunday afternoon, he power washed his back porch. On Memorial Day, the official start of summer, not only did dead midges cover the closed-in porch’s white ceiling, but the water had turned into a yellow-green slime of decaying midges.

“It is almost intolerable,” said Kozlowski, a longtime boater. “You get them in your mouth when you’re breathing.”

A persistent annoyance

Midges are not new to Baltimore County or the state. In 2007, the tiny, non-biting, gnat-like pests began swarming in the Back River.

Sam Weaver, owner of Weaver’s Marine Service, lost 60% of his business because midges made life unpleasant. They covered boats, turning hulls grey from swarms and siding brown from their excrement.

The county and state stepped in with a $3 million eradication plan. A helicopter sprayed a bacteria known as Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti) over a 1,200-acre section of the Back River.

Kevin Brittingham, manager for Baltimore County’s Watershed Monitoring Program, continues to monitor the problem to make sure midges are well below the nuisance levels of 500 larvae per square meter.

A perfect storm led to the midges last year in Back River, Brittingham said. Midges’ favorite habitat is a low-oxygen, high-nitrogen, high-sediment mix. The Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant, operated by Baltimore City, treats the sewage of hundreds of thousands of residents, discharging treated wastewater into the shallow and poorly flushed river. Bridge construction added more sediment. And commercial fishermen harvested unlimited carp, which feast on midges.

In the Middle River this year, the culprit appears to be drought conditions followed by major rains, according to Susan Gresens, a freshwater ecologist and retired Towson University professor who studies midges and works with Brittingham.

“Midges had been stressed because it’s been too salty,” she said. “And now they can fly around, lay their eggs and die.”

An effective treatment?

The Back River species is Chironomus crassicaudatus, commonly known as the thick-skinned midge. It’s responded effectively to the plane-dropped treatment. Gresens is not certain whether the Middle River infestation is the same species. The thick-skinned midges live in sediment, and there is some evidence the Middle River midges live under boats and porches.

If the Middle River species is different, Gresens said, the bacteria treatment may not work. A graduate student is working with Gresens and Brittingham to determine the best course of action.

An expensive proposition

This week, Baltimore County Executive Kathy Klausmeier wrote to Maryland Agriculture Secretary Kevin Atticks asking for additional resources to combat the growing infestation. She said the state has not contributed its promised $1.5 million to the effort, and asked it to do so promptly. She also sent the letter to the three congressmen who represent the impacted area — Andy Harris, Kweisi Mfume and Johnny Olszewski Jr.

“Given your department’s role as the statewide lead on this issue, I am asking that additional State resources be identified to expand the midge suppression program to protect our residents and Bay-based marine trade businesses as they enter their peak summer months,” Klausmeier wrote.

Atticks said the department owes the funds to the contractor doing the spraying, not the county, because its auditor recommended changing how the funds were paid. He said the department would pay the contractor shortly. Atticks also said he’s pretty certain that the midge species vexing Middle River will respond to the larvicide used previously.

Given the budget constraints of both the state and the county, Atticks said he hopes to coordinate eradication much like the department does with mosquito control, where homeowner associations collect funds from residents and pay for some of the spraying. Working with the county, Atticks said, the state will do what it can to tackle the problem.

“They’re under assault by this pest. There’s no other way to say it,” said Atticks, who plans to visit the area Thursday.

With 230 miles of shoreline, Baltimore County contributes to the $3.2 billion in statewide economic impact from Chesapeake Bay-related enterprises annually, Klausmeier said. The midges could disrupt that; Back River businesses like Weaver’s suffered.

That’s happening again.

At Jake’s Tavern, a popular Essex waterfront restaurant, owner Dave Jacobs said he had to remake several customers’ food because midges fell into their meals. Some asked for their money back. One customer took Jacobs outside to show him his white pickup truck — it was completely covered with midges. No one was eating outside on the weekend before Memorial Day, despite the nice weather. Every time the door opened, he said, midges came inside.

“It’s ridiculous,” Jacobs said. “Horrible.”

A longtime boater, Jacobs said he’s seen the flies here and there on the peninsula before, but “this is the worst I have ever seen it.”

Once the rain subsides, the infestation likely will, too.

But Councilman David Marks learned from his colleague Todd Crandell that not seeing them does not mean they’re gone. Midges lay eggs — lots of them. Crandell fought the problem in Dundalk for decades and joked at Tuesday’s work session that he’d passed the problem to Marks, though he quickly clarified there’s nothing funny about the flies.

Marks is hosting a public meeting online Thursday for up to 100 attendees to detail efforts to control the problem and look at next steps.

“If we don’t get it under control now,” Marks said, “it will be much worse next summer.”