The City of Boston is trying to do something about its rat problem.
The city launched a plan Wednesday that calls for a broad range of city departments to work together to address the issue jointly. Those departments include inspectional services, public works, public health, parks and recreation and Boston 311.
A new report accompanying the rat plan says the city’s densely populated neighborhoods, old sewer systems and centuries-old streets provide an environment where rodents thrive.
The plan prioritizes several neighborhoods identified in the report as hot spots for rats, including downtown, Chinatown, the North End, Allston/Brighton, Back Bay, South Dorchester and Roxbury.
“Boston takes pride in distinguishing our city through delivering exceptional basic city services for safe and clean streets, beautiful public spaces, and responsive and accessible city government,” Mayor Michelle Wu said in a press release announcing the report and the plan. “We’re working to make Boston a home for everyone. Except for rats. Our rodent action plan, which is informed by this data-driven report, will guide our approach across our neighborhoods.”
The plan lays out strategies for attacking the problem, which will focus on prevention.
“Currently in the industry, there’s an over-reliance on using poison — rodenticides,” said the city’s chief of operations, Dion Irish. That poison kills other species, including birds of prey who eat rats.
“We can’t poison our way out of a problem like this,” Irish said. “We need to focus more on prevention, particularly around food sources. So in our parks, we’ve already begun to launch initiatives in the Boston Common to change the type of trash receptacles we have there.”
Boston is now also running pilot programs to try out those new rodent-resistant trash cans in other city parks and on the streets in the North End.
“The most effective way to reduce rodent population is sanitation,” said John Ulrich, assistant commissioner of environmental services at Boston’s Inspectional Services Department. “And so our efforts are really going to look at the coordination and how we improve sanitation and reduce food.”
Despite the apparent urgency of the report, the Boston Public Health Commission has determined the city’s current rodent population doesn’t pose a high threat to public health.
