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Veteran county landscape chief David Hattem and his colleagues are waging a nontoxic war against pests, armed with weeding gloves, mulch, custom vermin traps, rodent-hunting owls and other organic weapons including predatory insects.

You could hardly see the 2,000 tiny encarsia formosa stingless wasp pupae, or the 1,000 delphastus catalinae beetles Hattem spread in the foliage and interior gardens inside the Marin County Civic Center on Thursday. They joined 250 cryptolaemus beetles released in the building a couple weeks ago.

The predatory critters feast on white flies and mealybugs while posing no harm to workers, visitors or gardens. It was the third time in a year that bugs have been unleashed to combat other bugs at the Civic Center.

Hattem’s crew in the past year also battled an invasion of sow bugs at the county jail with organic “Eco Exempt” products, erected owl nesting boxes at the Civic Center, deployed several dozen custom box rat traps with small entry holes that block other animals, pulled weeds by hand and installed “sheets” of mulch to repel invasive plant growth.

It’s all part of the county’s award-winning integrated pest management program that has become a national model of how to curb weeds, rats, wasps, garden bugs and related pests without harming the environment. The goal is to minimize use of chemicals while eliminating use of toxic material whenever possible.