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Insect's arrival could require quarantine
By Mary Ann Ford
mford@pantagraph.com
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BLOOMINGTON -- Seventeen years ago, the Bloomington-Normal Water Reclamation District planted about 15,000 ash trees in rural Shirley with a long-range plan that some could be harvested for veneer. | Green Thumb Gardening blog

The first crop was expected to be ready about 2016.

But those hopes have been dashed with the recent announcement by the Illinois Department of Agriculture that the deadly emerald ash borer was found in southwest Bloomington.

The larvae of the adult beetles feed on the inner bark of ash trees, ultimately strangling them. There are no means to prevent the destruction, only treatments that might delay it.

Garry Little, director of Normal Parks and Recreation Department, said the town owns as many as 1,500 ash trees on public rights of way. Bloomington has more than 1,100, said Dean Kohn, director of Bloomington parks and recreation. The municipalities are in the midst of taking an inventory.

Countless other ash trees are on private properties throughout the Twin Cities. The Illinois State University campus has about 175 ash trees, ISU arborist Heather Wilcox said.

“It’s too early to tell what the appropriate action is,” said Warren Goetsch, bureau chief of environmental programs at the Illinois Department of Agriculture.

Goetsch said the department has 5,000 traps throughout the northern half of the state and a “significant” number in McLean County. The traps need to be analyzed to “see where the infestation might be” and the magnitude.

But Goetsch isn’t hopeful about the numbers in the Twin Cities. He fully expects Bloomington-Normal to join the current list of 18 quarantined sites in Illinois.

Quarantined sites have to abide by special guidelines for removing affected trees.

“The good news is by finding them now, you have the most time as you can have before the next flight cycle,” Goetsch said.

The beetles, which are native to Asia and came to North America in June 2002, mate and lay eggs between the end of May and Sept. 1, he said.

It can take three to five years before an ash tree shows symptoms of the borer.

Bob Carter, director of the Bloomington-Normal Water Reclamation District, said, “We found one tree on our Oakland Avenue property that is suspect (of having the borer).”

Several traps have been placed at the district’s properties, he said. “Treatment is relatively impossible,” Carter said, because of the large number of ash trees owned by the district.

Treatments can range between $200 and $300, Goetsch said, and must be done annually for the life of the tree.

Wilcox started treating some of ISU’s ash trees last year. “My main focus is a few on the quad,” she said. “There are a few others that are really beautiful, not as big, but perfect. They are so nice, I can’t see taking them down unless I have to.”

Ultimately, cutting down some ash trees may be the only answer.

“By cutting them down, it reduces the spread of the population,” Goetsch said. “Every year you leave an infested tree, it produces tens of hundreds (of beetles) to infest other trees.”

But local officials haven’t gotten to that step yet. First they want to know the extent of the borers in the area. Officials are working with the state agriculture department to develop a plan.

“It’s that not knowing that’s holding back any big decisions,” Wilcox said.



Borer details



-- Bloomington, Normal and Illinois State University stopped planting ash trees a few years ago.

-- Normal placed ash trees on its restricted list July 18 because of the emerald ash borer.

-- An emerald ash borer fact sheet prepared by the University of Illinois Extension Office is available on Bloomington’s Web site at www.cityblm.org.

-- There are an estimated 150 million ash trees in Illinois.

-- Officials from the United States have traveled to China in search of natural predators that could eradicate the borers.

-- The General Assembly passed a bill in 2007 establishing a low-interest loan revolving fund to help communities replace trees lost to the emerald ash borer. Legislators did not appropriate any money for the fund.

-- The Illinois Insect Pest and Plant Disease Act allowed the state to declare the emerald ash borer a nuisance and allows the state to remove an infested tree on private property if the owner fails to have it removed. The state could then charge the owner for the removal.

-- After the emerald ash borer was detected in the United States in 2002, the federal government promoted the idea of an eradication cut — removing all ash trees within a half-mile radius of a borer infestation. Warren Goetsch, bureau chief of environmental programs at the Illinois Department of Agriculture, said an eradication cut was done in Peru around the first of this year.

-- Until the two emerald ash borers were found in Bloomington this month, all Illinois infested counties were in the northern part of the state.

On the Net

www.illinoiseab.com

Take a look
Emerald ash borer adult. (Photo by David Cappaert, Michigan State University)
Hundreds of insects stuck to an Emerald Ash Borer trap in a grove of reclamation district trees near Shirley, Thursday, July 24, 2008. (The Pantagraph, David Proeber)
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Reader comments on this story - 9 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

Thero wrote on Jul 26, 2008 6:14 PM:

" I suggest placing large amounts of glue traps around all ash trees to catch these pests!!! "

Tom Terrific wrote on Jul 26, 2008 5:34 PM:

" Look at those poor little bugs stuck to that trap. Someone should really protest that inhumane treatment. If I knew where that trap was, I'd go feed them. "

irishman652 wrote on Jul 26, 2008 10:14 AM:

" Can some body tell me why they showed up in the U.S. , besides Bush having something to do with it? "

Just A Guy wrote on Jul 26, 2008 8:01 AM:

" Isn't the Illinois Insect Pest and Plant Disease Act kind of against the 4th Amendment? Sounds an awful lot like an illegal seizure from private property. "

Realist wrote on Jul 26, 2008 7:29 AM:

" It's ironic in a way. Tree hugging environmentalist who helped ban pesticides or reduce their potentency are having it come back to bite them. "

Mike wrote on Jul 26, 2008 4:43 AM:

" Another gift from China! "

Not so Political wrote on Jul 25, 2008 10:23 PM:

" wise tree farm people know not to plant two many of the same type of trees in the same area. "

carolo wrote on Jul 25, 2008 9:33 PM:

" I am from Michigan and the destruction of the Ash trees is just terrible. There are large park-like areas where the trees are completely bare; no bark, no leaves...
I worry about this and the Japanese beetles which seem to have taken over my entire yard. Right now the insects are winning.... "

420 man wrote on Jul 25, 2008 7:59 PM:

" its all bush's fault!!! "
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