Emerald Ash Borer Threatens Historic Abingdon Trees

By Debra McCown
Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier
Published: September 2, 2008

ABINGDON, Va. – As state and federal agencies step up efforts to slow the spread of the emerald ash borer, town officials are preparing to deal with the onslaught of the invasive tree-killing bug.

The emerald ash borer is an exotic beetle that was discovered in southeastern Michigan in the summer of 2002. The adult beetles nibble on ash foliage but cause little damage. However, the larvae feed on the trees’ inner bark, disrupting their ability to circulate water and nutrients, according to the Web site emeraldashborer.info.

Officials are taking the pest seriously here because many of Abingdon’s most prominent downtown trees are ashes.

Although they make up less than 5 percent of all trees owned by the town, Abingdon would appear very different without them because of their size and locations.

“We’ve got some massive ash trees on Main Street up there by the courthouse. ... We’ve got some large ash trees out on Valley Street,” said Town Arborist Kevin Sigmon. “It looks like the majority of these ash trees out there are through the historic district.”

Sigmon said the trees on town property – about 70 of them so far – are being inventoried, and he’s in the process of looking at each tree.

He said the tree commission will begin discussing the trees at its September meeting. The group’s major project this winter will be determining which trees to treat with chemicals in hopes of saving them.

The treatment of town trees will begin in the spring, Sigmon said. Town officials also will make an effort to notify private property owners who have ash trees, cautioning that the borer will kill every untreated ash tree in its path.

“The people that don’t spend the money on treating the trees will spend it on removal cost,” he said, referring to the fall of the dead trees.

The reason treatment must begin before the pests arrive is because the borer larvae kill the tree from the inside, thus an infestation often is impossible to detect until it’s too late to save the tree.

Chris Asaro, forest health specialist for the Virginia Department of Forestry, said in an interview last month that the borer, which came from China, already has killed more than 30 million trees in Michigan – and it kills them regardless of size, health and other factors.

“Ultimately, if they invade a tree, they’ll kill it,” Asaro said.

Elaine Lidholm, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said the Bristol area is at high risk for infestation because of campers who travel here for NASCAR races and also to camp on state and federal lands. The bug often is spread by people transporting firewood.

“If you come to the races, if you come to a park or a forest, do not bring firewood with you,” she said.

The state’s Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services just approved a permanent quarantine for 10 Northern Virginia counties and cities where the borer already has been found. The quarantine restricts the movement of ash trees, ash wood products and hardwood firewood out of the region.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture also has imposed quarantines in hopes of stopping the spread, but the borer still is moving quickly around the country.

“It’s making some very large leaps. ... It’s moving through our transportation system, and here’s Abingdon, located adjacent to one of the largest, most busy interstate highway systems in the United States,” said Sigmon, who thinks its arrival in Abingdon is on the near horizon. “I think it’s a question of not if, but when it arrives. And so we want to be ready.”

Frank Fulgham, program manager for the office of plant and pest services for the state Agriculture Department, said it’s even uncertain whether annual chemical treatment will protect trees from infestation, but currently it’s the only option for those who hope to save their trees.

And there’s no time to lose.

“It has the potential to have the same effect as the chestnut blight had that wiped out all the chestnut trees,” Fulgham said of the borer. “We could say it’s going to be 10 years before you see it down in that area, or it could be 10 days.”

He said it’s likely localities such as Abingdon will face more tough choices – and higher costs – in the future because, with global trade, many more wood-borne pests are making their way into the U.S.

Meanwhile, as the ash borer approaches, Fulgham said, each community will have to make decisions in tough budget times – start planning to treat trees or gamble that the borer will not arrive for another year.

Sigmon said the cost of saving Abingdon’s shade-giving behemoths is still “an unknown number,” but it’s likely to be in the thousands of dollars annually to protect the town’s high-priority ash trees.

“It’s going to be some hard choices that we have to make, and it’s probably going to be some uncomfortable choices,” Sigmon said. “That’s what we’re going to do.”

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