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Towns Responding in Different Ways to Relentless Spread of emerald Ash Borer

Posted: September 10, 2024

SHAFTSBURY - The Select Board is planning to hold a forum on the emerald ash borer (EAB) in the spring. Board Chair Naomi Miller brought up the idea at the board's Aug. 5 meeting.

"What I was envisioning when I suggested that we do this was that we perhaps have some experts come and talk about what towns are doing, not individual citizens, but towns are doing with this enormous impending monstrosity of a dilemma that that's potentially going to be economically beyond our imagining," she said.

The intent was to "get people to begin to think about it out loud together as a community. Not so much that we have experts come in and teach us about the ash borer, etc, but that we have people who are expert in thinking about what towns can do and how," Miller said. "What are the various possibilities for long term management to this so that we're just thinking about it ahead of time before it comes crashing down on us, literally and figuratively.”

Board Vice Chair Martha Cornwell suggested having it recorded and posted by one of the local public access cable channels.

"It seems like towns have very wide variety of the ways that they're going about it, from it’s just a personal landowner’s responsibility all the way up to very expensive kind of tree infusions, for lack of a better word for it,” she said.

“Maybe we want to do it with a couple of other towns,” Miller said. “Wait till the spring, give ourselves time to organize it.”

“Originally from Asia, the emerald ash borer was first discovered in the Detroit area in 2002. It is believed to have entered the country on wooden packing materials," according to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets. “This beetle feeds on all species of ash trees. Infested trees die within three to five years. As a non-native insect, EAB lacks natural predators to keep it in check. EAB was initially detected in the state in 2018 and has spread and established itself in most of Vermont.”

The insect is responsible for the death and decline of tens of millions of ash trees in North America. The beetle is bright, metallic green, measures about one-half inch long and has a flattened back. Trees infested with EAB may show signs and symptoms including bark splitting and D-shaped exit holes on the bark surface

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "EAB is difficult to detect early when pest populations are small because damage to the trees is hidden under the bark and tree decline is gradual. The beetle is well-suited to our climate, is a good flyer, and spreads naturally. People contribute to the long-distance spread of the beetle when they move EAB-infested ash firewood, logs or nursery stock."

During a recent visit to a forest site in North Pownal, new Bennington County Forester Tessa McGann, gave an overview of the problem and the response to it.

"It is slowly spreading. We make these maps that show, what's the 10 mile radius and 20 mile radius for danger zones, and it's definitely becoming [widespread throughout] the entire state, and in this corner of Vermont," she said. "And it’s definitely active in Bennington County. And in the coming years, we can definitely expect it will be all over Vermont. We will see ash trees die all over Vermont. That is unavoidable."

There are several different species of ash trees in Vermont. There are white and black ash, which is also called brown ash, and also green ash. “And we are seeing there's different levels of resistance to the disease. It's very, very, very little resistance, but still with white ash, we see a little bit more," she said.

For that reason, in places where the trees do not pose a safety hazard or where the landowner does not need to cut down the tree to sell before it dies, the recommendation is to leave ash trees standing as much as possible.

“We do have a hope that there will be some amount that are resistant to the beetle, and if they survive, they can help repopulate the forest," McGann said. "A big mistake we made with chestnut trees 100 years ago is that we cut them all down, and then every once in a while we found one that was resistant, but we didn’t leave enough out there to naturally repopulate. So we’re really trying to avoid that.”

People can use insecticide on select ash trees, but this is expensive and only lasts a couple of years, she said.

The state has begun releasing wasps that are the natural predator to the EAB in hopes of eventually creating a natural balance once the EAB population runs out of food and its population crashes, she said.

“We need ash trees to be on the landscape for that point to be a part of that balance. So right now, people are doing treatments to try to regenerate ash, to encourage seedlings to get established and start growing, because when they're really, really young, the beetle is not going to kill them," McGann said. "It's not going to waste its time on them. So, there's hope, I guess is what I'm saying.”

The Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation offers an online Vermont Forest Invasive Pest Status Map. It tracks the presence (by town) of several invasive species, including the EAB on a town-by-town basis. It shows a prevalence of towns with the invasive in the northwest part of the state and in the south. In fact, every town along the Massachusetts border, from Pownal in the west to Vernon in the east has an infestation.

According to the map, Shaftsbury and Bennington have had an infestation since 2020, Stamford since 2018, Rupert since 2021, Pownal since 2022. Manchester and Dorset first reported infestations this year. The map shows no infestation in Arlington, but this does not correspond to observations on the ground.

In response to questions for this article, Arlington Town Manager Nick Zaiac said that "Arlington does indeed have a spreading infestation, and there is evidence of ash borer townwide, but mostly in the central and eastern areas so far. The first documented evidence came from the southeast corner of town. It is not limited to any particular type of landowner."

The town's Select Board has discussed ash trees at the town rec park but the issue there isn't particularly bad, he said.

"We have one small grant for cutting ash trees in the Buck Hill Road area which will take place next spring," Zaiac said. "The state has reported that there will not be substantial funding for ash removal into the future, so we save a few thousand every year in a Hazardous Tree Fund to be prepared for when they start to die in substantial numbers.

"Ash borer takes a few years to kill trees, so we haven’t seen reports that it alone has killed anything so far," he said "Ash in the area are also dealing with a fungal 'ash blight' that weakens the trees separately. Our plan is to watch the trees and have them cut as they endanger the traveling public."

Bennington officials are aware of the issue. With the help of Town Communications Director Jonah Spivak, two responded by email.

Director of Buildings and Grounds Paul Dansereau replied that his department is not involved in any ash borer mitigation actions other than in following State of Vermont published guidelines.

RJ Joly, Director of Department of Public Works, said he attended the first class on this topic about seven years ago. "We really somehow have not had a problem as the Town."

"We have a few in the right of way but they are over power lines, and we can’t remove them if we wanted to," he said.

When wood lots were logged, the department tried to harvest mature ash trees before the bug killed them, he added.

Compliments of: The Bennington Banner
Posted/Author: Mark Rondeau

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