Ash ban broadens as borer spreads; quarantine now for whole state

The state on Tuesday made all 75 counties part of its quarantine against the emerald ash borer as it turns to another front -- nature itself -- to fight an invasive insect killing ash trees across the nation.

For the past couple of years, 33 Arkansas counties have been part of a quarantine in which it was illegal to transport nursery products of ash, as well as firewood of any kind, outside counties where the insect had been found, as well as surrounding counties that made up a buffer. Most of the counties were in northeast and southwest Arkansas.

A statewide quarantine means ash nursery products and firewood may now be transported anywhere within the state's borders -- but not outside them, to neighboring states.

"It's been a valiant effort, but our efforts haven't really slowed it down," Scott Bray, an employee of the State Plant Board, said of the insect native to Asia that has killed millions of ash trees in some 30 states since it was found in Michigan in 2002.

"We feel like it's much more widespread than our trapping has indicated," Bray, director of the board's Plant Industry Division, said.

The state's nursery industry was being harmed financially, and the move ultimately approved by the Plant Board 13-0 had been recommended by federal authorities as they also retrench, Bray said.

State foresters have been realistic in their pessimism that the borer could be stopped, once its presence in Arkansas was confirmed in 2014.

Once a tree is infested by the beetle, it will die in two to five years, Bray said.

Woodpeckers eat the larvae of emerald ash borers, but they are greatly outnumbered.

Bray told Plant Board members of a recent visit to Silver Dollar City, near Branson where he chatted with a maker of baseball bats. The bats are now made of walnut or a mix of walnut and other wood. "He cannot find ash," Bray said.

Asked by a Plant Board member if nothing else can be done, Bray noted that injections of insecticides have been known to work but are impractical in a forest of ash.

"You can manage it one tree at a time, but on a large scale, it's just not economical," Bray said. "You have to catch it early."

Plant Board Chairman Otis Howell of Little Rock said foresters are convinced that a larger quarantine with its buffer zones of adjacent counties "was just a waste of time."

Bray said federal officials likely will recommend other states take similar action by 2019 or 2020.

Wisconsin officials recently approved a statewide quarantine that will take effect on Friday for its 72 counties.

Arkansas isn't giving up, Bray said.

State foresters will expand their use of "bio-control wasps" -- wasps that feed on the beetle but do not sting people -- in areas where the emerald ash borer has been confirmed.

"We're not giving up," Bray said. "Nature has its way sometimes of winning."

Business on 03/28/2018

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