Emerald Ash Borer Found in Arkansas, Missouri

They’re coming to Arkansas — iridescent green beetles that bore holes into the bark of ash trees to lay their eggs and eventually kill the trees.

The emerald ash borer is a destructive critter that could wipe out a stand of ash trees, state insect specialists say. And they’re headed to Arkansas from the north faster than originally expected.

Evidence of the beetle’s destruction was found earlier this month in an ash tree in Wayne County, Mo., 40 miles from Corning near the state’s border.

“It’s going to be a drastic situation once it infests our trees,” said Jim Northrum, an entomologist with the Arkansas Forestry Commission. “I’m sure it’s going to get here. Everything else does.” In the early 2000s, the red oak borer, an insect native to Arkansas, destroyed large numbers of red and black oak trees in northern and central Arkansas in the Ozark National Forest. The pests have since been controlled with insecticides.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has placed 150 emerald ash borer traps in northern Arkansas to see if the borer has made it into the state yet, Northrum said.

Entomologists are also checking ash stands for evidence of destruction and are developing an emergency plan if the borer is found in Arkansas.

The beetle first entered the U.S. in Michigan in the late 1990s, traveling from Asia on ash pallets, timber and other wood products that were shipped to Detroit via the Great Lakes, the U.S. Agriculture Department said. More than 40 million trees were killed by the insect in southeastern Michigan.

The adult borer has a dark metallic green back and a bright emerald green under- belly. It grows to about half an inch long and is bullet-shaped.

It takes three to five years for the insects to destroy a tree. Each beetle bores a D-shaped hole into the ash’s bark and lays 60-90 eggs. The larvae feed on the tree’s tissues, virtually starving it of nutrients and water.

The trees die from the top, Northrum said, making it difficult to see evidence of the ash borer’s presence until it’s too late.

Michigan forestry officials first spotted the destruction in 2002. Since then, the beetle has moved to nine other states, including Missouri.

Missouri Department of Conservation officials placed a quarantine Thursday on the transportation of firewood.

Officials found two dead ash trees at a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers campground at Lake Wappapello in southern Missouri earlier this month. They speculated that campers transported firewood from another state to the campsite and, unknowingly, carried the beetles with them.

Violators caught carrying ash firewood across county and state lines are subject to fines up to $ 250,000, said Doug LeDoux, an entomologist with the Missouri Department of Agriculture.

“The laws have teeth,” he said. “We felt sooner or later the ash borer would get to our state, and we set up strict programs to deal with it. A month after we did, it showed up.” Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Maryland and Wisconsin placed quarantines on the transportation of firewood once the borer was found in those states.

“Obviously, it didn’t stop it,” LeDoux said. “None of the quarantines have been 100-percent successful.” The borers can thrive in the United States because they have no natural predator, said Tamara Walkingstick, a forester with the University of Arkansas Agriculture Division.

“Odds are they are already here, or they will be in the near future,” Walkingstick said. “It’s a very serious situation.” Only 1 percent to 2 percent of Arkansas’ forestlands contain green ash trees. However, urban areas such as Little Rock plant the trees for landscaping.

When Dutch elm disease, a fungal infection brought to the U.S. by beetles from the Netherlands, wiped out elm trees in the North in the 1960s and 1970, the trees were replaced with green ash.

More than 200 ash trees were planted at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis around the Gateway Arch as decoration, LeDoux said.

“If the borers get to them, it’ll wipe them all out,” he said.

Arkansas officials are working with the state’s Department of Parks and Tourism, the Arkansas Forestry Commission, the state Game and Fish Commission and the Corps of Engineers to keep the emerald ash borer from being transported into the state but know it’s likely on its way.

“We’re anticipating it arriving,” said Terry Walker, director of the state Plant Board’s plant industry division.

“We’re trying to convince people not to bring their firewood when they come to Arkansas. The only way it moves is by people transporting it. If we can stop that, it might not get here. But if history is a guide, it’ll probably be here soon,” he said.