Destructive Beetle Creates Blue Wood

  • These mountain pine beetles are very destructive, killing millions of trees (Photo courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Research Station)

For more than a decade, mountain pine beetles have been devastating

forests in Canada and the Western United States. Colorado
has been hit especially hard. Millions of dead pines are creating the potential for huge forest fires. So, the trees are being cut
down. Conrad Wilson reports, some business are using that
timber:

Transcript

For more than a decade, mountain pine beetles have been devastating

forests in Canada and the Western United States. Colorado
has been hit especially hard. Millions of dead pines are creating the potential for huge forest fires. So, the trees are being cut
down. Conrad Wilson reports, some business are using that
timber:

(sound of a beetle)

That’s the sound of mountain pine beetles hard at work, laying
eggs beneath a tree’s bark. That kills the tree.

Here in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains,
two million acres of pine trees have been killed.

But the same destruction caused by the bugs has also created an
opportunity.

The beetles introduce a fungus that stains the wood a unique
blue. And that’s caught the attention of Colorado’s woodworkers. They’re using the wood for everything from furniture to decking.

(sound of sawing and pounding)

Outside Boulder, a company called Kitchens by Wedgewood is using the wood for
cabinets.

Wedgewood President Jim Ames says his company started working
with the timber three years ago.

Despite the drop in the housing market, Ames says customers like the blue stained finish.

“People are starting to ask for it more and more. Again, as
we get into this green movement, everybody wants to see what all those
dead trees in Colorado look like when they’re turned into a cabinet door.”

Ames says, with so many trees being killed, there will be enough timber to make beetle
wood cabinets for the rest of his lifetime.

For The Environment Report, I’m Conrad Wilson.

Related Links

A New Threat to Grizzly Bears

  • The grizzly bear has a new threat - the Mountain Pine Beetle that's wiping out its food source (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

We’ve heard about a warmer climate affecting polar bears. Now, warmer weather seems to be threatening another kind of bear. Mark Brush reports on some tough times for Yellowstone’s Grizzly bears:

Transcript

We’ve heard about a warmer climate affecting polar bears. Now, warmer weather seems to be threatening another kind of bear. Mark Brush reports on some tough times for Yellowstone’s Grizzly bears:

Researchers say warmer temperatures in the last ten to fifteen years have been messing with the ecology in Yellowstone National Park.

In the fall, the grizzly bears eat pine cone nuts from white bark pine trees. It gives them a lot of nutrition before they curl up for the winter. But those trees are dying.

Mountain pine beetles are killing them. The beetle populations usually get knocked back by cold weather. But it hasn’t been getting as cold. So, there are more beetles killing more trees.

Doug Peacock lives near Yellowstone and has written several books on grizzlies.

“The white bark pine trees, this is the most important grizzly food of all in Yellowstone, they are gone. And we will not see them come back in our lifetime.”

And when the trees are gone, the bears get hungry – they go looking for food – and they run into people.

48 grizzlies out of the 600 in the region were killed last year.

Some environmental groups are suing the government to get the bear back on the endangered species list.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

New Weapon for Tree-Killing Bug

  • Adult emerald ash borer (Photo by David Cappaert, Michigan State University, courtesy of the Michigan Department of Agriculture)

There might be a new weapon to use against a
destructive pest. Rebecca Williams reports the emerald
ash borer has killed more than 30 million ash trees in
eight states and Ontario:

Transcript

There might be a new weapon to use against a
destructive pest. Rebecca Williams reports the emerald
ash borer has killed more than 30 million ash trees in
eight states and Ontario:

No one’s been able to stop the tiny green beetle from killing trees. But
officials are hoping a new insecticide will help.

Researchers at Michigan State University ran trials for one year with a
chemical called Tree-age. In those tests, the insecticide killed all of the
beetles. The state of Michigan has approved the insecticide for use on ash
trees. Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia are also considering it.

Jim Bowes is with the Michigan Department of Agriculture. He says the
emerald ash borer probably can’t be stopped, but the insecticide might
slow the beetle’s spread.

“Nobody here and I don’t think anybody in the federal government at this
point is talking about eradication. I think everybody is talking about how
are we going to coexist?”

Bowes says the insecticide might be able to save trees in your yard, if
the infestation is caught early enough.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Pigs Root Out Evil Bugs

  • Apple grower Jim Koan has discovered that baby pigs are best for taking care of fallen wormy apples in his orchard. He says they have very tender noses. The adult pigs like to root around in the dirt and tend to tear up the orchard. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

There are a lot of insects that love to eat
apples. A harmful insecticide that kills some of
those pests is being phased out. So farmers are
looking for other solutions. Rebecca Williams visits
an apple grower who’s counting on pigs to get some
help with his pest problem:

Transcript

There are a lot of insects that love to eat
apples. A harmful insecticide that kills some of
those pests is being phased out. So farmers are
looking for other solutions. Rebecca Williams visits
an apple grower who’s counting on pigs to get some
help with his pest problem:

(farm animal sounds – turkeys, etc)

The spring rains have started, and at Jim Koan’s pig pen that means mud.

(sound of shoes squishing in mud and piggy snorts)

Of course, these pigs don’t really seem to mind that.

“These Berkshires, you can see, are really friendly, they’re just coming
right up to you.”

Jim Koan really likes his pigs. That’s because he’s hoping the pigs will
take care of one of his worst pests. It’s a beetle called the plum
curculio. In early spring the beetles lay eggs in the little green apples.
The larvae hatch and eat the apples from the inside out.

Then the tree drops the bad wormy apples on the ground. And the worms just
keep on eating.

For a long time, farmers used an insecticide called azinphos-methyl to kill
the beetles. But the Environmental Protection Agency is phasing it out.
That’s because the EPA says the pesticide is very toxic to some wildlife and
it can make farm workers sick.

Jim Koan hasn’t used the pesticide for 10 years, ever since he became an
organic grower. So for years now he’s been trying to find a perfect
predator to stop the beetle larvae.

The chickens were too lazy. Hawks ate the guinea fowl that he tried.

So, finally, Koan says he had a flashback. His grandpa used to have hogs in
the orchard.

“When I would climb up to go up in the tree in the summertime to get a green
apple to eat all the hogs would come running over there and my granddad
always told me you stay away from those hogs they’ll eat you up! I’d be
really scared and be up there for an hour or two until the hogs left again.”

(laughs)

Koan says he knows now that the hogs were just hoping for a snack. So last
year he decided to buy some hogs and see if they would eat the wormy apples
on the ground. He says baby pigs worked best.

“And they’d just go up one row gleaning it, kinda like little vacuum
cleaners (makes sucking sound) and suck up all the apples!”

Koan says the baby pigs ate 98% of the fallen apples with beetle
larvae in them. But he still needed to know that the beetles were actually
gone, so they wouldn’t come back to attack his apples next year.

That job
was up to researchers at Michigan State University. Koan says they fed a
mix of beetle larvae and apples to pigs on campus.

“Then they put diapers on the hogs – truly, diapers!! It was unbelievable.
They took special superglue and velcroed it on their butt so then when they
defecated they caught all that. Then they took these poor students and made
them go through there and wash all that and look for worms.”

Koan says out of 200 worms that were fed to the pigs, they only found one
worm at the other end. That means, so far it looks like pigs are a
pretty good predator.

But the researchers don’t want to let pigs run wild – just yet. David
Epstein is the lead researcher on the project.

“Jim and I are scheming all the time. I have great expectations that this
could be a good management tool in the future but we have to figure out how
to do it properly.”

Epstein says they need to make sure the pigs don’t cause any contamination
problems. Something like E. coli. He says so far there isn’t any
evidence of that, but it’s the kind of thing you have to be sure about.

If this all goes well, the farmer and the scientist will be writing a book
together. It’ll be sort of a self-help book: getting pigs to take care of
what’s bugging you.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Tree-Killing Bug Continues to Spread

  • An adult ash borer. The tree-killing bug has now been found in Toronto. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of Agriculture)

Since arriving in North America in the 1990’s, the emerald ash borer
has largely been contained to the upper Midwest. But now scientists say
the destructive beetle is spreading. Noah Ovshinsky has more:

Transcript

Since arriving in North America in the 1990’s, the emerald ash borer
has largely been contained to the upper Midwest. But now scientists say
the destructive beetle is spreading. Noah Ovshinsky has more:



Since the emerald ash bore arrived, the pest has killed more than 20
million ash trees in North America. Canada has by and large been spared
with infestations confined to the extreme southwest of Ontario.


Now, Canadian officials say the bug has traveled more than two hundred
miles to Toronto. Scientists don’t know how many trees have been
infested. Ken Marchant is an ash borer expert with the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency:


“It can be in a tree at undetectable levels and be quit heavy and then
the tree dies and so it’s incredibly difficult to detect at low levels.
Nothing has changed, there’s no traps for it and really no effective
way of surveying for it with any great accuracy.”


The ash borer has now spread across southern Ontario and six states.


For the Environment Report, this is Noah Ovshinsky.

Related Links

Insect Death Match

  • Researchers want to bring in parasitic wasps from China to kill the emerald ash borer (pictured) to slow the beetle's spread. (Photo courtesy of the USFS)

The federal government wants to import insect parasites from China into
the US. Rebecca Williams reports officials are hoping parasitic wasps
will control a pest that’s been killing millions of trees:

Transcript

The federal government wants to import insect parasites from China into
the US. Rebecca Williams reports officials are hoping parasitic wasps
will control a pest that’s been killing millions of trees:


The emerald ash borer has already killed 20 million ash trees.
Scientists think the ash borer got into North America in cargo from
China. It came over without any of the parasites that normally keep it
in check.


Researchers want to bring in some of those parasitic wasps from China
to try to kill the ash borer beetles.


Juli Gould is with the US Department of Agriculture. She’s been
studying the parasitic wasps. She says the ash borer can’t be
eradicated, but the parasites might slow the beetle’s spread:


“The population is very widespread right now and we need another tool
in the toolbox to help control it.”


Gould says they’ve been running tests to make sure the parasitic wasps
won’t kill insects other than the ash borer. She says in her lab
tests, the parasites appear to much prefer ash borers over the other
insects they tested.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

New Front Line in Ash Borer Fight

The emerald ash borer is killing millions of ash trees, and the destructive beetle continues to show up in more and more places. Rebecca Williams reports one state is cutting down trees even though the beetle hasn’t been found there yet:

Transcript

The emerald ash borer is killing millions of ash trees, and the destructive beetle continues to show up in more and more places. Rebecca Williams reports one state is cutting down trees even though the beetle hasn’t been found there yet:


The emerald ash borer has killed more than 20 million trees in several Midwestern states and Ontario. The beetle kills trees by eating through the living tissue underneath the bark.


But it takes a tree a few years to show signs of infestation. So foresters sometimes have to cut down trees and strip the bark away to look for the beetles.


Wisconsin officials say they’ll be cutting down about 6-thousand trees to look for the ash borer.


Jane Larson is a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture.


“Well for many years we used to think, well if it gets here, but I think we’ve realized it’s not a matter of if but when it’s going to arrive.”


Larson says officials hope to get a jump start on containing the ash borer if they find it. The borer has cost homeowners, states and industries tens of millions of dollars.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Firewood Fuels Ash Borer Problem

  • A live adult emerald ash borer. (Photo by Jodie Ellis, Purdue University)

If you’re packing up the car for a camping trip, you can’t
leave without the marshmallows and duct tape and bug spray, but
in more and more places, you can’t take firewood with you. That’s because government officials are worried about a destructive beetle
that people are spreading by moving firewood. The GLRC’s
Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

If you’re packing up the car for a camping trip, you can’t leave without the
marshmallows and duct tape and bug spray, but in more and more places, you
can’t take firewood with you. That’s because government officials are
worried about a destructive beetle that people are spreading by moving
firewood. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:


(Sound of RV humming)


Butch Sloan can’t imagine camping without a fire:


“Sitting back and watching the wood burn and kinda dreaming about old times
or whatever, you know? That’s part of your camping. Yeah, you gotta have
your camp fire!”


Sloan’s been coming to this Michigan campground from his home in Ohio for 20
years now. For the past few years, it’s been illegal for anyone to move
hardwood firewood over the state line. There can be steep fines if you’re
caught.


That’s because of the emerald ash borer. It’s an invader from Asia that’s
killing millions of ash trees in the upper Midwest. Moving just one piece
of infested firewood can start a new outbreak. Beetles can emerge from the
wood and fly to healthy ash trees.


Butch Sloan says he brings wood from construction sites or buys firewood at
the campground instead:


“As far as trying to bring regular firewood across the state lines, the fines
are just too high. I don’t want to take a chance on it, you know? We bring
the two by fours and stuff like that, and that’s good fire, good cooking, you
know!”


But there are plenty of campers who ignore the laws and bring firewood with
them. That’s why states such as Michigan and Ohio are setting up
checkpoints along highways. They’re trying to catch people sneaking
firewood out of infested areas.


(Sound of traffic)


Here on a two lane country road in Northwest Ohio, every car and truck is
being stopped. State workers ask the drivers if they’ve got firewood.


“If we do find someone that has brought firewood with them, we ask them to
pull into a parking lot and at that point we begin to interview them to find
out where the firewood came from.”


Stephanie Jaqua is a crew leader with the Ohio Department of Agriculture.
She says a lot of the people they catch don’t understand the quarantine
laws. But she says others don’t think they’re part of the problem:


“We have had people in the past say there’s no ash in the back of my truck, you know,
there’s no way I’m transporting emerald ash borer, and then you get to the
bottom and there are four pieces of ash in the bottom.”


Jaqua says that’s why the laws are written the way they are. It’s illegal
to move any hardwood firewood out of quarantined areas, not just ash wood.
Jaqua says the best thing campers can do is buy firewood where they camp and
burn it all up at the site.


A lot of campers say the firewood rules are annoying, but the rules have
changed everything for some people.


Jim Albring owns Lumber Jacks Quality Firewood. His business is in
Michigan, just a mile and a half from Ohio. He says before the ash borer
arrived, most of his customers were in Ohio. Then, suddenly, he couldn’t
move firewood across the state line.


“It was profitable and we were increasing by 25-30% a year until the ash
borer hit. And now we’ve dropped uh, boy, I don’t even know. I don’t really
look at the figures too much any more because it’s disheartening.”


Albring says at first, he could only sell to people a few miles away in
Michigan, so his customer base totally dropped out. He says these days,
people from Ohio still drive up and try to buy firewood from him.


“If we know or we’re suspicious it’s going back to Ohio, we tell them how
heavy the fines are and then they usually back off right away and they don’t
try to get it.”


That’s the problem with trying to stop the destructive insect from spreading
across the country. Even government officials admit there’s no way to stop
every single person from moving firewood.


Patricia Lockwood directs ash borer policy for Michigan:


“I think it’s going to be extremely difficult and we’ve known that from day
one, to stop it. What we have always agreed on is we’re buying ourselves
time. What we’re looking for is time so that the science can catch up.”


And researchers are scrambling to find something that will stop the ash
borer, a natural predator or a perfect pesticide. But scientists say
states have to contain the infestations in the meantime.


That means there’s a lot of pressure on campers and hunters to change their
habits. Tossing some wood in the back of the truck on the way up north used
to be pretty harmless. Now it’s changing entire landscapes, as millions of
trees get wiped out by the beetle.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

States Fail to Stop Insect Pest

States are failing to stop the spread of an invasive insect that’s killing millions of ash trees. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

States are failing to stop the spread of an invasive insect that’s killing
millions of ash trees. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:


People are spreading the emerald ash borer into new areas. The destructive
pest was first discovered killing ash trees in southeast Michigan four years ago.
Moving infested wood has spread the bug to Ontario, Ohio and Indiana. Now,
Illinois officials say the ash borer is infesting trees west of Chicago.


Researchers say moving infested firewood is the fastest way the beetle spreads.
Several states have banned moving firewood from quarantined areas. States
as far away as South Dakota are warning out-of-state campers to keep firewood at
home.


Critics argue states are too lenient in enforcing the bans.


State officials say they’re struggling to keep up, as federal funding to
stop the ash borer is cut.


Researchers warn the ash borer could wipe out billions of ash trees if it’s not stopped.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Easing the Ash Borer’s Financial Bite

  • Homeowner Frank Wydra watches as logs from 16 of his ash trees get turned into lumber. All of the ash trees close to his house had to be cut down after they became infested with emerald ash borers. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Homeowners and cities are losing many of their big, beautiful shade trees. An invasive insect called the emerald ash borer is killing ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana… and making neighboring states worried. About 15 million ash trees are dead or dying, leaving behind enormous bills. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports some people are trying to ease the loss by salvaging lumber from their dead trees:

Transcript

Homeowners and cities are losing many of their big, beautiful shade
trees. An invasive insect called the emerald ash borer is killing ash
trees in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana… and making neighboring states
worried. About 15 million ash trees are dead or dying leaving behind
enormous bills. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports some people are
trying to ease the loss by salvaging lumber from their dead trees:


(sound of birds chirping)


The emerald ash borer ruined Frank Wydra’s summer plans. His 10 acre
lot is full of ash trees… more than a hundred. Wydra built an
elaborate shade garden underneath a cluster of ash trees, right next to
his brand new house. Right around the time he and his family were
ready to move in… they noticed the trees were looking sick.


“They were here when we bought the property and we sort of built the
property, the house around these trees. I had no alternative but to
cut these down, because they were so close to the house.”


Wydra says he’s losing a lot more than a shady backyard. He says the
emerald ash borer is costing him at least 10-thousand dollars. That’s
the cost for cutting the trees down, grinding the stumps out… and
planting new trees. But there’s one part of that cost he’s not too
upset about: the 100 dollars an hour he’s paying to have his dead ash
trees milled into lumber.


(sound of portable sawmill at work and running under)


“It’s got a very close grain that allows you to mill it without too
much trouble. It’s nice stuff. I wish I hadn’t built all my
cabinets.”


Frank Wydra’s already got more board feet of ash piled up here than he
knows what to do with. But he says he’d rather pay to have the logs
turned into something he can use than pay to have them hauled away.
Wydra hired a company called Last Chance Logs to Lumber. Chris Last
brings his portable sawmill to sites like this one, and with some help
from his family members, he loads the logs onto the sawmill and slices
the bark away.

(sound of rolling logs under)

“We’re required to take at least a half inch below those two layers,
you’ll see as we open this up… just the characteristics of the log will
determine that… usually we take off more than that.”

By stripping away the bark and a half inch of the wood beneath the
bark, Chris Last is making sure none of the emerald ash borers will
survive.
Researchers have found that carefully debarking ash logs is one way to
make the wood safe to use.

Chris Last created his business four years ago, shortly after the ash
borer was first identified as the pest killing trees in the upper
Midwest. Since then, he says some of his customers have gotten pretty
creative.

“The neatest thing is a gentleman that was an architect, when he had
the tree cut down he left the log standing for about 10 feet, and what
he ended up building was an old English cottage house on top of this
stump. I guess he reads up there, but it’s beautiful, it’s absolutely
gorgeous, every bit of it, every stick is made out of ash.”

Last says he’s seen a church craft new pews from their ash trees, and
he’s worked for cities that have built picnic tables from ash, but for
the most part, homeowners and city officials are just starting to
figure out how to use the lumber from their dead trees.


Jessica Simons is with the Southeast Michigan Resource Conservation and
Development Council. It’s a nonprofit group that’s giving out grants
to promote the use of ash wood. Simons says the idea’s catching on,
but there are some real obstacles.


“To be honest, it can be a tricky proposition. What’s easier: go to
Lowe’s and buy lumber, or to have your dead trees removed, hire a
sawmill, have the mill come out, allow wood to dry and then be able to
finish it into a product.”


But Simons says milling ash trees into lumber can sometimes save money.
Right now, most homeowners and cities chip up their dead trees and have
the chips hauled away. Both of those steps cost money. Simons says by
milling trees on site, you can cut back on the disposal costs and end
up with wood for a new dining table or a bunch of park benches.

Jessica Simons points out that not all parts of the ash trees can be
turned into products. She says most of the ash wood waste from
Michigan and Ohio gets trucked up to a co-generation plant in Flint,
Michigan, where the wood chips are burned to generate electricity.
Simons says that is a good use for the lower-value parts of the trees,
like stumps or branches.


“But the only thing we’ve argued throughout this is that a number of
great logs were in that wood as well, and when you think about the
value that wood can have as lumber or a higher value product like a
railroad tie, it’s worth much more than what a truckload of fuel is
worth.”


Simons admits re-using dead ash trees won’t cut back a lot on the
tremendous costs that homeowners and cities are bearing to deal with
the ash borer, but she argues that turning ash trees into flooring or
furniture could generate a little bit of money instead of just adding
another line onto the bill.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links