A while back I mentioned the Emerald Ash Borer problem in Central Ohio. This weekend the news got worse:
When they were called by residents to examine trees for signs of emerald ash borers, Worthington parks officials always came up empty.
That changed yesterday, when the Ohio Department of Agriculture announced that the voracious Asian bug had been discovered in a tree near the intersection of Larrimer Avenue and Schreiner Street West.
The announcement resulted in a quarantine for all of Franklin County and came as the state launched an educational campaign, called "Emerald Ash Borer Awareness Week."
Now that would be bad enough, but when you look at some of the numbers they are talking about things are decidely...ummm...worse.
In 2004, the state destroyed nearly 16,000 ash trees to wipe out an infestation near the Easton shopping complex.
Efforts such as that, however, stopped after federal funding to fight the borers in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan dropped from $41 million in 2004 to $4 million last year.
Ohio has received about $1.5 million so far this year, said Melissa Brewer, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Agriculture.
[...]
In Worthington, there are at least 482 ash trees along streets and in parks, said Poling, who estimated the cost of removing each tree at $250.
Statewide, there are about 5 billion ash trees, according to the Agriculture Department.
At $250 per tree, it would cost $1,250,000,000,000 to remove all of the Ash trees in Ohio and stop the infestation. That's far more than the total value of New Jersey's natural capital so I'm thinking it's not worth it to cut the trees.
