On May 13, 2009 the Columbus Dispatch reported sightings of invasive Ash Borers (Ash tree eating beetles) in my town. Today, the Dispatch reports that the baseball bat slaughtering insect may be unstoppable.
The emerald ash borer has been found in Pike and Scioto counties.
The voracious beetles were found in special traps Ohio Department of Agriculture officials hung in trees in Pike, Scioto and 42 other Ohio counties in May and June.
Inspectors are still in the process of retrieving and checking those traps.
The beetles were found just outside the Portsmouth city limits in Scioto County and near the Pike State Forest in Pike County, according to Kaleigh Frazier, an Agriculture Department spokeswoman.
Borers were first discovered in Detroit in 2002, where they likely hitched a ride from China. They were discovered in Ohio near Toledo in 2003 and have since spread to 52 counties, including Franklin, Delaware, Fairfield, Licking and Union counties in central Ohio.
Their larvae eat tunnels through the soft wood under the bark of ash trees. The tunnels damage the trees' water-circulation systems and kill the trees within three to five years.
Ohio at first tried to eradicate ash-borer infestations, but stopped after federal funding was cut. It now tries to track the beetles' spread through the use of the traps and slow its march across the state by banning the movement of ash firewood out of infested counties.
