ALB Raises its Ugly Head and Horns in Massachusetts

By Rebecca Fater

It was almost 7:30 p.m. when Karl Smith finally pulled into his driveway after a long day's work. He looked up to see another car - an unfamiliar one - roll to a stop behind him.

"You're the tree guy?" called the driver. "I just want you to know I found those beetles where I work."

It was the latest in a series of bad news Smith had heard about the Asian longhorned beetle, or ALB for short, a shiny black and white-spotted insect that experts have dubbed one of the most destructive bugs ever to light upon North American soil. And this driver - one of Smith's neighbors - had just found it approximately three miles from where the United States Department of Agriculture had positively identified its presence mere weeks earlier. That, Smith realized, could mean only one thing.

"It's going to be more widespread than originally thought," says Smith ruefully. "It's going to be real bad."

Since the first week of August when a resident of Worcester, Mass., told city officials she had found an Asian longhorned beetle on her property, federal, state and municipal workers, as well as entomologists, arborists and journalists have descended upon the city. The U.S. Forest Service and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), both agencies of the USDA, are currently working with local employees to determine the scope of the infestation. Steps to eradicate the insect - which will likely include cutting down thousands of infested trees and treating susceptible trees with pesticides - will be decided upon at a later date.

"Every day I have a new story," says Smith, owner of TCIA-member Trees Unlimited in Rutland, Mass., where his phone has since morphed into a pseudo-emergency hotline for nervous clients. "Every day my customers are calling me. They're upset. They don't want to lose their trees. I'm telling them not to panic yet."

Panic, no. But worry, yes. While the government has plenty of experience battling ALB, going back to 1996 when the insect was first discovered in the U.S., experts say this infestation in Worcester is different - and substantially more threatening.

This time, the insects have settled in a region of the country that is equivalent to an ALB five-star hotel: an area lush with hardwood trees such as maple, elm, ash, willow, birch, poplar and more.

"In this area, 90 percent of the forest and adjoining forests are made up of this insect's host tree species," says Tchukki Andersen, staff arborist for TCIA. "It's a very big red flag."

On the positive side, the response from municipal, state and federal workers has been swift, she adds. Weeks ago, teams of inspectors laced up their sneakers, grabbed their binoculars and turned their eyes to the tree tops, searching for the smallest sign of infestation.

Mapping the area of the infestation is the first, most critical task workers must complete before beginning the eradication process, says Suzanne Bond, spokesperson for APHIS. After workers finish the survey - which was likely to take several more weeks - discussion would turn to fighting the beetle. While nothing had been decided by mid September, action will likely be similar to protocols used in the other three areas of infestation in the U.S. - New York, New Jersey and Illinois.

Those eradication programs included removal of infested trees, as well as removal of some trees at high risk of becoming infested. In addition to removals, the insecticide imidacloprid may be administered to help kill the existing adult beetle population living in infested trees, as well as give uninfested trees a layer of protection.

The goal is complete eradication. However daunting that may seem, APHIS has claimed some victories since ALB invaded North America. An infestation discovered in 2002 in Hudson County, N.J., was declared eradicated this year, as was another infestation originally discovered in Chicago in 1998.

Others have proved more challenging: an infestation in N.Y. that covers 140 square miles was discovered in 1996, and the government is still fighting it.

"Asian longhorned beetle is really one of the most destructive, costly and invasive species ever to enter the U.S.," Bond says. "It threatens urban and suburban shade trees, recreational and forest resources. And those are valued at hundreds of billions of dollars. If ALB were to become widely established… it could impact maple syrup production, hardwood lumber processing, nurseries and even tourism."

Back in August, APHIS originally estimated that ALB had been in the Worcester region as long as seven years, judging from the level of infestation. But when local press reported that a Worcester man had come forward with an ALB sample in a bug collection he had assembled back in 1998, APHIS adjusted that estimate to at least 10 years.

"So that's really a little bit disappointing," Bond says.

The local man's find did not surprise E. Richard Hoebeke, a research survey entomologist at Cornell University in New York, who was the first to identify ALB when it emerged in the U.S. in 1996, in the Green Point Section of Brooklyn, N.Y. Given that the U.S. took until 1998 to require the fumigation of wood pallets from China, from which ALB is suspected to have entered the country, he worries the insect had much more time to become established than anybody realizes.

"My biggest concern is that the ALB is probably in other U.S. cities and we just don't know it," he says. "I think a lot of the damage that's taking place was from quite some time ago. Even when we found it in 1996 in New York, it probably had been in place since 1990, if not before."

However long it has been here, the Massachusetts ALB Cooperative Eradication Program - the partnership of federal, state and local workers cooperating to fight ALB in Worcester - is taking steps to halt its progress. Several weeks ago it established a regulated area of 33 square miles that includes parts of Worcester and the nearby towns of Boylston, West Boylston, Holden and Shrewsbury to which the infestation is believed to be limited. Removal of wood and wood products from the regulated area, or quarantine, is forbidden, unless it is chipped into pieces smaller than 1 inch. Before long, arborists who want to work in the regulated area will need to have passed a certification program to ensure they have been educated about ALB, its habits and how to handle potentially infested wood without assisting the beetle's spread. There will not be a fee for arborists to participate in the certification program, says Bond.

And since APHIS cannot offer a timetable as to how long it will take to rid the region of ALB - the USDA has been in N.Y. since 1996, and it's still there - Smith figures he'll be participating in the certification program. And, though he stopped offering insecticide injections as part of his service at Trees Unlimited some years ago, he's thinking he just may get back into that part of the business. Since ALB moved into town, his current business prospects have suddenly looked shaky. Some of his customers have already called to cancel scheduled tree removals, due to the possibility that the USDA will take the tree down as part of the eradication program - at no cost to the property owner.
"All of a sudden, that's a $2,000 job we're losing," says Smith. "I also had a pruning canceled (for the same reason). I can see that I'm going to have to get back into (tree insecticide) injections. This is our livelihood."

With the eradication process still in its early mapping stages, it is unclear whether the government will seek the assistance of private arborists and tree care companies through contract work, Bond says.

In the meantime, there is one critical job for which arborists and tree care companies are absolutely needed: remaining vigilant.

"Be aware that just because that insect hasn't been reported in a particular area, doesn't mean that (it's not possible)," says Judy Antipin, a public affairs specialist for the U.S. Forest Service. "The tree care industry is particularly positioned to help with discoveries of new infestations of these pests."

That doesn't seem to be a problem for Smith, for whom the ALB stories just keep coming. At a barbeque on a recent Sunday, a friend approached him holding a container with a shiny, black and white-spotted beetle inside. The friend, who had plucked it from the windshield wiper of a truck, had no way of knowing how far that beetle had already traveled - and how many of its friends may have accompanied it for the ride.

"This is not looking good," Smith says. "Every day, it's just new findings."

For more information and photos, go to www.TreeCareTips.org.