Ash borer found near the Charley Western Trail

By Thomas Nelson, tnelson@charlescitypress.com

The emerald ash borer that proved Charles City has the invasive species was found just several feet from the Charley Western Trail near the R Campground, off Clark Street.

Randy Vandeventer, the owner of the campground, has several ash trees on his property, and said he has been seeing them slowly die for several years.

His suspicion that it might be EAB was proven last weekend when the Iowa Department of Natural Resources announced Floyd County is one of the latest counties with an infestation.

The district forester was at the campground for an Izaak Walton League of America dinner, when Vandeventer took him to see some of his ash trees.

“He said, ‘Yeah, those got the earmarks of it,'” Vandeventer said.

Vandeventer had cut a branch off an ash tree, skinned the bark off of it and saw the markings where EBA larva had been tunneling.

“It eventually kills the tree. Sap can’t get up underneath the bark and it dies,” Vandeventer said.

The forester found two EAB larva in the branch that Vandeventer had shown him.

“We knew it was coming,” Vandeventer said. “We don’t know if it came in from people bringing firewood here that was infected, or the city has all of its trees chopped up right across the bike trail there.”

The forester thought the tree that Vandeventer showed him might have been infected for several years prior to being tested.

Vandeventer has four ash trees that are infected at the moment, that he says are technically the city’s problem, because of their proximity to the Charley Western Trail.

“I probably only have five ash trees left on my whole property,” He said. “Good-sized ones anyway, the adult ones.”

Vendeventer hasn’t taken down any live trees, saying he usually waits until the trees die before removing them.

“There’s no sense in dropping a perfectly good tree,” Vandeventer said.

The future of the ash tree could be in jeopardy because of the high cost of the treatment of EBA.

Treatment to trees to fight EBA is required every two years, and an average cost is about $15 per inch of a tree’s diameter measured at chest level. 

Typically, without treatment ash trees infected with EBA will die within six years.

Vendeventer has a lot of different other types of trees on his property.

To help keep campers informed about the risk of taking foreign firewood to campsites, Vendeventer has signs in the bathrooms informing people of the risk.

“Don’t destroy the things you love. Moving firewood can spread insects and diseases that kill trees,” the sign says. “Please buy firewood where you camp!”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued a federal quarantine of hardwood firewood and ash articles from Iowa into non-quarantined areas of other states.

“To help reduce the spread of EAB and other destructive tree-killing pests, Iowans are strongly encouraged to use locally sourced firewood,” according to the press release from the Iowa DNR. “The transport of unknowingly infested firewood is the quickest way to spread EAB to new areas.”

Plaine (Benton County), Alta (Buena Vista County), Charles City (Floyd County), Cresco (Howard County), and rural SW Milo area (Warren County) are the latest areas in Iowa to be confirmed to have EAB , according to the press release.

Charles City has been in the process of removing ash trees for the past three years. Upwards of 150 ash trees have been removed from Charles City prior to the EAB being found.