The Great Southern Illinois Ash Borer Roadtrip of 2018

The Great Southern Illinois Ash

Borer Roadshow of 2018

It was maybe very nearly the Greatest Show on Earth. Like Barnum and Bailey, each evening, we rolled into the next small town in our caravan of trucks and SUVs. Early the next morning, foggy headed and nervous, we hurried to raised the screen and projector as curious sleepy onlookers gathered. You could feel the town's excitement growing as we rolled in gallon jugs of hot coffee, curious boxes of mysterious contents, dangerous creatures preserved in jars, bizarre and exotic masks. Before registration even opened, people were pressing into the building, eager for the show to begin. Finally, a hush fell over the crowd as the lights went down, and then we proceeded to shock and wow them...

.....with an in depth discussion of the economic calculus that goes into urban forest management in the anticipation of an invasive insect pest! They gasped at the masterful description of the Emerald Ash Borer life cycle, oohed and ahhed over the thrilling explanation of the regulatory framework in place to slow the movement of infested wood products, cheered at the spectacular displays of contractor Request for Proposals. If not the Greatest Show on Earth, it was at least in the top 12.

************

Why, you ask, would anyone embark on such a extravagant traveling show? In a nutshell, this guy:

Public parks enemy #1

The dreaded Emerald Ash Borer, the beetle that has swept across the eastern United States like a wildfire with mandibles, destroying millions of ash trees as it went. But its not this shiny disco- green adult beetle that wreaks so much destruction. No, its these:

Gross EAB larvae. You can see the brown ash wood pulp moving through their digestive tracts. Bleh.

This creepy flattened immature emerald ash borer, the teenaged boy of the insect world, will ravenously devour its favorite food. The larvae wend their way beneath the ash bark, chomping on the vital tissue that transports nutrient and water through out the tree, cutting off the flow. This squirming grub has starved ancient and majestic trees in forests and cities across the country.

EAB was first noticed in Detroit in 2002 and has been around so long its practically old news. The one time ash forests stand dead, the cities with their parks denuded. The quarantine on wood proved hopeless and was mostly abandoned. So why the need to continue to talk to folks about it?

Here's why:

All of those red dots are detections of Emerald Ash Borer, many of them places like Chicago, where the beetle came through long ago and demolished their ash trees. So we headed to those green spaces, blissfully spared this plague thus far, where it's headed next (and is probably already there, we just don't know it yet) to help them prepare. Because you CAN save a good chunk of your trees with treatment-Naperville, for example, has thus far managed to keep 80% of their ash trees!

A lot of the communities in this area are tiny. They have no municipal forester let alone the budget to deal with the incoming tree saving/removal project. Dead ash break and shatter like no other, creating hazard situations for any community. So we needed to prepare them for the inevitable and ensure that they are informed and have a plan for the oncoming...Ashpocalype?...sorry, had to... And thats exactly what we did.

*************

Carbondale, Collinsville, Effingham, Macomb...the towns flashed by and presentations flowed together in my mind. Fueled by Jimmy Johns subs and tiny bags of chips (not recommended as a long-term diet) we travelled across the state. I kicked off the show each day with a talk on the biology and control of the emerald ash borer, and found, to my surprise and delight, a rapt audience (far more so than the community college kids I was teaching fractions to...). I also had to take on my boss's presentations several of the days, and pretend to be an expert on suburban arboriculture. Others spoke about EAB in natural areas, regulations involving firewood movement, working with contractors to remove trees, and just told stories generally about dealing with this plague of insects. The audience asked many questions and all seemed impressed by the quality and informativeness of the show.

Despite sometime small crowds, the Great South Illinois Ash Borer Roadtrip of 2018 was a success. There is no way I would have risked launching a political conversation with any of the folks in attendance, but it was really nice to be able to connect over something we all had a common interest and concern in-trees. We all cared about the preservation of our natural lands and beauty of our city parks. I learned a lot about the forestry and arborist industries, and in turn, got to talk to people about bugs. I enjoyed talking to the folks I encountered and got a better sense for the state of things "Downstate" and with who live there. Our hope is that those attendees will return to their communities with their new information and disseminate in further.

With our job complete, for now, the screen was rolled up, the dangerous insects returned to their cases, and the Roadshow rolled off into the distance.