Funding limits ability to stop beetles' spread

No pesticides have been effective against the borer.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Without more federal money, state agriculture officials say they will be forced to limit the battle against a beetle that kills ash trees to where it has advanced the farthest, allowing the pest to breed in the heavily infested Toledo area.
Gov. Bob Taft has asked the federal government for at least $50 million to fight the emerald ash borer in Ohio next year, but Congress so far has approved only $10 million to be shared by Ohio, Michigan and Indiana.
Without more money, the state would try to stop the beetle's spread at the eastern and southern edges of the infestation.
The state would concentrate on the ash borer in Delaware, Auglaize, Erie and Lorain counties and try to push it back toward the Toledo area and eventually into Michigan, said Melissa Brewer, a spokeswoman with the Agriculture Department.
"Those are the high-priority sites," Brewer said. "When we will get back into the Lucas County area depends on funding and time."
"At this point, our intentions are to get back in Toledo when funding allows," she said.
The bug already has destroyed millions of trees in Michigan and is now marching into Ohio and northeast Indiana.
It has been found at more than 100 sites in Toledo and Lucas County. Crews this past summer cut down hundreds of trees in the downtown area and suburban neighborhoods only to find the beetle already had moved farther outside the area.
Too late?
It might be too late to save the thousands of ash trees in Toledo and its suburbs.
"Next summer is going to be an eye-opener," said Craig Schaar, a Toledo city forester. "The general public is really going to notice what's going on and they're going to say, 'Oh, my goodness.'"
Amy Stone, an Ohio State University extension educator in Toledo, said they will be teaching property owners to identify infested trees and encouraging them to destroy the trees on their own.
No pesticides have been effective against the ash borer and the state so far has resorted to cutting down, mulching and burning every ash tree within a half-mile radius of an infestation to stop the beetle from spreading.
The ash pest was first found in Michigan three years ago and has killed or infested 15 million trees in the state. In Ohio, about 200,000 ash trees have been destroyed, most chopped by crews trying to slow the beetle's spread.
The borer, a tiny, green beetle that's smaller than a penny, lays eggs within ash wood. The larvae eat through the trees' circulatory systems, depriving them of water.