Fed funding to help fill Ohio woods ruined by bug

COLUMBUS (AP) — The federal government has agreed to provide $168,000 to replenish two Ohio parks hit particularly hard by a beetle that kills ash trees.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant will buy about 660 sycamore, red maple and other replacement trees for Maumee Bay and Mary Jane Thurston state parks in northwest Ohio.

Ohio officials say the parks lost hundreds of ash trees to the emerald ash borer, which is threatening forests statewide. Maumee Bay forest manager Don Schmenk tells The Columbus Dispatch whole sections of the woods’ upper canopy are thinned or dead or just gone.

The state recently expanded its ash borer quarantine area to all 88 Ohio counties, making it a crime to remove ash trees, ash materials, or hardwood firewood.