Ash borer invades Mahoning Valley, threatens to kill most of Ohio ash trees

By ED RUNYAN

runyan@vindy.com

SOUTHINGTON

Much like Dutch Elm Disease, which wiped out most of Ohio’s elm trees in the 1960s and 1970s, Emerald Ash Borer will kill most of Ohio’s ash trees in the coming years, authorities say.

It has been moving east from Detroit, following busy highways since 2002 and was officially identified in Trumbull County in the spring, said Alan Siewert, an urban forester with the Middlefield office of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

The bug was identified about two years ago in two Mahoning County locations, both near the Ohio Turnpike — on the north side of the turnpike between US Route 224 and Western Reserve Road in Boardman Township and beside the turnpike just southwest of New Middletown in Springfield Township.

The borer travels on vehicles and is dislodged from vehicles at rest stops and in vehicle accidents, Siewert said. Because of the Ohio and Pennsylvania turnpikes, the infestation has traveled nearly as far east as Pittsburgh.

“It will be a great loss for the urban forest,” Siewert said of ash trees, of which there are several varieties in Ohio. “It’s as catastrophic as the loss of the American Elm.”

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.