The Hartley Sentinel-The Everly/Royal News - Serving O'Brien & Clay Counties

In a day and age where it feels like there’s a new problem every week, it’s hard to care about a bug. Yet, a relatively “new” pest is threatening to create a big headache for small communities like ours.

You may have read about the emerald ash borer (EAB) recently creeping its way into O’Brien and Clay counties. The beetle, native to Asia, came to North America nearly 20 years ago and has wreaked havoc on ash trees throughout the Midwest. The adult beetles aren’t the threat – it’s the larva, which feast on tissue underneath the bark and eventually destroy the tree’s ability to transport water from its roots to the canopy. The process might seem slow, but once the bug arrives, the ending is already written for a community’s ash tree population.

That’s a big problem around these parts. A brief cruise through any local town will uncover several ashes both in the city right-of-way and in residential yards. That’s a costly conundrum and one that will hit municipalities and homeowners square in the pocketbooks – these trees will have to come down eventually.

Some Iowa communities have attempted to get ahead of the problem by forming taskforces and or simply adopting a plan of gradual removal. The latter seems like the evitable outcome here, as most communities and property owners will view the other alternative (annual insecticide applications) as unreasonable. They aren’t cheap, and if the treatments don’t work, then they’ll be out that much more when it’s time to take down the tree.

Right now, ash borer infestations have been confirmed in 89 Iowa counties. In northwest Iowa, Osceola and Dickinson counties are two of the “lucky” 10 remaining on the waiting list, but it’s likely already there awaiting discovery. That necessitates a plan for local cities, natural resource agencies and anyone with an ash tree on their property. It starts with an ash census and then moves to a priority list – the oldest, most decrepit trees go first. Once the dominoes start falling, though, we’ll be left with some gaping holes along our city streets and in our yards.

It’s worth remembering a lesson learned decades ago that saw a similar scenario unfold. Dutch elm disease, a fungus that killed elm trees in a comparable fashion to EAB, decimated community tree populations from sea to shining sea. Many folks planted ash trees in their place, leaving the area just as vulnerable to a one-species die off as before due to a lack of tree diversity. Just like it’s important to plant a variety of plants in your gardens and fields, it’s equally important to plant different kinds of trees. Hopefully we all remember to switch it up once ashes start getting replaced.

If you have a beloved ash tree on your property that you’d hate to see hit the dirt, then it’s worth your time to investigate insecticide treatment options right now. If not, start saving for removal because the day will come. These tiny green bugs promise to lay waste to untold numbers of ash trees in the coming years and cost communities millions of dollars in the process.