Invasive Ash Borer Decimating Trees Locally And In State

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It could get very scary walking through the city’s parks and woodlands, a feeling that has nothing to do with clowns or next week’s boo-fest, and everything to do with tiny bugs that have killed thousands of ash trees.

The emerald ash borer, an Asian invasive that arrived in Pennsylvania in 2007 and has spread across the state, has decimated most of the 180,000 ash trees in the city’s parks and they should begin to fall soon, said Phil Gruszka, director of parks management and maintenance policies for the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.

“It’s as bad as what we predicted it would be several years ago,” Mr. Gruszka said Tuesday in Riverview Park, “and the dead trees are going to start coming down as their root systems rot away.”

To be clear, no ash have fallen and injured anyone in the city, and conservancy and city parks and forestry crews have worked to minimize the risk by identifying and cutting down dead and dying ash along trails and roads and in city neighborhoods... Read the full article