The Michigan situation
Updated January 26, 2007

May 27, 2005

MDA returns to Harsens Island to cut ash trees

May 26, 2005

Horvaths in full Compliance with MDA Order and trees remain

May 5, 2005

"The Emerald Ash Borer on Harsens Island"

(Click title above to read 950 KB pdf file of article. For dial up users this may take a couple minutes.)

by Dr. David L. Roberts, Ph. D

Michigan State University Extension

The following article Posted Sunday, January 29, 2006

(Updated with Italics text

Tuesday January 31, 2006, following the meeting)

MDA TO CUT HEALTHY ASH TREES IN CHEBOYGAN

The MDA is up to their old tricks again. This time in Cheboygan. The MDA has a meeting scheduled for Monday January 30, 2006 at 6:30 PM at the Cheboygan Area High School to tell residents that their trees will be removed soon (probably starting the next day, if they are still working the way they did a year ago at the Harsens Island meeting). (Yes, they said they would start cutting Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2006)

They probably won't tell residents about the appeal process which is stated right in the laws they will be talking about, the same process which allowed John Horvath to keep all of his 72 trees untouched by the MDA. (They did not talk about the laws at all, as they had at meetings prior to us pointing out the invalidity of those laws. When asked to explain the appeal process they said they don't know which laws apply to this situation and they don't know about the appeal process.)

They will probably tell residents about the money they will get for their destroyed landscape trees. They probably won't tell them that last January they told that to Harsens Island residents and to this day nobody has seen the first dime of that money. (They told the people at the meeting that there was up to $20,000 available for the community to replace trees and further, that those monies were only to be used for the purchase of materials and were not to be used for any labor costs. They had mentioned earlier in the meeting that this cut would take down 4300 trees. My calculations show that that gives Cheboygan $4.65 per tree being destroyed. I am wondering how much restoration they will be able to do with $4.65 per tree)

They probably will tell residents that the contractors will clean up after themselves. They probably won't tell residents about the mess that contractors left in their cut in Marine City. (This subject was never brought up at the meeting.)

They may tell residents that there is no effective treatment against the EAB but they probably won't tell them that the Director of the MDA specifically ordered John Horvath to treat his trees with an Arborjet product which was found 100% effective in an EMSU study in Troy, Michigan back in 2004.

They probably will tell residents that this Cheboygan cut is necessary to stop the spread of the EAB into the UP. They may or may not tell them that the EAB has already been found in the UP and that their experts tell us that the EAB cannot fly across a body of water as wide as the Straights of Mackinaw. (This is exactly what happened. In face, though they claimed that there is still no affective treatment, they also said that they are going to be treating some trees to kill EAB which may be in the area, and then they are going to destroy those trees)

The MDA might not tell residents of Cheboygan that Michigan has already lost the battle against the EAB and that this cut is just a political move to wrap up loose ends in last year's budget and contracts promised to tree cutters. According to an article in the Detroit Free Press last week the MDA applied to the Federal Government for $25 million for 2006 to fight the EAB. They were approved for $1.23 million. (Yes, that's right, just over One Million Dollars; you can't do much with that.) The Feds know that it is too late for the MDA to save Michigan's ash tree population. You can bet that with less than 5% of what they asked for from the Feds they are going to be keeping that $1.23 million in-house for staff instead of spending it on more tree cutting contractors. The Cheboygan residents' trees are being sacrificed to tie up loose ends at the end of a lost battle.

The MDA's actions have been swift and 100% affective at killing the ash trees on which they set their sights. Think back to the Dutch elm disease. That was another battle lost by the government. However, we still have Elm trees. Nature sometimes wins our war for us despite all of our foolish actions.

If the State wants to beat this bug they should be using those dollars to educate the people about what can be done to save individual ash trees rather than wasting the money killing the trees. They should be using the money to treat the trees with EAB killing insecticides and doing more research.

(One new development in their cut, chip and burn procedure is that they are going to leave some of the smaller trees, treat them with pesticide and girdle them to attract EAB. They will then come back in the fall to destroy those trees. This change in procedure was apparently proposed by the National Science Advisory Panel last month. We couldn't help but notice that it took them nine months to figure out that our recommendation published here last March was not such a bad idea. Our suggestion was to treat them and leave them as traps for the EAB, but, not to girdle and destroy them later. How much longer will it take them to figure out that this is the right thing to do? For reference see We think treating ash trees will do more to stop the EAB than cutting them down. )

The MDA will not stop this bug or save Michigan's ash trees by destroying Michigan's healthy ash trees. This war will only be won by saving trees one tree at a time from destruction by EAB and the MDA.