"A recovery takes root; As Boston tries to curb Asian longhorned beetle outbreak, Worcester works to rebound from a devastating infestation"by Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff | July 11, 2010
WORCESTER — Worcester’s experience is instructive as Boston for the first time confronts an Asian longhorned beetle infestation. Groundskeepers at Faulkner Hospital in Jamaica Plain recently found six infested trees; they were cut down last Tuesday, and inspectors are now examining the neighborhood tree-by-tree.
But the situation in Worcester was far more dire than it appears to be in Boston thus far. In Worcester, the infestation had already spread extensively when it was first discovered. In Boston, by contrast, there is no evidence to date that the beetles have spread beyond the six trees in the Faulkner’s front yard.
Nearly two years after the pesky beetle was found in a backyard tree in Burncoat, Worcester is still trying to recover. Even while saplings are replacing trees that were cut down and potential host trees are treated with insecticides, more beetles have been found, and the scope of the possible infestation area has reached 74 square miles, or 850,000 trees.
To date, more than 27,000 trees have been cut down, either because they were infested or were considered host trees that posed a likelihood of getting infested....
Burncoat residents believe — without proof — that the tree eradication has led to more power outages, has made hot days feel hotter because of the lack of shade, and has made the neighborhood noisier. Even houses have to be painted more often, because of the wear from all the direct sun....
That is a fine thing for a lying, agenda-pushing piece of propaganda to say.
The source of the infestation in Worcester has never been identified, but local speculation is that the beetles arrived at a Worcester manufacturing plant on wooden pallets from China.
Their arrival in Boston raises a host of new questions, said Colin Novick, executive director of the Greater Worcester Land Trust. Officials will try to determine if the beetle spread from Worcester or is a new, unrelated infestation.
The beetle has already prompted tree removal in Chicago, Brooklyn, and New Jersey. But its arrival in New England creates potential new problems because of the beetle’s ability to spread quickly among the region’s densely wooded areas.
Worcester was a prime target for the beetle’s infestation because in the years after a tornado ravaged the city a half century ago, the new tree of choice was the Norway maple — now the prime breeding ground for the beetle. Worcester neighborhoods such as Burncoat and Greendale were hard-hit because they were made up mostly of maple trees.
Worcester City Manager Michael V. O’Brien said there was tension between regulators who say they are obligated to remove trees quickly to stop the spread of the beetle and residents who want to preserve as many as they can.
“It’s been a tough two years, no question, and the entire process has been heartbreaking,’’ O’Brien said. “There’s a community at stake, and there’s a quality of life at stake.’’
Yours is dropping by the second, fellow citizens.
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