The latest reports are out on the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) eradication of the Asian longhorn beetle. The numbers are staggering, and those of you living in neighboring counties to those mentioned -- or neighboring states -- might want to take a long hard look at the numbers before you decide that it's not really anything you need to worry about.
New York, 1st detection in August 1996. They found 6,275 infested trees. They have removed 18,467 trees. That is roughly three times the amount that were 'sick'.
New Jersey. Since October 2002. 729 infested, 21,981 trees removed. This is 30 -- yes, 30 times the number of injured trees.
Massachusetts, August 2008. 22,264 infested, 31,925 removed.
Ohio June 2011. 9091 infested trees, 8809 removed.
The good people in Bethel, the most affected area in Ohio, are fighting to save their trees. They acknowledge the need for infested trees to be removed, but are objecting to the destruction of the healthy. For most tree owners, they would porefer to have the trees vaccinated.
Yes, that can be done.
It is even less expensive than tree cutters, and chippers, and mulchers, and cherry pickers and earth movers and fuel for machinery (checked the prices on the fuel lately? -- bet you have.)
I want you, wherever you are, to go out in your backyard, or to your closest, favorite public park.
Look around.
Pick a tree, any tree, since this is an exercise in imagination.
The tree you have selected is sick. It has a bug. This bug is not airborne (as they say about viruses). But the tree is sick.
Say "Good-bye, favorite tree."
Now look around and see the other trees.
See the three closest trees.
Say "good bye" to them.
They must be assassinated because their neighbor was sick.
But wait, the neighboring trees have neighbors too. Pick any number, 3 or 30 or any other number, of the neighboring trees' neighbors.
Say "good bye" to them, too. They are neighbors of the neighbors of the sick tree, so they, too, must die.
Now, look around your back yard, or your park.
Are there any trees left?
Is there any shade left in your yard?
Are there any windbreaks left around your house?
What will hold the soil in your yard when the snow melts or the rains pound down?
My friends, this can happen to you. Yes, you may live far away -- but with the likes of Superstorm Sandy, (and the USDA wasted no time laying down the law in New Jersey afterwards,) is anywhere far enough away? Yes, you may not have the specific species of bugs that are eating these species of trees.
But you DO have a government agency that says it can come in and remove and confiscate your personal property (trees) because they can.
Infested trees need to be removed. No one is arguing with that. And the government has every right to take those down at its expense for the public good.
But they are claiming the right to take down all the trees that might become bug-sick. Not just likely, but "maybe perhaps someday might."
If they are allowed to do that here, in the heart of Ohio, in the nation's scenic heart, why do you think they will stop when they get to your back yard? They will be able to point to New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Ohio as having established "THE" precedent.
Goodbye backyard.
Goodbye parks.
Goodbye trees.
Help the Bethel ALB group stop this trampling of property rights.
Before it becomes your rights that are lost.
http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=d9ab319101533a13ab1c45685&id=587ea78b12
