By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
CASSOPOLIS - Tiny but destructive, emerald ash borers (EAB) are making mincemeat of Michigan's ash trees, prompting new legislation to contain the devastation.
State Sen. Ron Jelinek, R-Three Oaks, testified to that Thursday night.
There have been no positive cases discovered in Cass County yet, but it is no longer possible to buy an ash tree in Michigan.
All sales of ash tree nursery stock have been banned.
Movement of any wood outside of a quarantine area is prohibited.
Girdled "track trees" have been designated in each township near public roadways. The stress encourages insects to "hone in" on those trees.
The insect was first discovered in May 2002 in southeastern Michigan.
Since then, "Millions of ash trees have met their demise," Rajzer informed the Cass County Board of Commissioners Thursday. Rajzer, the Michigan State University Extension consumer horticultural educator, spends Thursdays in Cass County.
She has been instrumental in putting together a Master Gardener program.
She is responsible for a four-county area that also includes Kalamazoo, St. Joseph and Van Buren counties. She is based in Kalamazoo.
Berrien and St. Joseph, the counties on either side of Cass, are dabbed with red on maps as "EAB quarantined outliers." Branch and Calhoun counties are the closest of 20 quarantined counties. Cass and Van Buren counties qualify as "EAB regulated counties." All counties in the Lower Peninsula not under quarantine are considered regulated areas subject to the May 20 revised quarantine.
The insects are not a problem in their native Asia. "Do ash trees over there have resistance?" Rajzer asked. "Are there natural things that keep this insect in check? They did find one parasitic wasp that shows some promise, but you never want to unleash a beast without fully knowing what that means. It could harm other insects as well. (EAB) leave no ash trees behind."
Sen. Jelinek:
out bills with
hefty fines'
Sen. Jelinek said the agricultural policy committee on Thursday passed out a series of bills that will stiffen penalties for moving ash firewood or trees intentionally.
Budgets and the economy are otherwise dominating legislative attention.
Jelinek noted Gov. Jennifer Granholm's $2 billion bond proposal.
Another discussion wants to revamp the Single Business Tax from 1.9 percent to 1.2 percent.
Bonding "means we have to pay it back," Jelinek said. "It would have to be a referendum to put you in debt $1 billion. It would be spent over a period of possibly 10 years. Depending on which way we go, bonds for $2 billion would cost about $140 million a year. You have to put the Senate plan, the governor's plan and the House plan side by side. We have a 150-year moratorium on the state being part owner in businesses. The governor's plan would abolish that and we would start becoming partners in businesses. I'm not sure the state should be in business. There's a concern there.
Jelinek also pronounced Michigan a "business unfriendly state" still.
Commissioner Johnie Rodebush, D-Niles, asked where a bond referendum would fit with Michigan's new election consolidation law, which provides windows of opportunity yet this year in August or November.
Commissioner Jack Teter, R-Edwardsburg, who has a small business in Edwardsburg's industrial park, said he has watched an exodus to Indiana tied to workmen's compensation as well as the Single Business Tax.