Scott Liudahl is Fargo’s City Forester. And he says… the inevitable has finally happened.
"Once it was confirmed in Moorhead, we knew this was going to happen. It was just a matter of when. It wasn't a matter of if - it was a matter of when."
He’s talking about the Emerald Ash Borer, a beetle originally from Asia first detected in the US all the way back in 2002. It has since spread to 37 states, and was detected in Moorhead in 2023. It has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees – and North Dakota, with over 90 million of its own ash trees – is now even more vulnerable.
But Liudahl says forestry experts knew this day would eventually come, and so they’ve been preparing by diversifying the tree population. He says there are strategies and treatments available, but eventually the infestation becomes prolific.
"The thing about Emerald Ash Borer is, once it gets established, you don't really know about it for the first couple years until you first start seeing signs and symptoms of it, and by that time - if they've already had a generation, and moved to other locations - that number is slowly starting to increase, and in the next five, ten, fifteen years, really exponentially explode if there isn't some strategies in place to manage the spread."
Liudahl says the beetle is unable to move far on its own – and is primarily spread through traveling firewood. He says using local firewood is best.
