By Kathianne Boniello
They came Friday with saws and woodchippers, and one by one most of the trees lining a municipal parking lot in Bayside were cut down, marking the latest casualties in the federal government’s ever-growing battle against the Asian Longhorned Beetle.
Since its first appearance in Queens in Sunnyside in 1997, the Asian Longhorned Beetle has infected thousands of trees throughout the borough and the metropolitan region and forced the U.S. Department of Agriculture to employ new strategies to slow the insect’s progression. The beetle made its U.S. debut in Greenpoint over the border before spreading to western Queens.
This spring USDA Project Manager Joe Gittleman said the agency treated about 7,600 trees in Queens with a pesticide, imidacloprid, in an attempt to curb the beetle’s destructive pace.
Because the expensive treatments are only effective against adult beetles, Gittleman said, any trees already infected by Asian Beetle larvae when they were injected with the pesticide would still be victims of the bug.
So even though about 2,400 trees in Bayside were injected with imidacloprid in the early spring, Gittleman said, the state workers who now handle the tree removals were forced to come into the community last week anyway.
Gittleman said the trees lining the municipal parking lot at 41st Avenue and 214th Place had already been identified as being infected by the Asian Longhorned Beetle but were removed primarily because of safety reasons.
“It was for the safety of the inspectors,” he said. “The trees are at an angle, hanging over the Long Island Rail Road tracks. It’s like trying to work on the edge of a funnel — one slip and you’d end up at the bottom.”
It was unclear as of presstime Tuesday exactly how many trees were cut down in Bayside last week.
Native to China, the Asian Longhorned Beetle was first found in separate infestations in Sunnyside and Ridgewood in 1997. in Bayside in February 1999 and Flushing in August 1999.
Asian Longhorned Beetles infect trees by burrowing into the trunks, laying eggs and tunneling back out, leaving holes that prevent the trees from photosynthesizing and eventually kill the plants.
The only way to keep the beetles, which fly or get blown from tree to tree, from spreading is to chop the tree down and remove its trunk. Tree remains are then chipped twice and burned.
Last month Gittleman said USDA workers treated roughly 7,600 trees in Bayside, Flushing, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Astoria, Long Island City and other sections of western Queens along the East River with imidacloprid.
“It’s a single tool, and not one single tool is going to eradicate this,” Gittleman said of the pesticide.
He said the USDA would like to expand the number of tree injections of imidacloprid next spring, but no more treatments could be carried out in 2001.
“It has to be done early in the spring, prior to the beetle’s emergence,” he said. “It has to have time to get into the leaves and branches.”
The Chinese government is conducting further experiments on the effectiveness of imidacloprid on the beetles.
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
