The Other Shoe Has Dropped: ALB Found on Staten Island

Posted on 2007-03-28 by admin

Just two weeks ago, USDA APHIS reported that Anoplophora glabripennis, Asian Longhorned Beetle (ALB for short) was found on Prall’s Island, an uninhabited island in the strait between New Jersey and Staten Island, about a mile south of the Goethals Bridge. Yesterday the Parks Department announced that ALB was found on Staten Island six days ago:

The New York City Department of New York Parks & Recreation, New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (NYS DAM), New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC), and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced that the Asian Longhorned beetle (ALB), an insect classified by the USDA as an invasive species and an imminent threat to the United States and New York City’s forest ecosystem, has spread to Staten Island. An infested silver maple tree, located on a private wood lot in Bloomfield, is the first evidence of the beetle found on mainland Staten Island, and was detected on March 22, 2007 by USDA tree climbers. Surveys intensified on Staten Island since the detection of infested trees on nearby Prall’s Island. To date, only one infested tree has been detected on the mainland and survey crews will continue to inspect ALB host trees to determine if any additional trees are infested. Due south, on the 88-acre, uninhabited Prall’s Island which is owned and operated by Parks & Recreation as a bird sanctuary, 37 ALB-infested red maple and gray birch trees have been discovered since March 1, 2007. Not all trees on Prall’s Island have been surveyed.

The ALB-infested tree in Bloomfield sports light damage in the form of ten egg sites in its canopy. When inspected by USDA climbers in May 2006 just prior to flight season, the tree was not infested, leading experts to believe that the tree has been infested for less than a year. USDA surveyors inspected the wood lot following the confirmation of significant infestation on nearby Prall’s Island, which is located in close proximity to ALB-infested areas in New Jersey. Parks continues to work with partner agencies on the federal and state levels to monitor both infested areas of Staten Island for further signs of the beetle, develop strategies to remove infested and potential host trees, and dispose of removed trees in a manner with minimal ecological impacts.

This is really discouraging news.

GAO Report: Invasive Forest Pests, May 2006

Links

Parks’ ALB Home Page
New York DEC ALB page
USDA APHIS ALB Newsroom
University of Vermont ALB Reference

News: $1,100 to plant a tree in NYC

Posted on 2007-03-28 by admin

A former parks commissioner [Henry Stern] says the city is paying more money than it should [$1100] for each tree.

The high cost can be attributed in large part to an increase in labor costs, which date to a 2003 decision by the city comptroller, William Thompson, to raise the pay of tree planters more than threefold. Today, tree planters make about $55 an hour, up from the $15 hourly wage they were paid before the change. Prior to that decision, the price of planting a tree was about $700.
…
During the first three fiscal years of this decade, the parks department planted between 10,000 and 13,000 saplings each year along city streets, according to the parks department. By contrast, during fiscal year 2006, the department planted 7,200 saplings.

…
one contractor, Angelo DeBartoli, said a second change in the contracts contributes to the high price of planting a tree in New York City. A new rule requires contractors to replant trees that are felled by vandalism within two years of their planting, he said in a telephone interview. Mr. DeBartoli, the owner of Robert Bello Landscaping, said it was “insane” that contractors had to guarantee the trees against vandalism once the plantings were finished.
…
The decision to raise the wages came as the comptroller’s office reclassified the job of planting trees to labor from gardening.

But that classification is in question today, as it was when it was made.

“We got lumped into the laborer category, but we’re landscapers,” Mr. DeBartoli said. “We don’t come out with cranes and all kinds of fancy equipment. We come out and dig a hole and plant a tree and put stones around it.”

The trees, which are about 8 feet tall, often weigh 400 pounds. While heavy labor is a part of the job, it is only a small part of it, he said.

Mr. DeBartoli, whose landscaping firm plants some 2,000 saplings annually for the city, said he and 10 other contractors have formed an association and intend to ask Mr. Thompson to change the wages they must pay their work crews.

News, August 1, 2006: NASA Earth Observatory Maps NYC’s Heat Island, Block by Block

Posted on 2006-08-01 by admin

Timely enough, given the record temperatures we’re experiencing this week. Tomorrow’s forecast has been “upgraded” from what I reported yesterday: the THI may reach 117F tomorrow.

Temperatures in New York City as measured by Landsat on August 14, 2002, at 10:30am, during a heat wave. Cooler temperatures are blue, hotter are yellow.
Source: NASA Earth Observatory. Map by Robert Simmon, using data from the Landsat Program.

The ability of vegetation to moderate urban temperatures is graphically demonstrated in these paired images from NASA’s Earth Observatory. The spatial resolution of these images is 60 meters per pixel. At that scale, I can just about make out the block where I garden:

Closeup of the vegetation map, centered on central Brooklyn. The green area at the left is Greenwood Cemetery. Prospect Park is the dark green area at the top; the white area within it is Prospect Lake.

Below the park, to the south, Victorian Flatbush, with its tree-lined streets, detached wood frame houses, and front lawns, spreads out as a series of olive green areas. The beige areas in-between the olive are rowhouses and apartment buildings. You can even make out a curving green line across the southern end of this area: That’s the old LIRR right-of-way, long abandoned, and overgrown with trees.

NASA has just published a report on urban heat islands highlighting the research of Stuart Gaffin, an associate research scientist with the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City, and his colleagues:

In the summer of 2002, Gaffin and his colleagues used satellite temperature data, city-wide land cover maps, and weather data, along with a regional climate model to identify the best strategies for cooling the city. The team estimated how much cooling the city could achieve by planting trees, replacing dark surfaces with lighter ones, and installing vegetation-covered “green roofs.”
The team studied the city as a whole, as well as six “hotspot” areas—including parts of Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn—where air temperatures near the ground were higher than the city-wide average. Each area was serviced by Con Edison, the local power company, so the scientists could compare electricity use. Each area also had available space so that the mitigation strategies the team considered could be modeled in the study and potentially implemented later on.
August 14 fell on one of the hottest heat wave days in New York’s summer of 2002, making it a good day to take the city’s temperature. Measuring the temperature of every last sidewalk, street, parking lot, roof, garden, and grassy area in an entire city isn’t easily done from the ground, so the researchers relied on NASA to take the city’s temperature from the sky. NASA’s Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper collected thermal infrared satellite data. …
– Beating the Heat in the World’s Big Cities

Urban Forestry

GAO Testimony, June 21, 2006: Invasive Forest Pests

Posted on 2006-06-28 by admin

On April 21, 2006, Daniel Bertoni, Acting Director, Natural Resources and Environment, Government Accounting Office (GAO), provided testimony before the House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health. His testimony follows two recent GAO Reports on this topic:

It’s sort of a good news (little), bad news (more), report.

First, there’s some hopeful news regarding Anoplophora glabripennis, the Asian longhorned beetle, or “ALB”:

On the basis of the available evidence, it appears that the Asian longhorned beetle will be eradicated in the three states that have infestations, although funding reductions have extended the likely completion date. …

The “three states that have infestations” are New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. However, ALB has been detected near ports of entry throughout the United States, including Florida, Texas, California and Washington states.

Not so good news on EAB and Sudden Oak Death:

… In contrast, the emerald ash borer and P. ramorum–the pathogen that causes Sudden Oak Death–are likely to continue to infest and damage forest ecosystems in the Midwest and on the West Coast, despite efforts to control them. …

And some observations on how things got so bad:

… We identified areas of vulnerability that we believe increase the risk of future forest pest infestations. Specifically, we found that despite efforts to expand USDA’s forest health monitoring programs, they do not adequately provide for comprehensive monitoring in urban forests or other locations considered at high risk from pest invasions. Monitoring in such areas is important because they are common destination points for internationally traded cargo, which is a frequent pathway for pests. Improvements could help prevent situations such as those experienced with the Asian longhorned beetle, the emerald ash borer, and P. ramorum, in which years of delay in detection allowed them to become established before control programs began. In our report on port inspections, we found that DHS has not used a risk-based staffing model to assign newly hired agricultural specialists to ports of entry. As a result, DHS does not have assurance that staff are assigned to areas of greatest vulnerability. …

Resources, Links, and References:

Invasive Forest Pests: Recent Infestations and Continued Vulnerabilities at Ports of Entry Place U.S. Forests at Risk, GAO-06-871T, June 21, 2006. All quotes above are from the Abstract.
Asian Longhorned Beetle at the University of Vermont is comprehensive and accessible. Their identification page, with comparative photos of ALB and similar and easily confused species, is excellent.

Technorati tags: Anoplophora glabripennis, Asian longhorned beetle

GAO Report, April 24, 2006: Invasive Forest Pests

Posted on 2006-05-27 by admin

GAO just released a report on the status of efforts to eradicate Anoplophora glabripennis, the Asian longhorned beetle, or “ALB” for short:

Invasive forest pests have seriously harmed our environment and imposed significant costs upon our economy. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the lead agency for responding to forest pests. This report evaluates the federal response to three invasive forest pests–the Asian longhorned beetle [Anoplophora glabripennis], the emerald ash borer, and the pathogen Phytophthora ramorum (P. ramorum) [Sudden Oak Death]. Specifically, GAO describes (1) the status of efforts to eradicate these species, (2) the factors affecting the success of those efforts, (3) overall forest health monitoring programs, (4) coordination and communication of the three pest response efforts, and (5) USDA’s use of panels of scientific experts to aid in the response efforts.

Invasive Forest Pests: Lessons Learned from Three Recent Infestations May Aid in Managing Future Efforts, GAO-06-353, April 21, 2006
http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/abstract.php?rptno=GAO-06-353

In August 1996, the first ALB in the United States was discoved in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I garden just a few blocks south of Prospect Park and the NYC ALB quarantine zone. To learn how to identify ALB, and NYC’s efforts, visit the NYC Parks ALB Home Page.

Flatbush Gardener

Urban Habitat Gardening with Native Plants

Tag Archives: Urban Forestry