Emerald ash borer confirmed in county

The presence of the emerald ash borer, an invasive Asian beetle that feeds on and kills ash trees, has been confirmed in Garland, Montgomery and Pike counties, the Arkansas State Plant Board said Tuesday.

Garland County was added to

the emerald ash borer quarantine area in south Arkansas in October. In March, the Arkansas Forestry Commission placed traps for emerald ash borers in trees along the Hot Springs Greenway with help from the Hot Springs Parks & Trails Department, to test whether the insect had invaded Garland County.

Quarantined items, which cannot be transported outside of the quarantine area, include firewood of all hardwood species and the following ash items: nursery stock, green lumber with bark attached, other material that is living, dead, cut or fallen, including logs, pulpwood, stumps, roots, branches, mulch and composted/uncomposted chips (1 inch or greater in size).

Firewood is the only quarantined item that relates to all hardwood. All other quarantined items are relative only to ash, the plant board said in a news release.

An infestation of the emerald ash borer, a beetle a half-inch in size that originated in Asia, usually kills its ash host within two to five years. The first beetle was discovered in the United States in Michigan more than 10 years ago, the release said. Since it was first detected in Arkansas in 2014, the beetle has been confirmed in

17 counties — Bradley, Calhoun, Clark, Cleveland, Columbia, Dallas, Garland, Hempstead, Hot Spring, Lafayette, Montgomery, Nevada, Ouachita, Pike, Randolph, Saline and Union.

The Arkansas State Plant Board works with United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to confirm EAB sites, the release said.

The quarantine was established in September 2014 and expanded to 33 counties in October. The

33-county area included in the quarantine encompasses counties with confirmed EAB sites, as well as buffer counties around those areas. Garland, Montgomery and Pike Counties were already inside the quarantined areas, as three of the buffer counties.

“This change in total confirmed sites of EAB will not affect the size of the current quarantined area, at this time,” the release said.

The goal of the federal quarantine is to limit the spread of the beetle caused by long-distance movement of ash by humans, it said.