WORCESTER— The discovery of more trees infested with the Asian longhorned beetle and the unprecedented severity of infestation has officials considering chopping down as many as 20,000 infested and susceptible trees within a 2-square-mile section of the Burncoat and Greendale sections of the city.
After a briefing with area officials at City Hall yesterday, Christine Markham, an official with the U. S. Department of Agriculture, said the recommendation of that agency is to remove the infested trees, as well as the exposed susceptible, or host trees. City officials, however, would like to see removal of any trees not infested done on a case-by-case basis.
“We’re talking about a total of 15,000 to 20,000 trees coming down inclusively of the infested. That’s what we’re considering because what we’re seeing is a checkerboard pattern where there are heavily infested trees in that area with 100-plus exit holes in a tree,” said Ms. Markham, director of the USDA’s National Longhorned Beetle Program. When a tree is over-infested, the beetle will move to another tree.
