Sudden Oak Death is Here to Stay

Ten years ago, dead tanoak trees were spotted during an aerial survey in the woods north of Brookings, Oregon. Sudden oak death (SOD), an invasive plant disease, had killed them. Immediately, four agencies (Oregon Department of Forestry, Oregon Department of Agriculture, US Forest Service, and Oregon State University) combined forces in an attempt to eradicate the infestation. For the past decade, they have tried everything they could think of, including cutting and burning hundreds of acres of trees, to stomp out the disease. This week they admitted defeat. Sudden oak death is here to stay.

Oregon’s SOD Task Force deserves huge credit for trying. It was a huge challenge and a courageous effort in a very remote area. Complicating matters from the start, this disease was new to science, and practically nothing was known about how it spread or how to control it. We know a lot more now. Too bad we can’t turn back the clock and try again. Oregon’s SOD busters are an outstanding team: Alan Kanaskie and Stacy Savona (Oregon Dept. of Forestry), Nancy Osterbauer (Oregon Dept. of Agriculture), Ellen Goheen (U.S. Forest Service), and Everett Hanson (Oregon State University). Thank you, it was a valiant effort, we salute you for dedicating a large part of your career to keeping keep SOD out of Oregon for as long as possible. Even though eradication didn’t work, your efforts kept the disease bottled up in a small area for 10 years. You bought us time. No one else anywhere in the world has ever eradicated a plant disease from a forest either. It was worth a try.

What happens now?  The Task Force met this week to discuss options. Unfortunately, there aren’t many good ones, especially given current budget realities.

Five options were discussed:

1.)    Continue the eradication treatments until the money runs out, then stop.

2.)    End the program entirely.

3.)    Treat only outlier sites to slow disease spread.

4.)    Create a host-free zone in an attempt to stop disease spread and continue to treat outliers outside the zone.

5.)    Treat with Agrifos (a phosphonate chemical that boosts tree immunity) to protect trees.

Option one would be like driving over a cliff. Number two would be the equivalent of giving up because it is hard. Options four and five would each cost millions of dollars that we don’t have with no guarantee of success. SOD jumped a host-free zone in Humbolt County, California recently. Wide-area treatment with Agrifos is being tried in Australia on a related disease. Here it would trigger an Environmental Impact Statement (a process that takes years) because federal land would be involved, and it can’t be sprayed over streams, making it impractical. That leaves option three: slow the spread by treating the outliers.

Sudden oak death, like a lot of diseases, doesn’t spread evenly along a continuous front. Spores blow in the wind like cinders coming out of a campfire. Every now and then those sparks start new infestations out in front of the generally-infested area. Stomping them out won’t stop the disease, but it should slow the overall rate of spread. Once again Oregon would be pioneering something that no one has ever tried.

Here is the recommendation from the Task Force:

1.)  Finish up all work-in-progress as of January 2010.

2.)  In the future treat only outlier sites on private land, and treat all sites on federal lands. Sites in the generally-infested core area would no longer be cut or burned by the State.

3.)  Landowners within the generally-infested core area would be encouraged to cut and burn infected and nearby tanoak (or other hosts) with possible assistance through a 50:50 cost share program with the Oregon Department of Forestry if funds are available. Landowner expenses to treat infested sites would qualify as non-federal matching dollars, freeing up US Forest Service money to support detection surveys, technical assistance to landowners, and treatment of high-priority outlier infestations.

4.)  Highest-priority outlier sites (furthest from the core) would be treated first. If resources allow, additional outlier sites could be treated working from the outside in.

5.)  Quarantine requirements should change. Cutting and burning in the generally-infested area would no longer be required, just encouraged. The quarantine boundary would be expanded as necessary if/when the disease spreads beyond the current line.

This is a big change, and right or wrong we’ll all have to live with the consequences. Before any of this happens, the Department wants to gather input from interested parties. The SOD Core Group, a loose network of stakeholders, will be briefed at their next meeting on Feb. 18 in Salem. A public information meeting will follow in Brookings, tentatively on March 2. Changes to the quarantine would trigger additional meetings. If you have thoughts, ideas, or comments, now is a good time to share them. I monitor comments to this blog, or you can send me an email at: dhilburn@oda.state.or.us. What do you think of this proposal?  Do you have a better idea?

Dan Hilburn

The Down Side of Honesty

Should the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) report finding a new invasive pest if the insect was only a hitchhiker and the record could be a black mark against Oregon exports? We’ve faced this dilemma before, and we’re facing it again right now. Here is the background.

One of our entomologists (Richard Worth) has been working through a backlog of delta trap inserts from last summer. Recently he found a suspect light brown apple moth (LBAM) from a trap in Polk County. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) conducted its own analysis of the moth and has confirmed it as LBAM, Epiphyas postvittana, an invasive species on Oregon’s 100 Worst Invaders List. The moth is a single specimen trapped in one of two traps set at a nursery. The nursery imports plants from California where LBAM is established. No other LBAMs were trapped in any of the other 1,062 LBAM traps placed in Oregon in 2010, nor were any caught here in 2008 or 2009. All the evidence points to a hitchhiker (a.k.a. “a regulatory incident”) rather than an established population.

Oregon and all the other states enter pest survey results into a national database each year. The National Agricultural Pest Information System (NAPIS) is an old system, but it very useful for tracking the distribution of invasive agricultural pests. We consult it regularly. So do regulatory officials from around the world. If someone in their country wants to import Oregon products, they’ll probably check NAPIS to see if we have any pests of concern to them.

We briefly considered sweeping this incident under the rug and not entering it in NAPIS. This has been done before by other states, however it rarely goes unnoticed for long, and their reputation suffers. Not reporting survey records is like hiding a bad report card from your parents. It might avoid some short-term unpleasantness, but chances are you’ll get in bigger trouble later. Our experience with trading partners is similar. We’ve found it is better to be honest and hope the extra points we get for being a good trading partner offsets any potential hesitation caused by a single pest record.

There is a risk here. Single records can become immortal. A good example is mile-a-minute, Polygonum perfoliatum, a fast-growing vine with thorns. It is also known as Asiatic tearthumb – you can guess the reason why. The first record from the United States came from Portland, Oregon in the 1890s. It is believed to have arrived in dirt used as ship ballast. To my knowledge, this plant hasn’t been seen since, though you’ll still see maps indicating mile-a-minute is found in Oregon!*

ODA is working on a carefully worded press release to break the news about LBAM being trapped here. Cross your fingers that it doesn’t ignite a storm of regulatory action against our commodities. If anyone asks, please relay that it was just a hitchhiker, and ODA is planning to put out lots of traps next year to prove it. And, if you know of any mile-a-minute in Oregon, please report it (1-866-INVADER or oregoninvasiveshotline.com). We’d like to erase that black mark, too, though the fact that it was once found here is interesting and shouldn’t be buried.

*Invasive Plants, Changing the Landscape of America. Federal Interagency Committee for the Management of Noxious and Exotic Weeds. 1998. Washington, D.C.

A Letter to Santa from the State of Oregon

Dear Santa,

I’m sure you’re surprised to receive this letter from me. I know you are awfully busy this time of year. There are a lot of people that are hurting and who could use your help more than ever. I have been blessed with many gifts already, so it is with considerable reluctance that I write to you.

I wouldn’t bother you at all except that I’m worried. I’m worried that tiny insects, mussels, and seeds will travel here unnoticed as hitchhikers in all the hustle and bustle. Trade and travel is so common, so fast, and so global in this modern age that non-native species arrive at an astonishing pace.

Just this week live minute pirate bugs were found in Portland associated with a shipment of computer parts from Asia. No doubt they were hitchhiking on the wooden packing material. Pallets and crates are often made out of low-quality, insect-infested wood. Minute pirate bugs are predators of other tiny insects. They are unlikely to become pests, however, their arrival and subsequent release into the environment is an example how easy it is for hitchhiking plants and animals to move around the world. I’m worried that people aren’t aware or don’t care enough to change their behavior to leave the hitchhikers behind.

Could you please reward people that clean the mud off their boots and vehicles? Something special for fishers that take the time to clean their boats between launches and never release non-native baitfish would be nice. A new pair of waders without felt soles would be appropriate. Extra goodies are in order for people who buy and burn local firewood and for nurserymen and women who don’t import nursery stock.

People that release pets and aquarium fish into the environment deserve a lump of coal. Ditto for travelers that smuggle fruits, vegetables, plants, animals, and other contraband. Maybe a reminder from you that these actions guarantee their place on your naughty list would reinforce how harmful this can be.

Please reward the teachers and students who are learning about our environment and how to keep it clean and healthy. Anyone that reports a sighting of a potential new invader deserves a big thank you. Don’t forget the inspectors and state and federal employees that work hard to protect my environment from gypsy moths, quagga mussels, Patterson’s curse and other weeds and pests. They don’t get a lot of credit and their budgets are being cut at the same time the invasive species threats are on the rise.

Santa, on second thought, you’ve got your hands full making children happy this Christmas. That’s enough. The good news for me is that people are creating these problems with invasive species and people can fix them. My people are the best and they’ll do the right thing if they know what it is. Thanks for helping me get the word out, thanks for all the gifts and goodies, and . . . Oh, one more thing, clean your boots and reindeer hooves before you land. Merry Christmas!

Sincerely,

State of Oregon
Submitted by Dan Hilburn