Grant Funding Awarded To Mitigate Southern Pine Beetle Damage

EAST HAMPTON, NY — Grants have been awarded to help areas on the East End hit hard by Southern pine beetle damage.

According to New York State Assemblyman Fred Thiele, the grants, provided through New York's Environmental Protection Fund, will address a number of issues, including helping communities address safety issues associated with dead trees, cutting infested trees to reduce beetle populations, and replanting native Pine Barrens species in impacted areas.

All of those efforts, he said, will help protect and restore the Central Pine Barrens, which is vital to protecting water quality, wildlife habitat, endangered species and recreational opportunities.

East Hampton Town will receive $64,000 for open space SPB management, Thiele said in release, while Southampton Town will receive $28,050 for the removal of hazard trees at Good Ground Park and Foster Avenue Park in Hampton Bays.

"We're gratified to see that this money is returning to the local level to solve this problem in East Hampton and Southampton," Thiele said. He said he worked with Assemblyman Steve Englebright to ensure that adequate state funding was provided in the state budget for Southern pine beetle management.

"The invasion of the Southern pine beetle represents a significant threat to one of the state's most important ecosystems: the Central Pine Barrens," Thiele added. "We have worked for decades to acquire more than 50,000 acres of Central Pine Barrens on eastern Long Island. The health of this resource is critical for our water supply and our rural character."

The invasive SPB pest has killed thousands of pine trees on Long Island since it was first discovered in 2014, he said.

A state of emergency was declared in October in East Hampton Town due to an infestation of the bugs, former Supervisor Larry Cantwell said.

Cantwell said the emergency was declared in an effort to combat and manage the outbreak in a section of Northwest Woods.

As of November, according to Cantwell, 7,000 trees were infested; approximately 3,500 had been cut at the time, with another 3,500 to go. The area affected encompassed about 300 acres, the supervisor added.

Cantwell added that if the number of affected trees did not grow, the town hoped to be done razing the 3,500 trees in about a month.

The town utilized two private contractors, including its own staff of two, to cut the trees on both public and private property. "We are cutting trees with owners' permission on private property but we are not removing them — that's the owners' responsibility," Cantwell said.

As of November, the town had spent $100,000 and the likelihood was that the number could double, with approximately another $100,000 needed moving forward, the supervisor said.

The infestation has dealt a heavy blow to the town, Cantwell said.

"When you go to the properties and look at the felled trees and the event of the damage, it's devastating," the supervisor said.

"The threat of tree loss from pine beetle infestation of pitch pine forests is great where an outbreak spreads rapidly during certain times of the year," Cantwell added. "The adult beetle tunnels through the tree underneath the bark, killing the tree in two to four months."

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation explained that Southern pine beetles, or SPBs, are a bark beetle that infests pine trees. The beetle is small, only 2 to 4 mm in length, about the size of a grain of rice, and is red-brown to black in color.

The Town of East Hampton declared the emergency given the outbreak, as well as due to the threat of the outbreak spreading further, Cantwell said.

The Southern pine beetle infestation is present on both public and private properties, he said.

If a property owner suspects that pitch pines located on their property are infested, they should contact the town's land management department arrange for a site visit to help determine whether the pine beetle is present, as well as the extent of any infestation, Cantwell said.

Land management, along with New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, will also help to identify and mark trees for potential cutting to help stop the spread of the infestation; because of the urgent need to control the infestation from spreading, the town has begun an emergency program to cut infested trees to the ground — the recommended management technique — on public property, the supervisor said.

In addition, the town aims to provide assistance from retained private tree contractors to willing private property owners in the area of the infestation to fell infected trees; the assistance program will provide tree cutting to the ground for infested trees as identified by land management that have a likelihood of spreading infestation to other properties, Cantwell explained.

Details on the assistance program can be obtained by contacting the land management department 631-324-7420 and scheduling a site visit, the supervisor advised.

For additional information on Southern pine beetles from the NYSDEC, click here.

Photo courtesy New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.