Oregon Department of Forestry hires two new specialists in battle with beetles

The battle against invasive beetles has gained two new champions.

The Oregon Department of Forestry hired two support specialists to aid communities in responding to the infamous emerald ash borer, which are spreading across the state and pose a devastating threat to native ash trees.

Meanwhile, the fight in Forest Grove — where beetles were first sighted in Oregon — continues.

The hope is Matt Mills and Kat Bethea will help mitigate the threat the green beetles pose.

“We are pleased to have found two who are so well qualified and highly motivated to do this important work,” said Scott Altenhoff, ODF Urban and Community Forestry program manager.

Emerald ash borers originated from Asia and were first spotted domestically in Michigan in 2002. The tree ravagers have since spread across the west, locally hitting Forest Grove in 2022. Their main target is in the name — ash trees. The females lay eggs on the trunks, and the larvae eat tunnels under the bark through the cambium layer. That makes it impossible for the trees to move water and nutrients from the roots to leaves, eventually killing them.

That makes the small bugs deadly for Oregon ash, which withstand flooding and are key in stabilizing banks against erosion.

"It kills trees very quickly. It's not from here. We don't have any natural controls," Oregon Department of Forestry entomologist Christine Buhl said when the pest was first found two years ago. "Our trees don't have defenses. This beetle can cause 100% mortality in ash trees wherever it goes, and there is no way to eradicate it."

Mills and Bethea started on July 15.

Mills hails from the Oregon Department of Agriculture where he had been coordinating that agency’s response to emerald ash borers in Washington County. That included overseeing the state’s slow-the-spread work in and around Forest Grove. Prior he was a park ranger with Oregon State Parks and worked many years as a zookeeper. He holds a bachelor’s degree in ecology and evolution from the University of Oregon.

Bethea made the transfer from the city of Portland Urban Forestry where she was a botanic specialist inventorying street trees. They have bachelor degrees in biology and forensic science from the University of Central Oklahoma. They then spent several field seasons as a field technician on projects ranging from specimen collection for museums to invasive insect surveys in Oregon.

The duo’s predecessors, Lilah Gonen and Evan Elderbrock, were moved into permanent community assistance forester roles in ODF’s Urban and Community Forestry Program. Gonen now also serves as overall coordinator in the battle against the emerald ash borers.

The two new hires join a grants administrator and four new community assistance foresters hired since March, significantly bolstering the anti-beetle team. Funding for the new positions has come from the Oregon Legislature and United States Department of Agriculture’s Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

“I’m excited that with more staff we can now engage with more of Oregon’s 241 cities and towns spread over 90,000 square miles,” Altenhoff said. “We’ll be able to better help them plan and manage their urban trees in accordance with best practices and the latest scientific research.”

“Matt and Kat will play crucial roles in that effort,” he added.

The fight in Forest Grove

This spring, ODF and Oregon Department of Agriculture employees looked to take proactive steps to rid Forest Grove of the invasive beetle.

A total of 80 trees were razed in April in Forest Grove , and insecticide was injected into health urban ash trees in Cornelius to help keep the trees alive.

Over the past couple of years, agencies from all over have worked to combat the spread, from developing a wood-burning device to collecting seeds to preserve and study .

In the long term, agriculture and forestry officials are even working on a plan for what could be described as biological warfare, which would include ODA efforts to release certain kinds of small wasps that have a propensity for attacking emerald ash borer eggs and larva. The wasps lay eggs next to emerald ash borer eggs, and the wasp larva eat emerald ash borer larva before they can leave the tree and infect others.

There is now a permanent quarantine in place for all parts of ash, white fringe and olive trees in Washington County, meaning even pieces of these plants cannot be moved outside of the area, as of December 2023.

"The purpose of the quarantine is to slow the spread of EAB by restricting the movement of host tree materials to unaffected locations in the state," according to ODA. "EAB is now considered the most destructive forest pest in North America, killing hundreds of millions of ash trees.

Those looking to process or dispose of materials from these trees can contact a list of businesses able to properly mitigate the threat of spreading emerald ash borers at tinyurl.com/mknn35uy .