A small insect makes a big impression on the landscape.

Neighborhoods like this are becoming an increasingly common sight. Ash trees with thinning, upper canopies, flecked bark damage and shoots of new branches at the trunk. 

Tivon Feeley, Iowa DNR: “All telltale signs that these trees have been infected by the emerald ash borer. Should be emerging right here. That's an exit hole. The smaller ones are emerald ash borer leaving the tree.”

According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. There are roughly 3.1 million community ash trees in Iowa. As ash is one of the most commonly planted street trees in the state, the emerald ash borer is having huge economic impact on the forest resources of cities and towns. 

Tivon Feeley, Iowa DNR: “You look at history and we had Dutch elm disease come through. In Iowa, the biggest years were kind of in the sixties and seventies and wiped out the elms, and then we had to replace these trees and this was the number one tree. Green ash is highly resistant to salt and heat and handles a variety of soils and grows very quickly. And so we didn't learn from Dutch Elm disease, we kind of went in, replanted lots and lots of ash or lots and lots of maples. And so when we have an invasive pest like emerald ash borer and it came and it was able to run down those streets like we see here pretty quickly.”

Emerald ash borer is kind of a unique insect. It's an invasive insect, like you mentioned, not native to United States, it comes from China, Korea, some of those Asian continent areas. It was introduced in 2002 to Detroit, Michigan, and it's a primary killer of all Fraxinus or ash trees.

The emerald ash borer was first discovered in Iowa in 2010 on an island in the Mississippi River. Despite the Iowa Department of Natural Resources putting a quarantine on moving the wood, the beetle continued to make a westward push through the state. 

Tivon Feeley, Iowa DNR: It went through the state tremendously fast. But I have a publication we put out, it was looking at the railroad, and the railway is what moved it quickly through Iowa. They fly around in the spring, get on the cars, take a ride. So the rail communities were hit the hardest.

Adult beetles live on the outside of trees and feed on the leaves during the summer months. The larva feed on the living plant tissue underneath the bark. The tunneling and feeding activity of the larva is what ultimately kills the trees. When the bark is peeled back, you can see the dizzying patterns left behind from the larva.

As millions of these trees are cut down, several factors come into play. How do communities efficiently remove wood from neighborhoods? What's the financial cost of cutting down the trees? And what should communities do with such a volume of wood when most of it is perfectly usable for other purposes? 

Tivon Feeley, Iowa DNR: Are these trees worthless? It's a tough one. So the ash market, believe it or not, pre 2002 was pretty good. You know, you could sell and mill out most trees, urban trees. They're tough because you don't know what's inside of that tree. So it's really hard to dispose of these trees. And what do you do with all of this wood when it comes down? You know, just on this block alone, we're probably looking at, I don't know, maybe five, 600 trees that are going to come down in the next year or two. That's a lot of wood material and we really don't have answers for it.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, if recovered and repurposed, wood from the country's urban forests could produce nearly 4 billion board feet of lumber each year. 

Upcycling is becoming a popular trend for urban wood. The Iowa DNR Forestry has been working to connect people all along the supply chain to build community, business and consumer interest to embrace this underutilized resource. 

Tivon Feeley, Iowa DNR: There are some creative things happening. There are a few smaller communities that have the wood milled out and they take the wood to work in their shop classes. Others have turned them into benches. The city of Waterloo ended up mulching the wood and turn them into pellets and then they get turned into power,  the pellets are burned for power. So everybody's got some creativity with it. A little different use, but not it's not universal, it really depends on where you're at in the state.

Becky Button, Bear Creek Hardwoods - Earlham, Iowa : “We've got a lot more ash now than we ever had before.

Monty and Betty Button owned Bear Creek Hardwoods outside of Earlham, Iowa. They were a full service lumber mill and kiln that takes locally sourced wood and repurposes it. 

Becky Button, Bear Creek Hardwoods - Earlham, Iowa: “Used to be that they would just cut down all the trees, mulch them up, or take them to a landfill. And that was such a waste that wood is so beautiful and it's so purposeful that there has to be a better way to do it. It's an easy one to cut. It's not really, really hard. It's got great characteristics. It's got a lot of nice grainage like like oak has, but it's a lighter wood. 

As more and more ash comes into mills like Bear Creek Hardwoods. They are using the repurposed wood for a variety of projects.

Becky Button, Bear Creek Hardwoods - Earlham, Iowa: What we've done a lot with Ash is we will make dinner tables, mantels. We do a lot of flooring with Ash. There's really no limit on what you can do with Ash because it's just a real nice stable wood.

The fight in stopping this pest from infecting trees is over and it is not clear if ash will ever rebound again in the state.

But like the local craft beer movement or the local food movement, mills like this are building a local wood movement, all of which can help improve local economies, repurpose a waste product and create something of lasting value for years to come.

Becky Button, Bear Creek Hardwoods - Earlham, IowaAnd it's neat just to know that this item that we have was grown in our own soil as is just being repurposed. And it's it's just very interesting to know that this is from Iowa.

For Market to Market, I’m Cameron McCoy.