Baltic is now the latest site of an emerald ash borer infestation in South Dakota.
The South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources confirmed the presence of EAB in the town on Thursday.
Baltic is the seventh community to have a positive detection of EAB, joining Brandon, Canton, Crooks, Dakota Dunes, Sioux Falls and Worthing. The town falls within an existing, year-round quarantine area, which includes all of Minnehaha, Lincoln, Turner and Union Counties.
Currently, the movement of firewood from any hardwood species and ash materials out of the quarantined counties is prohibited. “We all need to work together to slow the spread of EAB,” DANR Secretary Hunter Roberts said in a Thursday press release. “With the summer camping season here, firewood is the most common way EAB is moved from one location to another. Please follow the quarantine restrictions and buy it where you burn it!”
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EABs are a destructive insect that feed on all species of North American ash trees and have the potential to devastate ash tree populations.
The state’s first confirmed infestation of EAB was detected in Sioux Falls in 2018, 16 years after the insect was found in the U.S. for the first time.
If an ash tree is infested before it is cut, the wood may still contain EAB larvae. An individual split piece of ash firewood can have five or more adults emerge in the summer.
For more information or to report a suspected sighting, visit emeraldashborerinsouthdakota.sd.gov.