The fire that blazed in the loading area of a hardware manufacturing company in the Ravenswood neighborhood Monday was the first blow in Chicago’s war against the Asian longhorn beetle. It surely won’t be the last.
Firefighters looked on as flames engulfed a large stack of crates and pallets that had carried manufacturing materials from China to the company, Polar Hardware Manufacturing Co. Inc., 1813 W. Montrose Ave. Officials from the United States Department of Agriculture said they have reason to believe wood shipped there from China about three years ago may have been the source of beetles that have infested dozens of trees in the neighborhood.
Burning that wood now won’t save the trees that are slated to meet a similar fate beginning this fall. Nonetheless, USDA officials are working with officials of the firm to ensure that no additional insect interlopers survive their trip to the U.S.
“We’re not sure this is accomplishing anything, but it would be stupid not to try,” said Robert Albert, Polar’s owner.
While no one can be certain that is where the infestation began, USDA officials say the hardware manufacturer is the only business in the neighborhood that imports from China. The shipments started about three years ago, right around the time experts estimate the first beetles must have arrived.
“We don’t find any live insects in the wood they’re getting now,” said Joe Schafer, a leader of the USDA’s Ravenswood beetle search who oversaw Monday’s crate bonfire. “There are holes that were probably made by beetle larvae, but that’s pretty common in wood from China.”
Perhaps the most vivid sign that Albert’s property could be near ground-zero of the beetle zone is a box elder standing near his loading dock that appears to be the first tree in Chicago to have been killed by the beetles.
The tree is covered from top to bottom with bullet-sized holes from boring larvae. Experts say Asian longhorns tend to breed in one tree until it’s too crowded, so the amount of damage a tree has suffered may be a gauge of how long it’s been infested.
Albert accompanied Schafer Monday as a USDA team collected beetle specimens, killing the black-and-white-speckled bugs by putting them in jars of alcohol.
“Maybe as long as you’re here you should cut this one down,” Albert said, pointing at the dead box elder. “That could be a time bomb.”
Schafer squinted into the midday sun as he looked up at the lifeless, hole-ridden branches.
“I think that bomb already went off,” he said.
Schafer and others stress that Albert is not to blame for the mayhem the Asian longhorns caused after they emerged from his crates.
“This stuff was all inspected and cleared at ocean ports,” said Kenneth Kruse, a USDA official. “Once it gets in here, it’s very difficult for us to do inspections.”
In fact, Albert said he is a relatively small importer compared to other businesses that bring materials from China. The best way to prevent the beetle’s spread in the future will be for Chinese exporters to screen out beetle-infested wood or to fumigate all outgoing crates, USDA officials said.
The zone in Ravenswood where beetle-infested trees have been found expanded slightly on Monday. The USDA’s Kruse said beetle-infested trees were found about 100 feet east of the border at Ravenswood Avenue and on Cullom Street, just beyond the zone’s western border at Damen Avenue. Borders to the north at Wilson Avenue and to the south at Berteau Avenue remain unchanged, Kruse said.
The Illinois Department of Agriculture had received more than 230 calls to its beetle hot line as of Monday, according to department spokesman Patrick Hogan. There were no confirmed reports as yet of beetles outside the established zone, the USDA’s Schafer said.
“They’ve been getting sightings of everything from roaches to grasshoppers, but no beetles yet,” Schafer said.
