Baton Rouge Advocate
These tiny insects have been tearing up Louisiana trees. Homeowners may also be at risk.
David Mitchell
The tiny pine bark beetle has had a devastating effect on the fringes of Louisiana's forests, killing thousands of trees that now pose a new risk to homeowners and infrastructure, prompting state leaders to develop plans to deal with the aftermath.
The summer drought of 2023 weakened pine forests, making them vulnerable to the insects and their hungry baby larvae, researchers and others say.
Though the infestation has ended, more than 112,000 pine trees in central Louisiana have been killed by beetles or drought since last summer, leaving dead or dying trees threatening not only roads and power lines but also the homes of those who live on the forest edge and may be least able to afford costly tree removal.
"You've got people that live where there's a giant pine, and it's right there by their house and they're worried ... and they don't have the funds to get them," said state Rep. Michael T. Johnson, R-Pineville.
A special legislative task force led by Johnson has been meeting since this summer and heard Thursday about how state agencies and private groups are attempting to respond. Federal legislation that would open up emergency dollars for tree removal was also discussed.
Healthy pine trees normally use the sap that gums up car windshields and hoods to stop infestations in their tracks.
But LSU entomologist Todd D. Johnson explained that trees weakened by the drought last year were less able to fight the beetles, particularly pines already under stress in drier open spaces along roads and in the urban and suburban fringe.
The insects, in this case several species of Ips beetle, can smell which trees are stressed. Once a pine beetle finds a good tree for laying eggs, it sends out pheromones that attract more and can set off a mass attack.
The beetles' hatching larvae eat the soft phloem tissue between the outer bark and trunk, eventually severing the circulatory system that ties tree roots to the pine's upper reaches.
"By basically cutting the pipeline in the tree, the tree basically loses the ability to move water and nutrients," the LSU entomologist said.
Nearby trees can also be under threat once Ips beetles zero in on a pine.
Though forest fires and the 2023 drought did destroy an estimated $325 million in timber, Buck Vandersteen, executive director of the Louisiana Forestry Association, said trees inside commercial and wildland forests did a little better against the pine beetle than more vulnerable trees on the forest edge.
"There's not really much protection of trees along very hot roadways or next to houses where there's no real other vegetation that can keep water in the ground and keep those roots and that moist," Vandersteen said.
Of the forest pines that were killed by the beetles, Vandersteen said they essentially finished off what last year's drought started.
Not covered by insurance
It can take several years for a tree killed by the beetles to fall, but the dead pines can still drop large destructive branches in the interim, Rep. Johnson said.
State highway officials have begun taking steps to clear their rights of way — 3,851 pine trees have been identified so far as being in need of removal — but a constitutional prohibition on spending public money for a private purpose makes helping homeowners more complicated.
On Monday, Gov. Jeff Landry issued an executive order temporarily waiving a $250 annual state fee that people who transport cut trees for disposal must pay. The order also called for a new variance process through the state Department of Environmental Quality to allow the burning of trees on site.
Half burned, half green pine trees along the roadway where a logging truck passes through the Tiger Island Fire area near Merryville, Louisiana on Tuesday, August 30, 2023. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | NOLA.com
A $500 variance fee would also be waived under the order, though the variance, which applies to parishes with more than 90,000 people, would require local approval too, DEQ officials said. Unincorporated areas of parishes with fewer than 90,000 people are already exempted, Landry's order says.
The Louisiana Arborist Association is forming a nonprofit, Community Tree, to take donations and offer grants to low-income residents in need of tree removal, said Daryn Bovard, a lobbyist for the association.
Johnson said he hopes insurers might cover the cost of tree removal in advance, rather than await the higher cost of tree damage afterward.
But Charles Hansberry, assistant deputy insurance commissioner for the state, informed Johnson that dead trees are not covered by existing homeowners' policies outside of a covered peril. His department, the state's regulator of insurers, hasn't been able to make headway in a change.
"The ball has not moved forward with that discussion," Hansberry said.
'Public health issue'
Rep. Johnson said he has hopes federal emergency response dollars could eventually be made available to reimburse homeowners for much of the cost of the removal of trees killed by pine beetles.
U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican from Mississippi, where the beetle devastation has been more severe, introduced the Emergency Pine Beetle Response Act in February.
Among its provisions, the bill would offer an 85% cost-share reimbursement to landowners for tree removal and thinning, set up emergency loans for landowners for upfront costs and offer grants to towns and states.
In July, the bill was co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, but hasn't moved far in Congress.
Though the state is facing its own financial difficulties, Rep. Johnson also raised the possibility of having state agencies direct state dollars through nonprofits, like Community Tree, to address trees identified as hazards by local governments.
"It is purely, in my mind, a public health issue," he said.
The state Department of Transportation and Development has nine tree-removal contracts out for bid or scheduled to be put out for bid, an agency spokesman said. Most of the identified trees haven't been cut yet. Crews are also still surveying highways for more dead trees.
The beetle task force must issue a final report early next year.