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Hi, we're John & Bob.
We're a couple of guys from Harsens Island in Lake St. Clair, Michigan. Harsens Island has about 5000 residents in the summer. In January 2005 state officials came to our area to tell us that they were going to cut down ash trees on private property, including healthy ash trees. In hopes of understanding what purpose could be served in destroying healthy trees we listened to what they had to say. We realized that if they did what they wanted to do it would be devastating to the island we love. They were going to start with a few small areas of 200 yard radius and if they found any more EAB they would keep cutting another 200 yards until they found no more EAB.
Since January we talked to a lot of people and spent hundreds of hours doing research. We have come to the conclusion that there are better ways to fight the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) than to destroy healthy ash trees. Unfortunately, our fight is turning out to be one with the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) instead of one with the borer itself. Hopefully by mid-April we can spend some time treating our trees.
We believe that the MDA's program of cutting healthy ash trees is terribly flawed. We don't think it is working and we also have evidence that the MDA's destruction of healthy ash trees is illegal. The way in which the MDA interpreted the laws and implemented powers that he thought he had was not within the intent or the wording of the law. We brought these issues to the attention of officials of the MDA, the Governor's office, and eventually the State Attorney General's office. They weren't interested in discussing their merits. The Attorney General's office told us that they had been involved in this program from the beginning and everything was legal. Let's see if you agree.
Bob Williams (Bob@SaveYourAsh.info)
