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SWALLOW FALLS STATE PARK — Hemlock trees covering 37 acres of Swallow Falls State Park are lined up for vaccinations that will rid them of an invasive insect that means them no good.
Not only will the trees be injected with a fluid that will kill the hemlock woolly adelgid, but so will the surrounding soil.
For the next week, 50 members of the Maryland Conservation Corps will go from tree to tree, treating every one of the 300-year-old hemlocks at the park. The stand, considered Maryland’s premier block of hemlocks, has never been cut.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Mary Ellen Setting was at the park Thursday as the work began.
“I am pleased to witness firsthand the steadfast efforts that Maryland is taking to stop the spread of the hemlock woolly adelgid and the damage it causes to our region’s important hemlock trees and associated ecosystems,” Setting said in a prepared statement.
The state agriculture agency is also releasing predatory beetles that attack the adelgid, a native of Japan that was discovered in Virginia in 1951. The invader has spread along the East Coast, killing hemlocks. It clings to the undersides of hemlock branches and resembles the tips of cotton swabs.
Treatment at Swallow Falls will initially be on the old-growth hemlocks and on those near the park’s entrance.
“The virgin hemlocks (at the park) are a natural Mecca for 250,000 visitors annually,” Natural Resources Secretary John Griffin said in a prepared statement that disclosed the agency’s intent to protect hemlocks on all public lands. The effort will take up to five years.
The state and federal agencies involved in the war against the adelgid got a lift, literally, from Potomac Edison when the utility company provided its eye-in-the-sky bucket truck so that the upper portions of trees could be inspected.
“It isn’t tall enough to reach the tops of some trees, but it was very helpful,” said utility spokesman Todd Meyers. “We’re pleased we could contribute.”
Nita Settina, director of the Maryland Park Service, pointed out that members of the Conservation Corps are following in the 77-year-old footsteps of the original Civilian Conservation Corps that camped and worked at the park in 1934.
Local News
Related Photos
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Emma Giese of the Maryland Conservation Corps on Wednesdayinjects a hemlock tree at Swallow Falls State Park with fluid that will kill the invasive insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid, which can destroy the trees. Steve Bittner
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Zoe Ubaldo of the Maryland Conservation Corps injects fluid into the ground to kill the hemlock woolly adelgid at Swallow Falls State Park Wednesday. Steve Bittner
State department protecting area hemlock trees
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