July 9, 1975
Page 21774
SPRUCE BUDWORM
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, an article in today's Wall Street Journal points out dramatically that despite extensive spraying this spring, supported in part by a Federal appropriation, the spruce budworm infestation in Maine continues to be a serious problem which threatens the economic health of our most forested State. To bring this article to the attention of my colleagues, I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
LOSING BATTLE – AS MAINE DEBATES HOW TO SAVE ITS TIMBER FROM BUDWORMS, PESTS KEEP THE UPPER HAND
(By Susan Margolies)
PRESQUE ISLE, MAINE.– It is 4:30 a.m. here, and scores of pilots climb into the cockpits of vintage World War II aircraft, preparing for yet another attack on the spruce budworm, an insect that threatens to denude Maine's nearly eight million acres of spruce and fir forests.
Trailing a spotter plane, the aircraft fly in staggered formation past potato fields, beaver dams and black-spruce bogs, finally releasing a fine white mist of insecticide over infested areas. In the planes' wake, millions of budworms spin down to the ground and die.
This scene was repeated day after day for several weeks this spring. Yet despite the considerable money and scientific know-how Maine has applied to the problem, the bugs still have the upper hand. Maine spent $7 million this year to do battle with the budworm, enough to wipe out the pests in only about a two-million-acre area. Thus, millions of the golden caterpillars were left free to bore their way into the buds and needles of much of the 100 million acres of spruce-fir forests that extend from northern Canada to southern Maine. (Canada, too, is spraying, but in only a fraction of the afflicted area.) Next year, the insects will control an ever larger territory, because this year's survivors – now moths – are currently laying a new generation of eggs that will perpetuate the cycle.
Unless checked somehow, the budworm epidemic could have disastrous consequences for the pulp and paper industry and the people of Maine. Between 1972 and 1974, the budworm destroyed approximately 822,000 cords of wood, valued at about $102 million, in a three-million acre area, according to the Maine Forest Products Council. For the paper industry, the current, much larger, epidemic raises the specter of a serious paper shortage. Since it takes 40 to 50 years for a forest to renew itself, "you would essentially have to put the pulp and paper mills in mothballs for that length of time," says Vaughan McCowan, a member of the U.S. Forest Service who is helping tackle the Maine budworm problem.
For Maine, where wood products represent 39 % of all industry, such a prospect is unthinkable. The Maine Department of Conservation estimates that the epidemic could destroy enough wood by 1980 to have built 1.9 million dwellings or enough paper to have kept 123 million Americans in newspapers, tissues and wrappings for a year. And while paper prices haven't yet been affected, they almost certainly will rise if the epidemic continues out of control, experts say.
Lest these dire predictions become realities, Maine launched a full-scale spray program this spring. Banned from using DDT in 1967, the state has turned to short-lived biodegradeable pesticides that "don't have detrimental effects on wildlife," according to Walter R. Gooley Jr., information director for Maine's Department of Conservation. But because these pesticides are expensive and in short supply, the spraying was confined to only the most heavily infested areas. (Hardwoods – or some 10% of Maine's forests – aren't vulnerable to the budworm.)
The sprayers also must reckon with huge swarms of moths driven south into Maine by cold fronts emanating from Canada. Last year the U.S. Weather Service's radar operators tracked one cloud of insects measuring 64 miles long by 16 miles wide, Mr. Gooley says. Though the budworms manage to satisfy their voracious appetites while in the caterpillar state, they are also troublesome as moths. Attracted by car headlights to roads and bridges, the moths are killed by the thousands. Their crushed bodies leave a slick film on the asphalt that last year caused a number of automobile accidents.
Eradication of the pest might seem like a clear-cut issue around which everyone in the state would rally. Yet here, even budworms can create something of a political storm.
Maine residents, for one thing, are divided over who should pay for the spraying. Currently, the federal government pays half the cost, while the state and the paper industry each finance about 25%. Some critics would like to see the industry pick up a bigger portion of the tab. "When you look at the profits those paper companies are making, you know they can afford to contribute a whole lot more," complaint Phyllis Austin, a reporter for the Maine Times, a newspaper with a strong environmental orientation. Morris Wing, International Paper's regional woodlands manager in Maine, disagrees. "The forest benefits everyone – not just the paper companies," he says. "It just doesn't make sense for us to assume the entire burden."
Maine forestry officials don't care where the money comes from – as long as they get it in time. "This year we went right down to the wire wondering whether or not we'd get the money," Mr. Gooley says. The Maine legislature finally passed emergency legislation allocating $3.5 million for this year's spraying, and federal officials came up with approximately $3 million more. But waiting for the eleventh-hour appropriation made it difficult to obtain planes and equipment, Mr. Gooley says. "Although no one wants to be responsible for Maine's losing half her forests we can't be certain from year to year that the money will actually be allocated," he adds.
Nor can the people of Maine agree upon the best way to lick the budworm problem. Some environmentalists worry that insecticides will have long-term harmful side effects, and a few charge that if state and industry officials had practiced proper timber management rather than relying solely on spraying, the budworm infestation wouldn't have reached epidemic proportions.
There isn't any controversy, however, about how much havoc the budworm can inflict. All agree it can be immense. Epidemics have been reported as far back as 1770. The most recent serious scourge, lasting from 1910 to 1919, destroyed over 27 million cords of spruce and fir equivalent to about 40 million cords by today's standards. (The idea of what is usable timber has changed; trees are cut today that would have been left standing a generation ago.)
Though Maine conservation officials killed an estimated 95% of the budworms in the areas sprayed, the insect remains untouched in vast areas of the state's forests. And time and numbers are on their side. Some 30,000 budworms can often be found on a single tree. Most trees can't withstand more than two years of defoliation before succumbing. Acres of dead trees are already evident. "When a spruce or fir dies, the needles turn red," Mr. Gooley says. "Last year it was just awful. In some places the forest looked like an endless red sea."
Maine forestry officials says the annual spraying will probably continue indefinitely until weather conditions change or the budworm runs out of food. Meanwhile, they say they will try other methods of control, including the gradual replacement of fir trees with the hardier spruce.