Living in LoCo

Living in LoCo is Erica Garman's blog devoted to news about Loudoun County. You can find it at http://www.loudounextra.com. This column of highlights appears every Sunday in the Loudoun Extra.

Reader Tim Feely e-mailed Living in LoCo to inquire about the "mysterious-looking purple boxes dangling from trees" around Loudoun County. He noticed them while driving along Evergreen Mill Road in Leesburg and along parts of Loudoun County Parkway in Ashburn.

Tim, your assumption is correct. The purple boxes are for trapping insects, specifically the emerald ash borer, an invasive green beetle from Asia that is rapidly destroying ash trees in a number of states from Michigan to Virginia. In 2007, an infestation was discovered in Herndon.

To find out whether the infestation is spreading to surrounding areas of Northern Virginia, state Department of Agriculture employees are hanging the purple boxes near ash tree clusters in Loudoun and neighboring counties.

Seth Walton of Hillsboro said that in late April, he started hanging about 150 of the sticky traps in parts of Loudoun, Clark and Fauquier counties. Starting this week, Walton will begin checking the traps for the noxious insects and will forward any suspicious specimens to the state's agricultural department for identification and further study. The department's Debra Martin estimates that about 600 traps will be placed throughout Loudoun. The traps will be taken down in August.

Debbie Dillion, Loudoun County's urban horticulturalist, said that Loudoun has not had a confirmed finding of the emerald ash borer.

The insect is responsible for the death and decline of more than 30 million ash trees in Michigan since its arrival in the mid-1990s, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture study. Experts say that if the emerald ash beetle spreads to other parts of the United States, it most certainly will affect the country's timber industry. The eastern U.S. produces nearly 114 million board-feet of ash saw timber, a $25.1 billion industry, the USDA said. The wood is used for tool handles, baseball bats, furniture and even paper, among other items.

The USDA also says that a beetle infestation would add $7 billion in costs to state and local governments and landowners over the next 25 years to remove and replace infected and dead trees.

Last August, in an ongoing effort to fight the migration of the emerald ash borer, Loudoun was placed under a quarantine, restricting the movement of ash lumber and firewood from Loudoun to non-quarantined sites.

Outpouring of Support After Fire

On the morning of May 10, which was Mother's Day, a fire ravaged the Sack family home in the Farmwell Hunt community of Ashburn. Luckily, Wendy Campese-Sack and her husband, Patrick Sack, safely evacuated their four sons (ages 10 to 17), three of their son's friends and themselves from the burning house.

The three-alarm blaze, which brought fire rescue units from Arcola, Ashburn, Leesburg, Moorefield and Sterling, caused an estimated $800,000 in damage to the Sack residence and surrounding houses. Campese-Sack said investigators think the fire started when a barbecue light blew over and ignited a propane tank on the back patio.