Dave Townsend knelt beside a pile of 2,000 ash logs 10 feet high and 220 long, representing an estimated 130,000 board feet of sawn hardwood.
Some were a couple of feet or more in diameter, like those Townsend Lumber has harvested for decades. Others however were well below that standard, cut standing dead in what essentially was a salvage operation. And in their midst, Townsend was able to sum up the massively-devastating effects of the Emerald Ash Borer with one finger and a single sentence.
“No water, no more photosynthesis, no more nothing – it just strangles,” Townsend said, indicating trails through what formerly was formerly sapwood in a healthy ash tree.
Tearing a section of bark off one log, Townsend traced interlocking sawdust trails crisscrossing the exposed surface...Read more.
