Southampton Town Receives DEC Grant To Manage Southern Pine Beetle Infestation

Southampton Town has been awarded $300,000, more than 60 percent of a $513,000 grant issued to Suffolk County by the State Department of Environmental Conservation to fund the removal of pine trees decimated by a non-native insect—the only proven way to control the spread of the pesky bugs.

Split among seven areas of the county, the grant specifically funds continuing efforts to control the spread of the southern pine beetle, a bark beetle native to the Southern United States that made its first appearance on Long Island three or four years ago. Officials estimate that approximately 10,000 trees, many of which had been located in the Hampton Bays Pine Barrens, have already been removed to control the spread of the insects, which typically grow between 2 and 4 millimeters in length and bore channels into trees, disrupting the flow of water and eventually killing them. Trees infected with the bugs typically have small white holes in their bark.

Specifically, the DEC awarded four $75,000 grants to Southampton Town to fund four separate tree-removal initiatives, including three in the hamlet of Hampton Bays at Sears Bellows County Park, Red Creek Park, and adjacent wetlands at the former Baird property, also near Red Creek Park. The fourth grant will allow the Southampton Town Highway Department to remove additional infected trees within the municipality.

All three Hampton Bays properties fall within the Pine Barrens, noted Richard Amper, executive director of Long Island Pine Barrens Society. “The biggest concern is that the beetles will get into the trees, kill them, then the trees will be left to decay and can fall on people’s homes, power lines, et cetera,” he said this week.

He added that this particular grant is moving the management of the southern pine beetle in the right direction, explaining that, in the past, such funding was awarded only to the county, state and federal governments.

Mr. Amper also said it will be impossible to completely eradicate the insects, which have been slowly working their way up the Eastern Seaboard, and have also been carried by strong winds and storms. He added that the best way to manage the insects is to cut down and remove the trees they infest, and plant new ones in their place.

“It’s a problem we will never defeat,” Mr. Amper said. “But it’s a problem that can be managed. This [grant] is indicating that we are finally getting up to speed.”

If not managed, he estimated that the insects could kill up to 10,000 pine trees annually.