Labor Day pests

Labor Day weekend is here and campers can escape to the woods, pitch tents, roast marshmallows — and destroy South Carolina’s beautiful ash trees. That’s what can happen when they tote their own firewood into campsites. Sherry Aultman of Clemson University’s department of plant industry, says, “Bringing firewood into state parks and campsites from other places is a leading cause of importing invasive species into our forests.” Firewood can harbor any number of nasty bugs, both under the bark and inside the wood itself. Clemson’s Regulatory Services division, which is charged with monitoring and, when possible, eradicating evasive plant and pest species, has set up traps in forests throughout the state to provide an early warning of the arrival of one pest, a green beetle native to parts of Asia.