ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Environmental regulators have fined a Tennessee wholesale nursery $2,500 for shipping hemlock tree seedlings infested with a destructive invasive species to customers in upstate New York.
The Department of Environmental Conservation imposed the fine for violating New York state’s invasive species regulations. The infested eastern hemlock seedlings were shipped to Oswego and Schenectady counties in April 2017.
The seedling trees were infested with hemlock woolly adelgid, a tiny insect that has killed tens of millions of hemlock trees as it spread northward from the Appalachian region. It arrived in New York in the 1980s and is now found in 43 of the state’s 62 counties.
The DEC says none of the infested trees from Tennessee were used in New York and were subsequently destroyed.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.