AUGUSTA (AP) — Maine Gov. Paul LePage says next week he will release a plan about how to prepare for the possibility of a spruce budworm outbreak.
The Republican governor and Maine Spruce Budworm Task Force will unveil the plan and risk assessment on March 16. The defoliating spruce budworm can do damage to vast swaths of commercially valuable forest land.
The budworm plan includes some 70 recommendations, some of which have already been implemented. They include increased monitoring, use of insecticides where they are needed and changing strategies for forest management.
The Maine Forest Products Council says the spruce budworm destroyed more than a fifth of the fir trees in Maine during an outbreak in the 1970s and ‘80s.
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