Nate Meyer's Weblog

I say Transport Away!

They seems to be advertising it everywhere. They say “Don’t transport firewood”. It’s because of the Emerald Ash Borer critter, which destroys the tree’s in the area. They also say they will fine anyone that brings firewood to the park, and want you to buy THEIR wood that they sell in the park. They sell these small bundles of wood for crazy high prices.

Now, I get what the Ash Borer bug does. And that transporting from, and into certain area’s is not great for the trees. But what the parks (IMO) fail to advertise, is that if your already in the area, your free to transport wood as you please. I think they leave this bit of info out, so you buy their firewood for crazy high prices.

Lets look at the Ministerial Order, describing the by-law against moving firewood around, and see what it really says.

First, we need to understand what “”infested place” means. They describe it as “an area described by an item in the Schedule”. If you look at the schedule, item 1 is grouped together as one item, which is everything in the map below highlighted yellow. So yellow equals the infested place.

Next, lets look at the term “pest”. Pest means “the Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis) in all its life stages”.

And last, the term “regulated article” is defined as “firewood of all species, as well as trees, nursery stock, logs, lumber, wood packaging or dunnage, wood or bark, wood chips or bark chips of the genus Fraxinus (commonly known as Ash), other than ash seeds”.

So, now lets read the order. “No person, except an inspector, shall move or cause the movement of the pest out of an infested place, unless the person is authorized beforehand to do so in writing by an inspector under a Movement Certificate and the person complies with the certificate“.

So, it doesn’t say you can’t transport firewood. The order says, you can’t transport firewood OUT of the infested place. And the infested place is the yellow in the map above. They don’t mean each individual county is the infested place. Since they grouped all counties as Item 1, in the schedule, they mean the infested place is item 1, which is the yellow area.

So if your IN the yellow area, and are camping IN the yellow area, transport away! Just don’t leave the yellow area with your firewood. If your OUTSIDE of the yellow area, according to this order, you can transport anywhere. It doesn’t say you can’t transport firewood INTO an infected area.

So there you have it! Print out the Order, and carry it with you in case someone makes a stink that your transporting firewood. Don’t pay those crazy high prices that the parks try to stick you with!