Steel Elected 21st Master
Of National Grange
(Continued from Page A 1)
Steel has been in the Grange
since he was 8, joining the Big
Knob Juvenile Grange # 226, and
still lives on the New Sewickley
farm where he was raised.
“It’s about 100 acres the
road came by and took a few
out,” Steel said. “When I was a
kid it was called a ‘general farm’
... chickens and pigs and cows.
... It’s now planted in hay and
small grain.”
Steel was elected Master of the
Big Knob Grange # 2008 in Bea
ver County while still studying at
Geneva College. After finishing
his degree in chemistry, he
worked for seven years at the
Shippingport Nuclear Power Sta
tion.
He has served as Master of Big
Knob Juvenile Grange, Big Knob
Grange # 2008 (present Master)
and Beaver County Pomona # 66
(elected in 1985). He served as
the Pennsylvania State Grange
Assistant Steward from
1964-1970. He was elected Over
seer of the Pennsylvania State
Grange in 1992 and served as the
Master of the Pennsylvania State
Grange from 1996 through 2002.
Steel is not new to the National
Grange scene in Washington,
D.C. In 1969, he became the di
rector of youth activities for Na
tional Grange. He also supervised
the production and supply de
partments and organized the
Grange-Farm Film Foundation.
He was elected to the National
Grange Executive Committee in
1998.
Grangers around the country
are aware that the Grange mem
bership has declined in recent
years, in part because of the dras
tic decrease in numbers of people
living in rural areas and the
growth of competing claims on
people’s attention.
“The Grange is trying to renew
itself by becoming a more open
organization to the public,” Steel
said. “That’s difficult, having
been a closed, secret fraternity for
125 years or more.
“When it was founded, the
Grange was viewed with suspi
cion, just as unions and other or
ganizations for working people
were,” Steel said.
“In the early days, they had to
know whether they were being
infiltrated by the enemy, which
was the railroads, the govern
ment.
“That habit of insularity has
died hard,” he said.
That, in combination with an
aging population that is often
“comfortable where they are and
don’t want to move,” he said, has
diminished the Grange.
“Believe it or not, I faced some
Granges in Pennsylvania that
had the attitude of,‘We’ve got
our 12 people and that’s all we
want.’”
Steel wants to increase mem
bership by attracting young peo
ple, and to work to make the
Grange an effective advocate for
rural dwellers on a variety of is
sues.
Under his leadership, the
Pennsylvania Grange became one
of the three largest in the coun
try.
Exotic Pest Introductions
Take A Toll On America’s Forests
Robert Martynowych
DCNR Forester
Tom Hall
DCNR Plant Pathologist
Non-native or exotic invasive
species are entering North Amer
ica at an alarming rate, and most
of them through international
trade.
More than $25 million has
been spent in New York, Chica
go, and New Jersey in trying to
eradicate and stop the spread of
the Asian longhorned beetle.
There are those who would
argue that fears of these invasive
species are an overblown “Chick
en Little” approach.
At one time many believed the
gypsy moth would mean the end
of oak in Pennsylvania. However,
targeted programs to suppress
gypsy moth outbreaks and the in
troduction of various biological
control agents, including both a
fungal and viral disease of gypsy
moth larvae, have helped to re
duce the severity of gypsy moth
outbreaks.
Consequently the dire predic
tions for our oak forests have not
panned out, although the gypsy
moth does have significant eco
nomic and environmental im
pacts on forest ecosystems.
However, one need not look
back to far in Pennsylvania histo
ry to find a situation where a
non-native organism that causes
chestnut blight, essentially meant
the end of an important tree spe
cies, the American Chestnut.
A dedicated group of scientists
and citizens, have volunteered
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 6, 2003-A25
their time and resources to devel
op American chestnut sources
with resistance to blight in an ef
fort to restore the American
chestnut to the eastern forests.
They have made substantial
gains in developing a limited
number of resistant American
chestnut lines for field assess
ment.
Other exotic pest introductions
have taken a toll on America’s
forests.
Dutch elm disease, ash yel
lows, dogwood anthracnose, and
hemlock woolly adelgid are but a
few non-native invaders that
have forever changed the charac
ter and condition of our rural and
urban forest landscapes.
All have been brought to North
America in conjunction with
movement of plant materials
from other countries.
New non-native organisms are
entering the United States at an
alarming rate. The emerald ash
borer and citrus longhorned bee
tle are some of the more recent
arrivals.
The emerald ash borer was
first discovered in Michigan and
Ontario in 2002 and now has
been confirmed in Ohio. A new
fungal pathogen associated with
“sudden oak death” is killing
tanoak and California live oak
trees in California and Oregon
and may threaten eastern oak
species if the pathogen can not be
eradicated.
Most of these invasive species
are carried into North America
on imported wood packing ma
terials, imported plant materials,
or timber products. The USDA
Animal and Plant Health Inspec
tion Service (APHIS) and the De
partment of Homeland Security
are responsible for preventing
these non-native species from en
tering the United States through
product inspections at Ports-of-
Entry and enforcement of plant
and animal quarantines.
However, sufficient staff and
funds to conduct more inspec
tions are simply not available nor
feasible in order to examine the
huge quantities and diversity of
trade goods entering the United
States.
Flexible international trade
agreements that encourage com
modity trading stretch our ability
to inspect goods entering the
United States.
Landowners are advised to be
come better aware of potential
exotic insect, weed, and disease
pest problems and to practice in
tegrated pest management con
trol options on various forest
pests whenever possible.
For the rapidly increasing and
troubling new pest introductions,
the only advice one can give is to
become better acquainted with
this issue and to support legisla
tive initiatives to prevent the in
troduction of new pests that can
cause severe damage to our agri
cultural and natural resources
systems.
To leant more about the scope
of the problem and what to do,
contact your local forest district,
or visit DCNR’s website through
the PA Power Port at www.sta
te.pa.us, PA Keyword: “forests.”
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