Source: NCDA&CS, 8/12/20


“The project was very complex and difficult.”

That’s just part of the way Robert Trickel with the N.C. Forest Service described a project that prompted a recent award for 41 Forest Service employees. Their success in rising to the challenge earned them the NCDA&CS Excellence in Team

Accomplishment Award. After the nomination and selection process, the team was recognized in late July during an online video conference ceremony.

The project goes back to 2018 though. The 41 employees worked together from 2018 to 2019 to chemically treat hemlocks on state lands in Western North Carolina. With good planning, coordination of resources and teamwork, they accomplished a great deal in the effort to save existing hemlocks. Hemlocks in Western North Carolina up to New England are dying in large numbers because of the hemlock woolly adelgid, an insect that sucks the sap of young twigs. An integrated approach to pest management has shown positive results for the survival of Eastern and Carolina hemlocks though.

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