& Albany County Post - The Altamont Enterprise

The Enterprise — Michael Koff
Aligning in the modern mode: Bill MacGregor at Advanced Auto Repair Service sets up a device in
a car’s back tire that projects a beam to properly align the front and back wheels.
‘Don’t put a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound”
Maintenance can be the key to a car’s longevity
By Melissa Hale-Spencer
The downturn in the economy
has made drivers want to keep
their cars on the road longer,
according to local mechanics,
but, at the same time, many car
owners are taking shortcuts in
maintenance and repairs.
“Now they want to
keep their cars running,”
said John Foley,
74, who has been in
the business for half
a century — first in
Altamont and now on
Depot Road in Guilderland.
“They don’t want
to buy another one; it’s
too expensive.”
Because his customers are
suffering in tough times, “a lot of
what we recommend as maintenance,
they tend to put off,” said
Timm Baldauf of Voorheesville’s
Advanced Auto Repair Services.
This can range from flushing
fluids to changing sparkplugs.
“Doing recommended maintenance
gets the longevity out of a
car,” said Baldauf. “It gets longer
mileage. In the long haul, it’s a
good investment versus spending
“I know my customers.
I know their smiles and cares.”
$20,000 for a new car.”
He went on, “Maintenance is
everything. When you put it off,
and then you have to do it, you
have a huge bill, and people get
overwhelmed.”
“The economy is so bad,” said
Kevin Willsey of Altamont Extreme
Auto, “that people just
want what will get their car
back on the road. That’s just
setting yourself up for disaster,”
he warned.
He sympathizes with the
plight that many of his customers
are in. “This time of year,” he
said, “you’re thinking more about
paying for fuel oil to keep your
family warm.” Willsey went on,
“You can see it in their faces. You
know they want to do what the
car needs, but they can’t.”
Be prepared
The invasion is underway
By Zach Simeone
ALBANY COUNTY — Foreign
insects may soon threaten some
of Albany County’s common tree
varieties, as more and more
foreign plants are smothering
native ones, and can harm people
in some cases.
Governments and educators
are looking to increase the awareness
of invasive species due to
their tendency to replace native
species, many of which feed other
natives, causing varying disruptions
in the ecosystem.
“We’re on the edge of having the
emerald ash borer
in our community,
which is extremely
destructive,”
said Mary Jane
Hughes, a resource
educator
mate. But we don’t have any of
those spruce trees in the area. In
the asexual reproduction, those
nymphs that are produced stay
on the spruce tree, and then
they hitchhike on birds over to
a hemlock tree.”
An adelgid infestation can
kill a hemlock tree in three to
four years, as it feeds on the sap
produced by the tree, according
to the Ohio Department of Agriculture.
Likewise, the emerald ash
borer lays waste to ash trees as
it feeds on its leaves, and burrows
through
the wood, laying
its eggs in
the bark of the
trunk and major
branches.
Emerald ash
with Cornell Cooperative
Exten-
b o r e r s w e r e
“It was just such
found in a purple
trap — the
sion and member innocence that
of WaspWatchers, brought them here.”
color of which
a citizen scientist
is known to lure
program that began
the destructive
in Maine, and
insect — in Feu-
has since spread
ra Bush and Selkirk
to upstate New
last Octo-
York.
ber, Hughes said
The program
on Monday.
uses a specific
But for more
breed of wasp to monitor the than a year, citizen scientists and
presence of emerald ash borers, organizations like the Cornell Cooperative
known for their ability to demolish
Extension have worked
ash trees.
together as WaspWatchers, using
Also making its way into the the cerceris fumipennis wasp to
county is the hemlock woolly track the green destroyers.
adelgid, another species of insect “It’s a solitary, ground-nesting
that targets the hemlock and wasp; she has a nest in the ground
dismantles it.
all by herself,” said Hughes, who
Daniel Driscoll, a longtime has been teaching children in
Knox Planning Board member, 4-H programs about monitoring
was informed by a Glenmont
the invasive ash borers. “In
resident that she had spotted July and August, she flies out
adelgids at her home.
and catches a particular family
“So, I’ve been carefully watching
of beetles,” the buprestidae, “to
wherever I go to see if there put in her nest; she lays an egg
Often, Willsey said, his customers
of late end up putting “a
Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.”
Then, when the Band-Aid gives
way, he went on, “they lose more
time. They have to find rides to
work or to take the kids to soccer…It’s
a never-ending battle.”
Willsey has had his
shop, Altamont Extreme
Auto in the village, for
two-and-a-half years.
Although the recession
started in 2008, the
effects have trickled
down, he said. From
when he opened until
now, he said, “You can
see a different approach in what
they want done.” Last year, for
example, customers who needed
it were more apt to ask for a full
brake job. “Now, they’re asking
if they can just put pads on and
keep the rotors,” he said. “They
don’t have the money they did.”
Willsey offered some tips for
keeping cars running in tough
times. “Stop turning the radio up
when they’re making noises,” he
said, stressing that a car should
are any around here,” Driscoll
told The Enterprise last month
as he walked through the rows
of hemlock trees in the Hudson
and Nancy Winn Preserve in
Knox. “But I haven’t found it
here yet.”
Invasive insects
“If this were infected by the
woolly adelgid,” Driscoll said,
pointing to a branch on a hemlock
tree at the Winn Preserve, “then
right along the center, where the
needles touch the branches, you
would see things that look like
tiny Q-Tips, and that’s what’s
called the ova sac. That’s a very
clear indication that you’ve got
an adelgid infestation.”
The hemlock woolly adelgid,
native to Asia, is believed to
have reached the West Coast in
the 1920s, and the East Cost in
1951, according to www.InvasiveSpeciesInfo.gov.
“The adelgid has an unusual
life cycle,” said Driscoll. “It has
two cycles a year: One of them is
the sexual cycle, and the other is
an asexual cycle. The sexual cycle
produces adelgids that can fly,
on it, and covers it up, and that
egg hatches out, probably, in the
fall. The baby feeds on the beetle
and develops into another wasp
that next summer. The rest of
the year, they’re in the ground,
growing.”
Included in the buprestid family
is the emerald ash borer, along
with thousands of other beetles.
But the ash borer is a “favored
treat” for the wasps.
“In two summers, we have
not had her bring home an ash
borer,” Hughes said. “If it’s in
the area, she’ll bring it back. So
far, we haven’t found any in our
surveillance. We don’t want to
have any. But that’s what we’re
out doing, and we want to locate
as many of these wasp colonies
as possible.”
The monitoring program is
largely possible because this
type of wasp nests in the same
place that it is born, causing
small colonies to form. But their
affinity for sandy areas may
complicate things.
“What will probably be a challenge
is, the most popular place
(Continued on page 4B) and they fly off to spruce trees to (Continued on page 6B)