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They are highly destructive, invasive earthworms, and they are here, now, in East Liverpool.
This is not a joke.
You may already have them on your property, introduced in commercial mulch, potted plants, seed flats, tree or bush transplants, or even by picking up their eggs on your shoes.
You need to learn how to identify them, differentiating them from common European earthworms, which are beneficial.
If you find them, learn how to eradicate them.
I recently received a call from a woman who owns a home off St. Clair Avenue. She called me because I have fretted in print about fighting invasive plant and insect species in my farm and garden.
"Do you know about Asian jumping earthworms?" she asked.
I did not.
The story she told sounded like scary science fiction.
Puzzled as to why her mulched flower beds were dying this spring, she tried the usual fixes: watering more, watering less, replanting, fertilizing. Nothing worked. The new flowers died. A rhododendron bush was dying. Dead, barren patches appeared in beds of creeping myrtle (vinca minor) in the adjoining woods. When she sprigged new myrtle, it died, the roots eaten off.
Digging in the loose, mulched beds, she found amazing numbers of earthworms that were very active, wiggling and waving their ends in the air when dug up. Also, they didn't look or feel quite right. Her researches identified them.
At her invitation I went to her house to see them in person.
Wearing plastic gloves (which she would discard to prevent spreading their cocooned eggs), she used a simple garden trowel to scrape in the loose soil along the very edge of the myrtle bed. The worms reside in the top three or four inches of loose forest soil or mulch. There they were, by the dozens. She picked them up and put them in a bucket.
She pointed out a small privet hedge that she routinely mulches with grass clippings. One day she noticed the grass clippings had disappeared. The worms ate them.
They move through forest leaf mold (the proper name for decaying leaves), devouring all the nutrient-laden materials in the very top layer of soil and leaving behind a carpet of hard little pellets of worm poop, called castings, that look like Grape Nuts cereal. These do not easily break down, leaving a forest floor devoid of nutrition and subject to erosion, a bare cupboard for the next generation of tree seedlings.
Alarmed, she contacted people at the county agricultural office, local nurseries that sell mulch, and a feed store. They all listened to her but their levels of concern varied. When I talked to Haley Shoemaker, extension educator for Columbiana and Mahoning counties, she said when it comes to fighting invasive species, the question is not just what's here but what's next? They are overwhelmed.
She directed me to EDD MapS, formerly called the Great Lakes Early Detection Network: https://www.eddmaps.org/project/midwest/, where invasives can be researched and reported.
The list of invasive species on that website is incredibly long and discouraging. (It includes many species I thought were native.) No wonder the alarmed "my house is on fire!" cry of finding a new invasive on one's property gets a reaction like, "Everybody's house is on fire. Spray lots of water and good luck."
I talked to Brent Lyons, WVU extension service forester for the Northern Panhandle. He has heard no reports of Asian jumping earthworms in the panhandle counties, but said our state is one of 35 with at least one report. The geographically nearest one shown on EDD Maps was two years ago from Brooks Park in Jefferson County, Ohio.
So how do you kill them? There are two natural, nontoxic methods. Heat them above 104 degrees Fahrenheit by covering a sunny mulch bed or pile with clear plastic. In dry conditions scatter diatomaceous earth, the silica remains of tiny marine creatures. It abrades and dehydrates them.
Whether our friend can completely eradicate those on her property remains to be seen.
If you do find some, don't just discard or smash them; their eggs may survive. Ziplock bag those you collect; that settles their hash. For heaven's sake don't be tempted to fish with them.
I'm used to fighting plants such as Canadian thistle and giant foxtail grass, bushes including autumn olive and multiflora rose, and insects like gray stink bugs and spotted lanternflies, but at least you can see those things.
Nasty worms underfoot, jumping ones no less, scare the pants off me.