No relief for tree backlog this year

Stcatherinestandard.ca
April 21, 2016
By Karena Walter

The devastating Emerald Ash Borer may finally be petering out but its effect continues to be felt in the city’s tree planting backlog.

St. Catharines won’t be caught up until 2018 or 2019.

“Residents waiting for trees would typically wait approximately one year and now we’re looking at wait times of approximately two to three years,” said Jeffery Silcox-Childs, manager of parks, cemeteries, forestry and horticulture at St. Catharines city council Monday.

“With that, we can certainly expect to see an increased number of resident calls and inquiries.”

The culprit is the invasive species, which has tied up the city’s forestry services with removing ash trees.

Silcox-Childs said on average, the city removes 600 trees a year due to insects and disease, vandalism, vehicle damage, utility conflicts or storm damage. It normally plants 1,800 trees annually.

Because of the Emerald Ash Borer, the number of trees removed exceeded those planted for the first time in 2014. “EAB has resulted in a dramatic increase in tree removal rates,” he said.

In 2015, the city removed 2,443 trees - four times more than the average.

“The good news, and there is some good news, is our tree planting efforts over the past four years have greatly reduced the tree planting backlog,” Silcox-Childs said. “If we hadn’t been planting as many trees as we have been planting in the last four years, the backlog would be much higher than it actually is.”

In 2014, the city was unable to plant 1,300 trees it had planned on and in 2015 the number rose to almost 1,900.

Silcox-Childs was at city council with an update on the city’s urban forestry management plan. He said moving forward, forestry operations will prioritize tree planting with the aim of minimizing wait times for residents and in turn, complaints to the city.

Planting trees for residential frontages will go to the top of the to-do list, with parks and cemeteries next in line. That will be followed by commercial areas and lastly, open spaces and watercourses.

St. Andrew’s Coun. Joe Kushner asked if stump removal couldn’t be part of the process of removing trees.

“The stumps are unsightly. I get many more complaints about stumps than I do about tree removal,” he said.

Silcox-Childs said the department is looking at ways to make the entire process more efficient. He agreed it makes more sense having one crew at a site doing as much as possible. Forestry has been given the capital to purchase a new stumper so they can increase the stump removals they are doing in house, in additional to contractor work.

The city’s urban forestry management plan, approved in 2011, had a five-year goal of adding 1,000 trees every year from 2011 to 2016.

The Emerald Ash Borer resulted in a loss of 8,000 street trees.

The plan also set the goal of increasing the city’s tree canopy from 17 per cent to 30 per cent by planting 40,000 large canopy trees.

Silcox-Childs said 4,500 trees were planted in the first two years but that was negated by losses from Emerald Ash Borer.

He said mortality due to Emerald Ash Borer peaked in about 2014 or 2015. “At this point, we’re just starting to see a decline in the number of tree mortalities.”

The urban forestry management plan will hit its five-year mark in 2016. Silcox-Childs said at the end of the year, staff will re-evaluate successes and challenges, establish new targets and make recommendations for the next five years.