X marks the halfway spot in the city’s ash borer battle

ottawasun.com
Aug. 3, 2016
By Susan Sherring

A bright red X now marks the large but dying ash tree in front of my home.

In fact, after a recent visit from a very friendly employee with the city’s forestry services, all of the ash trees on my Barrhaven street now boast the marking, meaning the trees are all slated to be cut down and replaced.

It’s not a quick process, with thousands of dying ash trees it can take anywhere from six months to a year to have them cut down after they’ve been marked.

Ridding the city of its dying ash trees has been a long and labourious process - not to mention expensive.

But there’s reason to believe the city is now close to the halfway mark.

It’s been eight years since staff determined the deadly emerald ash borer had begun ravaging Ottawa’s unsuspecting ash trees.

Now, with a budget of $5.4 million annually, the city is expected to cut down about 9,2000 city-owned street trees this year and an equal number in city-owned woodlots.

The budget covers the entire process, from identifying the diseased trees to eventually replacing it, with a goal of planting two trees for every one taken down.

“EAB was discovered in Ottawa in 2008 and impacts will be seen and felt for a number of years, both on private and public property. It is our estimate that we are currently nearing the peak infestation,” according to an email sent on behalf of David Barkley, the city’s manager of  forestry services. “It has taken eight to nine years to get to this point and will probably take as long or longer to recover, remembering that the replacement trees and wood lot management objectives would require a much longer time to reach what was lost.”

That is finally some good news. (Though, for the record, Barkley doesn’t find it at all amusing when you reference the irony in his name.)

Nothing about the process has been easy.

“Leading into the Emerald Ash Borer issue, the city did not have a full inventory of trees on streets and in parks. This made it difficult to assign work without visiting each home in the city. The street portion of tree inventory is almost completed and work has been underway as budget has allowed since 2009.

“As each resident’s opinion of a poor-looking tree is different, staff are careful to communicate with the resident on the timing of removal. In larger properties, staff carried out interplanting to help manage the impact of the loss of the ash. As suburban properties are smaller, this becomes more difficult so the decision is usually either to hold onto the tree for as long as possible, or remove the tree and get started with a new one, understanding that preservation is not an option in most cases.

“The volume of work has created challenges with the size of Ottawa and the high percentage of ash trees. It has taken a lot of time to mark the tree, gather the needed measurements to be able to get utility clearances for stump removal and planting.”
If you want the city to check out your tree, you can call 311 or go online to Ottawa.ca to make a service request.

The standard is 15 business days for an inspector to follow up and determine the next steps.

The city also checks out neighbourhoods proactively, which was the case for my street.

Once identified, city staff will advise you of the list of trees you have the option of choosing from for a replacement.

And no, not an ash in the bunch.