Emerald ash borer could decimate Mount Royal trees, Projet Montréal says

MontrealGazette.com
June 14, 2017
René Bruemmer

Thousands of ash trees on Mount Royal could be at risk of succumbing to the emerald ash borer, which would decimate the green canopy of the city’s signature landmark, Projet Montréal charged Wednesday.

Saying the invasive species has already been detected throughout the wooded sections of the mountain, about half of which are heavily populated by ash trees, Projet Montréal said the city is failing to move quickly enough to ensure the trees are saved. There are about 26,000 ash trees on Mount Royal, estimated to account for roughly one quarter of all the trees on the mountain.

City officials responded that while the number of infected ash trees felled on Mount Royal increased significantly in the last year, there is no cause for alarm and the mountain’s ash trees are not at risk of sudden devastation.

The city was “caught with its pants down” in its initial response to the emerald ash borer invasion, and risks making the same mistake, said Sylvain Ouellet, Projet Montréal’s spokesman on the environment.

“There is still time to act save Mount Royal, but we are at one minute to midnight,” Ouellet said. A meeting last week of the city’s standing committee on Mount Royal was advised there had been a marked progression in the number of emerald ash borer beetles on the mountain, yet none of the densely wooded areas of the public park have been treated with TreeAzin, the insecticide that kills the insect’s larvae and reduces fertility.

“If the emerald ash borer implants itself, we will have to institute massive clear cutting and it will disfigure Mount Royal,” Oullet said. The city is attempting to have Mount Royal recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site, a bid that would be quashed if large swaths of its forest cover, mostly situated on the flanks of the mountain highly visible from downtown and Plateau-Mont-Royal, are clear-cut, Oullet said.

Opposition party Projet Montréal is calling for a detailed inventory of the mountain’s trees (no inventory has been done since the early 1990s), the granting of funds to the many institutional and private parties like McGill University and Université de Montréal that are part-owners, and to to create a plan to start treating at-risk trees and felling the doomed to limit propagation.

Réal Ménard, executive committee member responsible for the environment, said while the situation has raised concerns, there is no cause for panic, and questioned Projet Montréal’s figures.

“Are we in the process of losing Mount Royal, is the situation alarming? No,” he said. At the committee on Mount Royal meeting last week, the dozen private and institutional stakeholders said they wanted a common plan and funding to be able to treat the trees on their territory, and the city is preparing a strategy to do so. 

Ménard said 200 infected ash trees have been cut down since 2012. Last year at this time, the city said it had only cut 13 ash trees

Tree specialists are creating an inventory. The city will be treating 30,000 trees this year with TreeAzin to combat the emerald ash borer, many of which will be on Mount Royal, according to the need identified, he said.

The city has already treated 700 trees on Mount Royal, those that are visible to park users and more exposed to the sun, which makes them more attractive to the beetles. Ménard noted that while the city spent only $2 million in 2013 to combat the infestation, that number has since been raised to $34 million in total, which will allow the city to save roughly 60 per cent of ash trees on city streets, while other municipalities lost their entire population.

The later infusion of massive funding — the city spent $18 million in 2016 to treat 19,000 trees and cut down roughly 4,000 infected ones to staunch the spread — is more an indication the city was unprepared in the first place, Ouellet said, despite ample warning from experts. A report issued this week by the city’s auditor general found the city “underestimated” the scope of the problem.