Hundreds of ash trees to be cut down this winter in Kitchener

Therecord.com
Oct. 28, 2015
By Catherine Thompson

Some residents in northwest Kitchener will get a rude shock this winter, as crews cut down ash trees in an ongoing effort to manage the devastation caused by a destructive beetle.

About 1,100 ash trees will be cut beginning in early to mid-November and continuing until the end of March, at a cost of about $150,000. The city began cutting down ash trees in 2012, about two years after the emerald ash borer was first discovered in the city, and tree cutting is scheduled to go on for another couple of years. The invasive beetle is expected to kill about 5,000 ash trees in the city - four-fifths of all ashes in Kitchener.

Native ashes have limited resistance to attack. According to Natural Resources Canada, more than 99 per cent of ash trees in a woodlot die within six years of an infestation.

This year, most of the trees to be cut are concentrated in Ward 7 and parts of Ward 8 in the city's northwest.

"There are lots of ash trees in Ward 7," said Adam Buitendyk, an urban forest technologist with the city. "Unfortunately there are a few streets where basically the whole street is ash and most of them will be coming out."

Not all ash trees are doomed. The city has identified 1,400 of the largest, healthiest ash trees for treatment with an injected insecticide. The treatment is costly, though, since trees have to be injected twice in three years and the injection costs $175 or more per tree.

Tree cutting occurs in winter, when the trees are bare of leaves, so that there is less debris for crews to remove, he said. Crews leave a short stump, which will be ground out next spring or summer.

New trees will be replanted in 2017, which means streets denuded of trees this year may have to wait 18 months to two years before new young trees are replanted. Budgets don't always allow for a new tree to replace every ash that's cut down. As well, trees aren't replaced in sites where the trees aren't likely to thrive, such as on very narrow boulevards or under hydro lines, he said.

"It is depressing," Buitendyk said. "But we are planting several different species, so we are increasing the diversity of our urban forest, and in the long term we're getting a more resilient urban forest. ... If there is a future pest that comes along we should be able to adapt a little easier."

For more on the city's efforts to combat the spread of emerald ash borer, see the city's website www.kitchener.ca/en/livinginkitchener/eab.asp.