Kitchener plans to axe 1,100 ash trees to manage emerald ash borer

Metrolandnews.ca
Nov. 18, 2014

Crews will continue the grim work of cutting down hundreds of ash trees throughout Kitchener as part of ongoing efforts to manage the emerald ash borer.

The invasive beetle, which originates in Asia, was first spotted in Kitchener trees in 2010, and is now found in every ward of the city. The bug is expected to kill 5,000 ash trees - about 80 per cent of all ash trees in the city - within the next three years.

The city is spending $11million over 10 years to control the pest, by chemically injecting larger ash trees and systematically cutting down the rest.

“Based on the trapping results we’ve had, pretty much any ash tree that’s left probably has some infestation,” said Adam Buitendyk, a forest technologist with the city.

The pests were first discovered in the city near Highway 401in 2010 and are progressing north, so ash trees in the most northerly areas will be dealt with in subsequent years.

Beginning Nov. 24 and continuing until March, crews will begin cutting down 1,100 ash trees in wards 2,3, 5, 8 and 9, as well as a half-dozen trees in Ward 4, Buitendyk said.

This summer, about 700 larger trees throughout the city were chemically injected, but that solution is only cost effective for larger trees

Ash trees have to be reinjected, at a cost of about $175 a tree, every two years, and each injection creates a wound in the tree that smaller trees are less able to handle.

Crews will be cutting down hundreds of ash trees this winter, when the trees are leafless and there’s less material to dispose of, Buitendyk said. Some streets, such as Chandos Drive in Chicopee, were planted primarily with ash trees when built decades ago, and will look radically different afterward, with few if any trees left.

The city hasn’t kept track of the number of streets that were planted mainly with ash trees, but Buitendyk said there were several throughout the city. Strathcona Crescent in Stanley Park, and Blackhorne Drive near Strasburg and Block Line roads, for example, were also severely affected, since almost all the trees on those streets were ash trees.

It was a common practice years ago for developers to plant a large number of trees of a single type in a new subdivision, but the city has since implemented stricter guidelines that stipulate no more than 20 per cent of the trees in a new street or subdivision can be of a single type or genus of tree, such as maple, pine or oak, said landscape architect Tim O’Brien.

“I would say today we achieve much better than that (diversity),” O’Brien said. “There’s actually quite a bit of diversity.”

Crews will come through in spring to grind down the stumps and planting will take place after that, but the city’s emerald ash borer budget may not allow a new tree to be replanted for every one cut, Buitendyk said.

The city plants trees about five centimetres in diameter, since that size handles transplantation best, he said. “We’re going to plant as many as we can.”