Five years later, Emerald Ash Borer still killing in Elmhurst

ELMHURST – It's been five years since the emerald ash borer was first discovered in Elmhurst, and it's still wreaking havoc on the city's canopy.

According to Elmhurst Forestry Superintendent Mark Stevens, “the disease is still in full force.”

In 2015, the city of Elmhurst removed about 377 parkway ash trees, almost exactly as many as in 2014. Stevens said he expects two more years of the same volume, nearly 800 trees.

“We started with 2,300 ash trees,” Stevens said. “We have removed 1,450 since 2009.”

According to Illinois Department of Agriculture documents, the emerald ash borer was first discovered in the Chicago suburbs in Kane County in 2006. In 2009, before it had reached Elmhurst, city staff created a plan to preemptively manage the infestation.

According to that plan, of about 22,000 trees that made up Elmhurst's urban forest, 10 percent were ash trees. The city decided to remove and replace the trees at a rate of 5 percent per year, or about 115 trees annually, which would have taken 20 years to complete.

By starting early, the city intended to spread the cost of removing ash trees over time. However, two years later in 2011, the emerald ash borer crawled into Elmhurst and the city went from a preemptive plan to a dying tree program. Instead of removing and replacing healthy ash trees, the village began focusing on excavating infested and dead trees.

Much of the ash removal is done by the Public Works Department, but cutting down nearly 377 trees a year averages to more than one a day, so some of the work is contracted out. To recover from the loss, one tree is planted for every one that is removed.

“We try to plant trees in the right place,” Stevens said. “Just because a tree is removed from one spot doesn’t mean another one is planted there. Sometimes we do, sometimes we even plant two at that location, but we make sure that it’s in the right place.”

An important aspect of the replacement program is finding the right type of tree to plant.

“We have about 30 different kinds that we plant,” Stevens said. “What we are trying to do is really push for diversity. We have to have a variety of trees so when a disease comes we are not faced with the same problem.”

Stevens said that despite all the efforts to remove and replace ash trees, there will probably always be ash trees that survive the removal process either because they were unnoticed during the survey or because seeds from existing trees sprout and grow.

Additionally, the city only deals with ash trees in parkways and public roads. Residents must address the infestation on their own properties.

Marianne Gockman lives on Marion Street between Arlington and Kenilworth avenues. In January nine trees were removed from her block, three of those from her property.

“My neighbor next door lost her tree that’s probably been there for 100 years,” Gockman said.

Removing a tree, let alone three, can be expensive. Gockman said she got multiple quotes from tree removal contractors, and the cost varied between $1,500 and $3,000.

“It’s sad,” she said. “It’s not just the financial part, but it’s the loss of these big old trees.”

Stevens suggests that residents hire a licensed certified arborist and get multiple quotes since prices vary from contractor to contractor based on their workload and the complexity of the removal.

“Don’t ignore the problem, but don’t make snap judgments in a hurry,” he said. “Be careful of someone offering to remove a tree.”

According to Stevens, evaluate whether it makes sense to plant a new tree in the same location, keeping in mind factors such as overcrowding and hanging wires.

For more information on the Elmhurst Forestry services, visit http://shawurl.com/2fk2.