The city plans to remove an additional 180 ash trees from city-owned property by this coming fall, Sanders said.
Emerald ash borer is an invasive insect that kills trees within three to five years of infestation, according to the Ohio Department of Agriculture.
Crews began removing trees near the southeast corner of Shroyer Road and Lincoln Park Blvd. Monday morning.
“We wanted to get that started because of the timeline with the Fraze starting,” Sanders said.
Crews used a number of methods to start removing the trees.
“Sometimes we can back right up to it and fell and pick it right up. Sometimes we do more extensive measures like complex rigging to get the trees down safely without doing collateral damage to the property. And then a lot of times we bring in a crane to safely remove the tree,” said David Meurer, production manager with Tree Care, Inc., the company removing trees Monday.
The city's Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts Department posted on its Facebook page that "there will be an immediate visual impact on our parks," but said removing the trees is "absolutely necessary" not only for the health of the tree population but because of the dangers trees infected with ash borer can pose to the public.
“As they die, the larger trees, although they’re large, they still get very brittle and dangerous and they snap pretty quick,” Sanders explained.
The city has been treating infected ash trees since 2008, Matt Byrd, another parks manager, previously told this paper.
“We started out treating about 200. Now we’re treating about 500 to 600,” Byrd said.
The city began removing trees in 2011, according to Byrd, and changed its strategy from treating trees to save them, to treating them to slow their rate of decline between 2011 and 2012.
“We’re slowing their rate of decline to give us more time to remove those trees,” Byrd explained.
The department plans to plant two trees for every one removed during the next five to six years, and will begin replacing trees this spring, according to Sanders.
“Of course trying to replace a tree that’s 40 to 50 to 75 feet tall, it’s going to definitely look different from what we can buy in a 20 to 30, well 20 to 15 (foot) range,” Sanders said.
The department budgeted $100,000 for tree removal and replacement for this year, Sanders said.
More information can be found at http://www.playkettering.org/parks/emerald-ash-borer/.
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