Politics & Government
Almost 1,000 Ash Trees Removed in Fight Against Emerald Ash Borer
Oak Creek continues its battle against the invasive beetle.
A year and a half after the emerald ash borer was first discovered in Oak Creek, the city's Parks, Recreation & Forestry Department is still battling that menacing beetle.
Nearly 1,000 ash trees have been removed, with about 500 taken out over the course of a week last November on both public and private land.
Healthy trees have been treated to prevent infestation. The Legacy Tree Program, a free community awareness project offered by Valent Chemical, has assisted Oak Creek in treating 125 trees for the next five years.
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The city is also planting replacement ash trees around Oak Creek, hoping they will be protected from the borer, City Forester Rebecca Lane said.
All of those efforts stem from the Parks Department’s unpleasant discovery of the emerald ash borer in November of 2009. To make matters worse, core samples from local ash trees revealed they had been here for close to five years, Lane said.
Find out what's happening in Oak Creekwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The emerald ash borer is a species of beetle native to Asia that was accidentally introduced to Canada and the United States during the 1990s. It is a highly-invasive, destructive insect that feeds on the sap of ash trees, which are common in Oak Creek and throughout Wisconsin. Once an ash tree is infested with ash borer larva, it can die within a year, Lane said.
"All untreated ash will succumb to the ash borer (die), given enough time," Lane said.
Damage from the insect is difficult to see during the first few years of infestation, which explains why it went undetected until 2009. The borer's elusiveness allows it to quietly build populations that can eventually explode exponentially, which, according to Lane, "is exactly what we're experiencing in Oak Creek right now."
Oak Creek residents can help by not moving firewood, a message they have probably seen on billboards throughout southeastern Wisconsin.
According to the city's emerald ash borer management plan, the moving of ash wood and related products is the No. 1 cause of the beetle’s proliferation.
