Politics & Government

City Taking Steps to Combat Emerald Ash Borer

While the destructive bug that attacks ash trees goes dormant over winter, plans for dealing with the problem are already being discussed.

With fall setting in, the emerald ash borer is nearing its hibernation season — but that doesn't mean the destructive bug is a problem that can wait.

The bug continues to spread, and was recently detected in Massachusetts, the 18th state since its discovery in 2002 in Michigan, according to an article on Boston.com.

"Though the preferred time for protecting ash trees with insecticide treatments has passed this year ... Fall is prime time to update your ash inventory and identify the trees worth saving, so you can be ready in the spring when EAB treatments are the most effective," according to an article on Emeraldashborer.info.

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It seems city officials are on the right track then, with recent decisions to combat the bug that threatens the roughly 1,100 ash trees exist in the city, according to an Ozaukee Press article.

The Port Washington Parks and Recreation Board is considering treating some of the 150 ash trees in , according to the article, and the Board of Public Works voted to include funding in the city's 2013 budget to treat some city trees.

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The city confirmed that EAB was found in the 400 block of North Powers Street on June 15. Port Washington had stopped planting ash trees along city streets in 2005 as a preventative step to the growing problem, a press release from the city said. Since 2002, the city also aggressively planted new street trees, increasing the total number of street trees from approximately 5,000 trees in 2001, to more than 8,000 trees in 2012.

"It's a human driven disaster, people messed up and brought this beetle in and released it," Entomologist Deborah McCullough said in a video on Emeraldashborer.info, "and its going to be a long time, before we have anyhting — if we were to find resistant species or resistant invidiuls, you can't replace tens of millions, hundreds of millions of ash trees."


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