Emerald Ash Borer: Destroying ash trees, creating public safety hazards, and wreaking havoc on city budgets

David Bienemann

City Arborist City of Bowling Green, Ohio

oday’s cities across the U.S. and eastern Canada are fine-tuning budgets in order to provide excellent services to residents and businesses. Each decision made to reduce funding to departments requires risk management assessment of the cities’ infrastructure. Public safety is the number one priority for cities. Roads and sidewalks must be safe and clear. Water and sewer service must flow perfectly with no problems. This scenario is ideal under normal situations.

However, the green menace also known as the emerald ash borer (EAB) has now become a major public safety concern for communities in twelve states in the midwestern, eastern and southeastern areas of the U.S. and in the eastern provinces of Canada. EAB has created a new risk management concern for communities struggling to take care of aging infrastructure. EAB can move through a community within 4-8 years and create major safety issues as dead ash trees fail and fall on homes, cars, and potentially people. For example, the City of Midland, Mich., had to take funds from street paving, water-sewer projects, and parks just to remove standing dead ash trees over five years at a cost of $2 million for public safety concerns. The average removal cost was $621 per tree. Energy costs went up by 20% in the areas where the ash trees were removed. The water costs to maintain lawn areas went up by 33%. Previously, the tree budget was $12,000 annually. Cities in Michigan and Ohio have made major adjustments to their operation budgets to handle EAB. For example, the City of Bowling Green is a community in northwest Ohio with a population of 30,000. Bowling Green had to create a Municipal Arborist position to handle EAB and management of the urban forest in 2004. A two-person crew was hired and materials and equipment were purchased to handle the impact of EAB. A total of $600,000 was invested and spent on removing and replacing EAB-infested ash trees over eight years. The City of Toledo has spent close to $8 million in removing and replacing 8,000 public ash trees.

New risk management for EAB must be part of the planning and budgeting process of cities. The silver lining in the cloud is the research— lessons learned and data obtained from Michigan and Ohio can help communities across the U.S. that have a population of ash trees. The first part of the strategy is to incorporate a program to remove the high-risk ash trees that already have structural issues, damage from infrastructure projects, or poor form that will be an immediate safety concern. The second step is to create a treatment program to save ash canopy, ensure public safety, and give the city time to determine the assets and resources to handle an EAB infestation.

One of the major concerns of new risk management is finding quality tree service supplies in the area to handle high populations of dead ash trees in the region, such as the Chicago suburbs. Once EAB population reaches

Kent Reichert, City of Bowling Green Public Works Supervisor, checking ash trees for EAB

high pressure levels, 99% of the ash trees will be dead, standing along streets, parks, and city-paved green spaces. Cities will have to act fast to prevent damage claims and/or lawsuits due to dead or declining ash trees losing limbs or falling down.

Education of the decision makers on EAB risk management will be key in order to have resources allocated for urban forestry operations. Public education is a very important aspect of implementing an EAB management plan and the long-term impact to green infrastructure benefits.

The overall objective is to have a new risk management strategy in place in order to handle the impacts of EAB to public safety, urban forest budgets, and green infrastructure. The risk management plan will assess the pros and cons of implementing treatment and removal programs for EAB. It will allow cities to better plan, adapt and overcome obstacles with resources from the residents and businesses of the community. This will allow scientific fact-based information to guide the ship through stormy waters of politics and emotional debates to benefit the great citizens, cities and towns of North America.

Nelson Tree Service removing five ash trees adjacent to the power lines along E. Poe Road

David Bienemann can be reached at (419) 353-4101 or arborist@bgohio.org.

Recognize Your Leaders

This second article in the series of Recognize Your Leaders is submitted by Dan Hartman, Director of Public Works for the City of Golden, Colorado. He is recognizing one of his first-line supervisors who exhibited the trait of leading by example. He can be reached at dhartman@cityofgolden.net.

Leading by example is a trait common among leaders in any organization. When that trait is exhibited by a front-line employee, such as Scott Ota from the City of Golden’s Street Department, it can send a powerful message throughout an organization. In 2008, the City of Golden’s sign inspection program went completely paperless due in large part to Scott’s willingness to adopt a change in workflow and utilize technology as a tool. The results were nothing short of amazing. Prior to going paperless, the City of Golden spent an average of $5.27 per sign, per inspection and the average time spent inspecting a sign was close to 14 minutes. Because of legacy workflow and the time involved, only regulatory signs were inspected on a yearly basis while non-regulatory signs were supposed to be inspected once every three years. In 2008, the City partnered with their asset management technology provider to utilize a new mobile sign application that was installed on handheld GPS devices. Scott, having minimal computer experience, was trained on how to utilize the device in less than a half hour and after that was off and running. Not only was every sign in the field inspected for the first time in Golden’s history, Scott was able to cut the average cost of inspecting a sign down to $1.55 per sign, per inspection and the average time spent dropped to around three minutes. The following year, the average cost dropped to under $1. In 2010 and 2011, the average cost rose (though still well under the 2007 number); however, more data was being collected, including pictures of most of the signs in the field.

Scott’s willingness to take on the ownership of this project, ability to train others and show real cost savings in dollars and time spent, helped prompt other departments within the City, such as the Stormwater, Forestry and Wastewater Departments, to start using mobile technology. In leading by example, Scott has helped the City become more efficient in not only sign inspections, but other areas as well.