These mountain pine beetles are very destructive, killing millions of trees (Photo courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Research Station)
For more than a decade, mountain pine beetles have been devastating
forests in Canada and the Western United States. Colorado
has been hit especially hard. Millions of dead pines are creating the potential for huge forest fires. So, the trees are being cut
down. Conrad Wilson reports, some business are using that
timber:
Transcript
For more than a decade, mountain pine beetles have been devastating
forests in Canada and the Western United States. Colorado
has been hit especially hard. Millions of dead pines are creating the potential for huge forest fires. So, the trees are being cut
down. Conrad Wilson reports, some business are using that
timber:
(sound of a beetle)
That’s the sound of mountain pine beetles hard at work, laying
eggs beneath a tree’s bark. That kills the tree.
Here in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains,
two million acres of pine trees have been killed.
But the same destruction caused by the bugs has also created an
opportunity.
The beetles introduce a fungus that stains the wood a unique
blue. And that’s caught the attention of Colorado’s woodworkers. They’re using the wood for everything from furniture to decking.
(sound of sawing and pounding)
Outside Boulder, a company called Kitchens by Wedgewood is using the wood for
cabinets.
Wedgewood President Jim Ames says his company started working
with the timber three years ago.
Despite the drop in the housing market, Ames says customers like the blue stained finish.
“People are starting to ask for it more and more. Again, as
we get into this green movement, everybody wants to see what all those
dead trees in Colorado look like when they’re turned into a cabinet door.”
Ames says, with so many trees being killed, there will be enough timber to make beetle
wood cabinets for the rest of his lifetime.
The grizzly bear has a new threat - the Mountain Pine Beetle that's wiping out its food source (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
We’ve heard about a warmer climate affecting polar bears. Now, warmer weather seems to be threatening another kind of bear. Mark Brush reports on some tough times for Yellowstone’s Grizzly bears:
Transcript
We’ve heard about a warmer climate affecting polar bears. Now, warmer weather seems to be threatening another kind of bear. Mark Brush reports on some tough times for Yellowstone’s Grizzly bears:
Researchers say warmer temperatures in the last ten to fifteen years have been messing with the ecology in Yellowstone National Park.
In the fall, the grizzly bears eat pine cone nuts from white bark pine trees. It gives them a lot of nutrition before they curl up for the winter. But those trees are dying.
Mountain pine beetles are killing them. The beetle populations usually get knocked back by cold weather. But it hasn’t been getting as cold. So, there are more beetles killing more trees.
Doug Peacock lives near Yellowstone and has written several books on grizzlies.
“The white bark pine trees, this is the most important grizzly food of all in Yellowstone, they are gone. And we will not see them come back in our lifetime.”
And when the trees are gone, the bears get hungry – they go looking for food – and they run into people.
48 grizzlies out of the 600 in the region were killed last year.
Some environmental groups are suing the government to get the bear back on the endangered species list.
Adult emerald ash borer (Photo by David Cappaert, Michigan State University, courtesy of the Michigan Department of Agriculture)
There might be a new weapon to use against a
destructive pest. Rebecca Williams reports the emerald
ash borer has killed more than 30 million ash trees in
eight states and Ontario:
Transcript
There might be a new weapon to use against a
destructive pest. Rebecca Williams reports the emerald
ash borer has killed more than 30 million ash trees in
eight states and Ontario:
No one’s been able to stop the tiny green beetle from killing trees. But
officials are hoping a new insecticide will help.
Researchers at Michigan State University ran trials for one year with a
chemical called Tree-age. In those tests, the insecticide killed all of the
beetles. The state of Michigan has approved the insecticide for use on ash
trees. Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia are also considering it.
Jim Bowes is with the Michigan Department of Agriculture. He says the
emerald ash borer probably can’t be stopped, but the insecticide might
slow the beetle’s spread.
“Nobody here and I don’t think anybody in the federal government at this
point is talking about eradication. I think everybody is talking about how
are we going to coexist?”
Bowes says the insecticide might be able to save trees in your yard, if
the infestation is caught early enough.
Apple grower Jim Koan has discovered that baby pigs are best for taking care
of fallen wormy apples in his orchard. He says they have very tender noses.
The adult pigs like to root around in the dirt and tend to tear up the
orchard. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Jim Koan's Berkshire pigs, enjoying the early spring mud. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Berkshire pigs like to investigate visitors. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Some of the guinea fowl that Jim Koan first tried to use to tackle the apple
pest, plum curculio. It was working, until hawks found out the orchard
was full of tasty little birds. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Jim Koan says being an organic grower means thinking ahead. Once you have
an infestation - it's too late. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
There are a lot of insects that love to eat
apples. A harmful insecticide that kills some of
those pests is being phased out. So farmers are
looking for other solutions. Rebecca Williams visits
an apple grower who’s counting on pigs to get some
help with his pest problem:
Transcript
There are a lot of insects that love to eat
apples. A harmful insecticide that kills some of
those pests is being phased out. So farmers are
looking for other solutions. Rebecca Williams visits
an apple grower who’s counting on pigs to get some
help with his pest problem:
(farm animal sounds – turkeys, etc)
The spring rains have started, and at Jim Koan’s pig pen that means mud.
(sound of shoes squishing in mud and piggy snorts)
Of course, these pigs don’t really seem to mind that.
“These Berkshires, you can see, are really friendly, they’re just coming
right up to you.”
Jim Koan really likes his pigs. That’s because he’s hoping the pigs will
take care of one of his worst pests. It’s a beetle called the plum
curculio. In early spring the beetles lay eggs in the little green apples.
The larvae hatch and eat the apples from the inside out.
Then the tree drops the bad wormy apples on the ground. And the worms just
keep on eating.
For a long time, farmers used an insecticide called azinphos-methyl to kill
the beetles. But the Environmental Protection Agency is phasing it out.
That’s because the EPA says the pesticide is very toxic to some wildlife and
it can make farm workers sick.
Jim Koan hasn’t used the pesticide for 10 years, ever since he became an
organic grower. So for years now he’s been trying to find a perfect
predator to stop the beetle larvae.
The chickens were too lazy. Hawks ate the guinea fowl that he tried.
So, finally, Koan says he had a flashback. His grandpa used to have hogs in
the orchard.
“When I would climb up to go up in the tree in the summertime to get a green
apple to eat all the hogs would come running over there and my granddad
always told me you stay away from those hogs they’ll eat you up! I’d be
really scared and be up there for an hour or two until the hogs left again.”
(laughs)
Koan says he knows now that the hogs were just hoping for a snack. So last
year he decided to buy some hogs and see if they would eat the wormy apples
on the ground. He says baby pigs worked best.
“And they’d just go up one row gleaning it, kinda like little vacuum
cleaners (makes sucking sound) and suck up all the apples!”
Koan says the baby pigs ate 98% of the fallen apples with beetle
larvae in them. But he still needed to know that the beetles were actually
gone, so they wouldn’t come back to attack his apples next year.
That job
was up to researchers at Michigan State University. Koan says they fed a
mix of beetle larvae and apples to pigs on campus.
“Then they put diapers on the hogs – truly, diapers!! It was unbelievable.
They took special superglue and velcroed it on their butt so then when they
defecated they caught all that. Then they took these poor students and made
them go through there and wash all that and look for worms.”
Koan says out of 200 worms that were fed to the pigs, they only found one
worm at the other end. That means, so far it looks like pigs are a
pretty good predator.
But the researchers don’t want to let pigs run wild – just yet. David
Epstein is the lead researcher on the project.
“Jim and I are scheming all the time. I have great expectations that this
could be a good management tool in the future but we have to figure out how
to do it properly.”
Epstein says they need to make sure the pigs don’t cause any contamination
problems. Something like E. coli. He says so far there isn’t any
evidence of that, but it’s the kind of thing you have to be sure about.
If this all goes well, the farmer and the scientist will be writing a book
together. It’ll be sort of a self-help book: getting pigs to take care of
what’s bugging you.
The emerald ash borer is killing ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Ontario... and scientists say all the ash in North America is at risk if the beetle can't be stopped. (Photo courtesy of USFS)
Adult emerald ash borers lay eggs on the bark of ash trees. When the eggs hatch, the little larvae chew right through the bark and feast on the living tissue under the bark. The beetles cut off the tree's water and food supply. When the larvae become adults, they emerge from the tree, leaving a D-shaped exit hole.(Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of
Agriculture)
The bark of an infested ash tree splits and pulls away from the tree. Chunks of bark can fall off the tree as it dies. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of Agriculture)
A tiny green beetle is killing millions of ash trees. And so far nobody’s
found a way to stop it in its tracks. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports cities and states are struggling to find money to keep the beetle from spreading:
Transcript
A tiny green beetle is killing millions of ash trees. And so far nobody’s
found a way to stop it in its tracks. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams
reports cities and states are struggling to find money to keep the beetle
from spreading:
Once emerald ash borers chew their way into your ash trees, there’s
pretty much only one thing you can do.
(Sound of chainsaw and tree cracking and falling)
Crews here have been sawing down and chipping up trees six days a
week. In some places, crews are cutting down both dead and live trees.
Dead trees are a safety hazard. Cutting live trees near infested areas can
help contain the beetles.
The emerald ash borer is native to China. Scientists think it got in on
wood packing crates more than ten years ago. The emerald ash borer eats
through the living part of the tree just underneath the bark. The beetles
cut off the tree’s water and food supply… so it starves to death. 15
million ash trees are dead or dying in Michigan. Hundreds of thousands
are dying in Ohio, Indiana and Ontario, and it could spread to other states
soon.
Some cities have been hit really hard. For example, some of the trees in
Ann Arbor, Michigan have been dead for a couple of years. Kay
Sichenader is the city’s forester. She says she’s worried about limbs
breaking off trees, or bark falling off in 80 pound chunks.
“There’s some terrifically bad ones out there. Nothing will make me
happier than when those trees are down, I gotta tell you.”
This isn’t the first time cities have lost big shade trees. Dutch elm
disease almost wiped out American elms in the 1960’s and 70’s. It’s a
little ironic: people planted ash trees to replace the elms because they
thought ash trees were invincible.
That love of ash trees means cities are losing 20 or 30 percent of their
trees, and they’re spending millions of dollars to take trees out.
Forester Kay Sichenader says her city normally takes out a thousand old
trees a year. Now, she’s got ten times as many trees to cut down.
“If I never bumped it up, and we just remained with our thousand a year,
we would never change because it would take me ten years to get the ash
out. In the meantime I’d have 10,000 more dead trees to deal with. It’s
sobering.”
Sichenader says the city’s trying to get the dead ash trees out as fast as
they can. She’s contracted five extra crews to saw down trees. She
hopes they’ll be done by the end of the year, but it might be longer.
Many homeowners are getting impatient. They’re worried about big
branches falling on their cars or homes. Or worse, falling on their kids.
Laura Lee Hayes lives in a cul-de-sac with four infested ash trees. She
points out a big branch on her neighbor’s dead tree.
“This whole piece is just laying here, ready to pull off, and there are
small children that play in this yard. That’s why I look to my city to get
over here and get these trees down. There’s a real frightening aspect to
that.”
Hayes says she tried to pay to take the trees down herself, but she found
out it would’ve cost more than a thousand dollars.
In Indiana, homeowners now have to spend their own money to get rid of
dead trees in their yards. State officials say they can’t afford to keep
cutting down live ash trees to slow the infestation. The state won’t be
giving money to help cities cut down dead trees either. That could mean
the emerald ash borer will spread unchecked.
At first, the federal government sent states several million dollars to fight
the beetle, but now the money’s just trickling in. In 2004, Michigan
Governor Jennifer Granholm asked President Bush to declare the state a
federal disaster area. That request was denied. Recently, officials in
Ohio and Michigan said they’ll have to cut back on containing new
infestations.
These trends worry scientists.
Deb McCullough is a forest entomologist at Michigan State University.
She says states barely have enough money to monitor how far the beetle’s
spreading, and she says a lot more money’s needed for ad campaigns to
tell people to stop moving firewood. The beetle spreads fastest when
campers or hunters move infested wood.
“You have to look down the road, and either you spend millions of
dollars today to try to contain emerald ash borer or we’re going to be
looking at losses in the tens of billions of dollars in the future, and it’s not
too distant of a future.”
McCullough says if more funding doesn’t come in states might need to
have timber sales to take ash out before the beetle kills it. And cities will
still be paying millions of dollars to take out dead trees. That means
people who live in those cities might see cuts in other programs or have
to pay higher taxes.
Deb McCullough says the economic impacts are serious… but the
environmental impacts could be even worse. She says it’s hard to know
how wildlife might be affected if we continue to lose millions of ash
trees.
The emerald ash borer is a pest that kills ash trees, and is spreading quickly throughout the Midwest. (Photo by David Cappaert, courtesy of
invasivespecies.gov)
Scientists and government officials are focusing on what they call “gateway areas” in their fight to stop the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
Scientists and government officials are focusing on what they call
“gateway areas” in their fight to stop the spread of the Emerald Ash Borer.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
Emerald Ash Borer beetles have killed or are killing more than 15
million ash trees in Michigan, surrounding states and one Canadian province.
Deb McCullough is an entomologist at Michigan State University. She
says right now, infested or dead ash trees are being chopped down and
destroyed. But she says there’s not nearly enough government funding to
target all of the infested areas.
“So a decision has been made at a national level to focus what
federal funding is available on what we’re calling the gateways, the areas
that would let Emerald Ash Borer move into the rest of the country or into
the rest of the North America.”
McCullough says federal resources are being spent to stop Emerald
Ash Borer from spreading to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and from spreading
deeper into Ohio, Indiana and Ontario.
Federal protections for isolated wetlands like this one are in question after a 2001 Supreme Court ruling. Experts say it's not just wetlands that are at risk. They say lakes or streams that have been deemed "isolated" are losing protections as well. (Photo by Mark Brush)
David Brakhage is the Director of Conservation Programs for the Great Lakes region for Ducks Unlimited. He works with people throughout the region who want to restore wetland habitats. (Photo by Mark Brush)
A 1997 U.S. Fish and Wildlife report found that the rate of loss of wetlands decreased in the 1990's. Experts fear the rate has been increasing since the 2001 Supreme Court ruling and subsequent guidance to federal agencies. (Photo by Mark Brush)
Around the country, there are small, isolated swampy areas that are home to a lot of plants and animals. You can often hear frogs singing, or see ducks dabbling for food in these murky waters. Some experts say the government has weakened regulations that once protected these smaller wetlands. Now, they say, many of these wetlands are being drained, filled in and lost. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
Around the country there are small, isolated swampy areas that are home
to a lot of plants and animals. You can often hear frogs singing, or
see ducks dabbling for food in these murky waters. Some experts say
the government has weakened regulations that once protected these
smaller wetlands. Now, they say, many of these wetlands are being
drained, filled in and lost. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark
Brush has more:
This small wetland is nestled in the middle of a woodlot. Mud is
squishing under our feet as we walk around it. The water is still, and
dark… filled with last year’s rotting leaves.
This is no place for humans to live. But for wildlife, this is home.
(sound of chorus and wood frogs)
“That looks like what was left of a whirligig beetle – that’s a real
common insect in these types of habitats.”
We’re out here with Dave Brakhage. He’s a conservationist with Ducks
Unlimited. He says these small wetlands are where ducks take their
ducklings for food.
Brakhage brought us here to show us an example of a wetland that was
once protected by federal regulations:
“These wetlands are isolated because there’s not a direct water
connection from them to a lake or stream or other water body in the
area. They’re geographically isolated.”
Being isolated puts these wetlands into a sort of regulatory limbo. To
dredge or fill a wetland like this 4 years ago – you needed to apply
for a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.
Now – in many parts of the country – you don’t need that permit.
That’s because in 2001 the Supreme Court ruled on a case from the
Chicago area that changed everything. The court’s decision opened up a
lot debate about whether isolated wetlands should be protected by the
federal government.
Dave Brakhage says the ruling gave the Bush Administration an
opportunity to issue a guidance to government agencies.
“The Supreme Court ruling certainly threw into question a lot of the
protections that were in place there. And that opened the door to the
guidance. And depending on how the guidance came down and the
interpretations associated with it. It could certainly make things a
whole lot worse.”
The Bush administration issued these instructions to the federal
agencies in January of 2003.
But conservation officials and environmentalists believe the
administration went too far with these instructions, going beyond what
the Supreme Court ruling required.
The instructions were issued prior to drafting a final, formal rule.
But before it finalized the rule – the Bush Administration got an
earful.
“There was a lot of concern expressed on the part of a pretty broad
swath of the American Public.”
Scott Yaich is the Director of Conservation Programs with Ducks
Unlimited. He says the Administration heard protests from those they
considered friendly:
“We were talking about people who were concerned about the environment,
and in this case there were a lot of hunters and a other sporting
groups and angling groups that went into him, and those are a pretty
core part of the Republican and the President’s base.”
So President Bush stopped the rule-making process that would lift the
protections.
But… the original instructions to the agencies still stand.
And the Administration has no plans to change them.
Julie Sibbing is wetlands policy specialist with the National Wildlife
Federation. She says getting the President to back away from finalizing
the rule was a small victory, but there’s still a lot to be done:
“It was a right decision at we do recognize that and we praise the
administration for taking the right step, but they’ve got a long way to
go yet. We still have a long way to go – and there’s a lot at risk.
In fact the EPA’s own estimates are that the guidance has put about 20
million acres, or about 20% of what we have left in the lower 48 states
of wetlands at risk.”
But the risk is not the same for wetlands in different areas of the
country. So today, when developers and landowners go to the Army Corps
of Engineers to apply for a permit, they get different responses
depending on where they are.
Some Corps districts have turned their back on the isolated wetlands,
telling developers no permits are needed.
Other Corps districts are waiting for clearer direction.
Mitch Isoe is the Chief of the Regulatory Branch for the Corps’ Chicago
District. He says he just wants to know what he’s supposed to do.
“We would like to have revised rules on the definitions for our
jurisdiction. We’d just like to have the critical terms that are
causing all of these difficulties defined in a way that two people in
two parts of the country can read the same sentence, go out on the
ground and end up at the same point. And, you know, right now the
field is helpless to do that, because the decision on not to pursue
rulemaking was made in Washington.”
With mixed messages coming from the White House, the Corps of Engineers
and the Environmental Protection Agency are struggling with how and
whether to regulate these wetlands.
In the meantime, it’s generally left up to the states to pass laws to
protect these areas.
Some states have laws that do that, others don’t.
(sound of frogs)
Ducks Unlimited and other conservation and environmental groups are
working with the Administration to protect these wetlands. Dave
Brakhage says doing so will benefit more than just ducks:
“And it’s not just the wildlife – you know wetlands are important in
terms of storing floodwaters, an important site for restoring ground
water recharge, and also have a big role to play in improving our water
quality.”
The Bush Administration says it’s committed to preserving wetlands, and
it even says it plans to increase the amount of wetlands in the U.S.
Environmentalists and hunting groups say they don’t see that happening
right now. But they’re pushing the Administration to make good on that
promise.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.
An insect called the Emerald Ash Borer has already destroyed thousands of ash trees in Ontario and Michigan…and in February, it was discovered invading the northwest corner of Ohio. Agriculture officials there are trying to contain the bug before it spreads to still more states. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:
Transcript
An insect called the Emerald Ash Borer has already destroyed thousands of ash trees in Ontario
and Michigan…and in February, it was discovered invading the northwest corner of Ohio.
Agriculture officials there are trying to contain the bug before it spreads to still more states.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:
At stake across the Great Lakes region: millions of dollars of wood that’s used for furniture,
cabinets, flooring, and baseball bats. That’s why Ohio agriculture officials have quarantined an
area around Toledo, banning residents from transporting ash wood out of the area. They’ve also
sprayed pesticide on nearby un-infected trees and taken even more drastic action among the 4,000
trees the beetles had already struck.
David Shlike works for the Ohio Agriculture Department.
“At ground zero, out a quarter of a mile, we cut everything, took it down. And had to chip it. We
hauled these chips to Michigan, and they were incinerated. It’s just a devastating pest and that
pest is going to be hatching out here anytime now between the 1st of May and the 15th of May,
and we were trying to take away its food source.”
It will be a few more months before it’s clear whether or not Ohio’s action has stopped the bugs’
advance.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Cohen in Columbus.
Scientists are working to control a new non-native beetle that’s destroying hundreds of thousands of ash trees in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
Scientists are working to control a new non-native beetle that’s destroying hundreds of
thousands of ash trees in the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Erin Toner reports:
The Emerald Ash Borer is native to Asia, and probably made its way to the United States
through wood packing materials. Therese Poland is an entomologist with the
USDA. She says so far, the beetles have destroyed 100 thousand ash trees in southeastern
Michigan and southern Ontario.
“We think it’s been here for at least five years and even with some of the other exotic
beetles that have been discovered in recent years, when they were first discovered they
weren’t as widespread as this.”
Poland says there’s a quarantine over the infested areas to keep the beetles from moving
to new areas. Officials are inspecting nurseries to make sure they’re not selling infested
trees. They’re also checking whether tree care companies are disposing of trees properly.
But officials admit they probably won’t be able to stop people who unknowingly transport
infested firewood or yard waste.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.
Dutch elm disease is killing dozens of stately old trees in the Midwest this summer. Many people say they regret losing the beautiful old trees. It changes the way a place looks and feels for years to come. Some people are willing to fight and pay to save the elm trees in one Chicago suburb. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jody Becker reports:
Transcript
Dutch elm disease is killing dozens of stately old trees in the Great Lakes region this summer. Many people say they regret losing the beautiful old trees. It changes the way a place looks and feels for years to come. Some people are willing to fight and pay to save the elm trees in one Chicago suburb. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jody Becker reports:
When Hollywood producers come looking for the perfect leafy suburb, they often wind up in Evanston, Illinois. This summer’s Tom Hanks flick “The Road to Perdition” was shot here. Filming almost hit a glitch…when Dreamworks suggested removing an old tree to make way for a driveway, the city balked. The scene was filmed; the tree stayed.
Evanston has dozens of trees at least a century old; and some even older than that.
Today, Evanston residents are even fighting a directive from the state’s Department of Transportation to replace obsolete traffic lights because it might mean uprooting some trees. So Evanston’s city Arborist Paul D’Agostino clearly has a rough job: he’s in charge of cutting down trees in a city of tree huggers.
“I’ve had to console people who were crying and hugging their tree and convince them that we were doing the right thing, that there was no choice in the matter.”
Like a handful of tree studded suburbs around Chicago and dozens of cities around the Great Lakes region, Evanston is experiencing a sad summer as Dutch elm disease claims dozens of trees more than half a century old and up to 70 feet tall.
Already more than one hundred Evanston elms have been found to have the killer fungus, and D’Agostino expects the toll to exceed two hundred. Once infected, a tree quickly begins to die…as the fungus blocks the vascular system that delivers water and nutrients to branches and leaves.
D’Agostino explains, standing near two dying elms in front of the Evanston Police Department…
“Both of these trees are in my estimation probably about 40 years old. These are pretty far along now in showing signs of disease…but the typical symptoms of yellowing and flagging leaves has now progressed to dead leaves and bare branches. We’ve got dying sucker growth along the main trunk which means the disease has spread into the main trunk and into the roots, so there’s no curing this tree at this point. The only way to solve this problem now is to remove the tree so it doesn’t spread to other nearby elms.”
(sound of sawing trees)
So five days a week, three crews of three men each are out on Evanston streets, taking down very old, very tall trees.
(sound of chain saw and crash)
For this relatively affluent, leafy suburb defined by its generous trees, the return of Dutch elm disease brings back bad memories of summers nearly 30 years ago, when hundreds of trees were cut down, destroying the canopies of tree tops that shade many of Evanston’s streets.
Still, there are 27,000 trees on city property in Evanston, and D’Agostino estimates three times that many on private property.
Today the suburb’s green and shade is created by a careful mix of hybrids and hardier trees, including Kentucky coffee, linden, gingko, honey locust and horse chestnut.
And the city is moving ahead with plans to continue replanting with diverse species to avoid future epidemics.
But ever a hotbed of activism, Evanston environmentalists of every stripe are on the case, badgering officials to do more than just identify and remove diseased trees.
Many want the city to inoculate the elms against the fungus.
“I’m a conservative republican, not at all a tree hugger. Al Gore and I would not mix ”
Virginia Mann has successfully organized the 13 other homeowners on her block to foot the bill to inject the elms on their street.
There are nine healthy elms on the block, and Mann and her neighbors have decided to adopt and inject three trees each year, at a cost of about $600 per tree.
“I know they add value to my community, I know they add value to my property, and I
know they keep my cooling costs down and I know there’s nothing I can do to replace them. So if you don’t take care of them, that’s it, they’re gone.”
While prognosis for the inoculated trees is excellent, there are no guarantees.
Dutch elm disease is spread both by beetles who carry the fungus on their hairs, and through root grafts between neighboring trees.
There is no way to protect the trees from root grafts. No one is sure why the disease is back and moving so aggressively.
Some citizens say, though inoculations can’t guarantee saving a tree, with only about 3,000 elms left in Evanston they’d rather try, than accept what the city officials seem to believe is the inevitable demise of the species in their suburb.
“Well, you can see my tree suffered an amputation this year.”
Mimi Peterson’s front porch on Ashland Avenue is shaded by a tall sturdy-looking survivor.
“It’s one of the few elms left on the block. You can also see across the street where we lost a really huge one. We’ve already lost nine trees on the block.”
She is well known in town for raising her voice as an advocate for trees; five years ago she hounded the city into more routine tree trimmings.
Now Peterson’s spearheading a group called TREE…To Rescue Evanston Elms, looking to suburbs like nearby Hinsdale…a place with more elm trees and a more aggressive Dutch elm disease prevention program.
Peterson says she agrees that diseased trees should go…but more needs to be done to protect still healthy elms.
Mostly Peterson’s group wants the city to spend more time and money looking for trees to save rather than trees to cut.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jody Becker.
These mountain pine beetles are very destructive, killing millions of trees (Photo courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Research Station)
