City adopts $5.7 million plan to fight emerald ash borer

The City of Sherbrooke is moving forward with a $5.7 million, ten-year plan to contain the spread of emerald ash borer on its territory. The plan is accompanied by new regulatory measures that include requiring citizens who have ash trees on their property to cut down or treat their trees and to grant right of access to private property to the Department of Roads and Maintenance employees.

The commitment represents an estimated half a million dollars a year for this fight, but the City has no plan to provide direct financial assistance to citizens. Treatment and destruction will be at the expense of property owners, but will, nevertheless, be mandatory.

"The landowner owns his ash trees and he has to take action," says the head of the Parks And Green Spaces division, Yves Tremblay, who presented elected officials with the action plan prepared by municipal services at Monday’s Council meeting evening along with Director of the Maintenance and Roads Department. Guylaine Boutin.

Municipal services were inspired by what has been done in other cities in Quebec and concluded that direct financial assistance to citizens had little impact in curbing the spread of the infestation and that it caused a useless administrative burden.

The $5.7 million will be used to manage trees in the public domain, excluding those on large woodlots that are considered less at risk, as well as to monitor the management of private trees, to provide information and advice to citizens and to put in place mechanisms and places to dispose of infested wood safely.

Boutin says the City does not actually expect large outbreaks of infestation the first year, said. Boutin. “It will occur gradually and we will have to adjust.”

The emerald ash borer is a pest insect native to Asia, which has been present in Quebec since 2010-2012. In Sherbrooke it has been expected for about two years and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the agency that regulates the issue, confirmed its presence in October in the Rock Forest sector.

The City of Sherbrooke immediately began an information campaign for privately owned ash trees via an interactive map on its website. It estimates that there are 12,000 of these trees within the City limits, in addition to the 2,500 on public land.

The identified trees will be investigated and if there is any presence of the insect, the examination will extend to ash trees within a radius of 300 meters. Infected ash trees will have to be felled or treated, depending on the level of the tree’s decline.

The recognized treatment is Treeazin Insecticide and its average application cost is between $150 and $250 for medium tree sizes and treatment must be reapplied every two years. The city plans to negotiate a collective treatment plan so that citizens pay the same price as the city for trees in the public domain.

Councilor Karine Godbout, newly appointed Chair of the Environment Committee, suggested Monday night that a financial incentive should be introduced to encourage citizens to replant trees to replace stricken ash trees.

The appropriate regulations will be adopted at the December 4 Council meeting to enter into force on December 7. Municipal employees will start field audits starting on the 11.

So far, 170 citizens have registered 700 ash trees on the City's website of an estimated 12,000 private trees in the city.