The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
A tree crisis in the Forest City
Expert panel convening to educate public on effects of ‘plague’ decimating ash trees
MIDDLETOWN — The death of more than a halfdozen mature ash trees along Church Street has dramatically altered the landscape along a onceverdant stretch of road near Wesleyan University.
These massive trees were defoliated by the voracious emerald ash borer, a flying insect decimating trees across Connecticut.
The loss of so many trees is felt particularly hard by a municipality known as the Forest City — one that has also earned the National Arbor Day Foundation’s Tree City USA designation 29 years in a row.
Removing the damage wrought
by these insects is exhausting Middletown’s budget, said Jane Harris, an arborist and chairwoman of the Middletown Urban Forestry Commission.
“The city of Middletown and every city and town in Connecticut has been hit with basically a tree plague, and there’s been no budgeting in advance for this. We don’t even know the scope of the cost of removing all the ash trees,” Harris said.
“We know we’re going to be in need of planting 300 to 500 new trees, and there is no money for the replanting. They’re not even money yet for the removal of the dead trees. We’ve just been cut back to the bone,” Harris said.
This isn’t the first time Middletown has seen stretches of roadway succumb to the borers.
In late April, 40 dead ash trees, lining both sides of the road on Ribera Drive, a quiet culdesac off Chamberlain Road, were killed from the infestation.
Planted at least a decade ago, when the neighborhood development sprang up, these 15foot trees were ravaged by the insect first discovered in Connecticut in 2012.
In an effort to raise the public’s awareness of these important issues, John Hall, executive director of the Jonah Center for Earth and Art, is taking a twopronged approach to help the city remediate the problem.
The goal is to educate the public in support of increased tree planting and restoration of Middletown’s urban tree canopy, as well as mobilize the public to attend budget hearings in the spring to increase the urban forestry budget line item to $50,000.
That would allow the number of trees planted per year to increase from 25 to 100, he said.
Hall is also circulating a petition for people to sign in support of the expenditure.
“What we need is consistent, regular funding so we can plant neighborhood by neighborhood and get our green canopy back,” Harris said.
“Removing a large tree is far more expensive than planting a younger, smaller tree. For this reason, the urban forestry budget is being exhausted by the need for tree removals,” Hall added.
In partnership with the Urban Forestry Commission, the Jonah Center is sponsoring an informational program Oct. 15, when a panel of three urban forestry experts will explain the issue and what can be done.
“Pests like the emerald ash borer are a major factor, but there are other factors, too,” Hall said.
Originally found in Michigan in the 1990s, the emerald ash borer infestation was first sighted in Middlesex County in 2014.
“We desperately need the trees [to combat] climate change. It’s not just the shade — it’s the carbon sequestration, it’s breaking up storm water, it’s giving the insects and birds a habitat,” Harris said. “There are a dozen great ways that we need trees and aesthetics are just one part of it.”
Trees are part of a delicate ecosystem in Middletown.
“We can’t just stick any old tree in a street to tree planting. That’s a very hard tree to find — one that won’t get knocked over by trucks and kids on bicycles, and that won’t grow into [electrical] wires. We have to have a very serious talk about how to do this properly,” Harris said.
Middletown was recently awarded a $6,000 grant through the Citizens Advisory Committee , which will pay for the purchase of 20 trees. The Common Council is expected to approve the funding at its October meeting.
The city spent an average of $14,700 annually over the past three years replanting trees, according to Middletown Public Works Deputy Director Chris Holden. They died as a result of pests, storm damage and other issue.
Currently, the city budgets $45,000 a year to remove trees.
The last big tree planting was in 2015 when the Middletown Garden Club planted 35 downtown, Harris said.
“Every year, about 10 in the spring and 10 in the fall is about all we can afford,” she said.
Trees provide a myriad of benefits. “Trees create environments where people like to walk, and so they improve human health and encourage people to value the natural environment,” Hall said.
“Exposure to natural environments in parks, forests, and other such locations can lower people’s blood pressure, and yields important health benefits related to diabetes, obesity, anxiety, depression, and probably others,” he said.
They can also provide natural relief from the sweltering summer sun, and can even remove the need for air conditioning in some situations, such as the southern tree canopy which shades Hall’s house.
“There are many intersecting and selfreinforcing factors here that all add up to the fact that trees are very important, and they provide a lot of benefits. If we don’t start replacing them, we’re going to have a depleted environment,” Hall said.
The meeting Oct. 15 will run from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in City Hall Council Chambers, 245 deKoven Drive. It will feature Chris Donnelly, urban forestry coordinator for the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection; Matthew Viens of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies Urban Resources Initiative, and Heather Dionne, Hartford’s city forester.
For information, visit thejonahcenter.org and the Urban Forestry Commission on the city’s website at cityofmiddletown.com.