The ash takes its leave

Bruce Bisping, Star Tribune

As first-time homeowner Jen Kohan, cleaned up leaves from an ash tree, near W. 56th Street and Knox Avenue S. in Minneapolis, she said she regretted the loss of the blocks-long canopy of ash trees that interfered with TV reception. “I was more happy about the tree canopy than not being able to get satellite TV,” she said.

Homeowners who lost trees to the emerald ash borer say not having to rake their yards is small consolation.

By BILL McAULIFFE, Star Tribune

Last update: October 23, 2009 - 9:53 PM

Karen Flink was busy in her front yard last week, getting her peonies ready for winter.

But for the first time in 36 years, she didn't have to rake. The day before, foresters had cut down her ash tree.

"We wish that insect had never invaded," she said of the borer whose first appearance in Minnesota was confirmed in her St. Paul neighborhood in May. It now threatens the state's 900 million ash trees. "But it happened, and now we have to deal with the consequences.

"The silver lining," she added, after a moment's reflection, "is that maybe my plants will get more sun. And I might have a few more lilacs next year."

Optimism like that is hard-earned in the path of the emerald ash borer, which has killed tens of millions of trees in Michigan, as well as in 11 other states and two Canadian provinces, since it was detected in 2002. After the first known ash borer season in Minnesota, some experts are now saying a lot will be lost -- but maybe not all.

In the days after the bug was confirmed in St. Paul, foresters removed 68 infested ash trees in and around Flink's Hampden Park neighborhood. More recently, they removed 46 other obviously declining ash in a ring outside "ground zero," and found only one of them infested, said Department of Agriculture entomologist Mark Abrahamson.

Meanwhile, testing by the U.S. Department of Agriculture has determined that the borers entered St. Paul trees in 2006. By contrast, borers had been killing trees in Michigan for more than a decade before researchers even knew they were there.

Together, those factors give foresters reason to believe that they might be able at least to slow the spread of the borer across the state through restrictions of the transport of firewood and brush, selective removal of diseased trees and the sacrifice of some trees as "traps" to attract ash borers away from other trees. Property owners, meanwhile, might be able to protect their healthy ash trees with annual insecticide treatments.

Multimillion-dollar problem

"We don't want people to get the idea that it's not going to be a problem," said Minnesota Department of Agriculture spokesman Mike Schommer. "Ultimately it's about containing the problem, not eliminating it."

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman's proposed budget for dealing with the pest next year is about $1.3 million. A Parks and Recreation Department report suggested that the city might have to spend about $3 million per year after that to fight the ash borer. About 120,000 of the 450,000 trees in the city are ash.

Minnesota is making nearly $2 million available to local governments to begin dealing with the emerald ash borer. In Minneapolis, officials believe it could cost as much as $26 million to remove the 38,000 ash on city property, though no one knows how long that might take. There are 162,000 on private property.

Parks and Recreation forestry director Ralph Sievert said the loss of all those trees "is the most expected outcome."

Attached to their trees

Though the bug hasn't been detected in Minneapolis, the city recently removed nine ash in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood that were to be trimmed to give clearance to utility lines. Six were spared after neighbors said they wanted to keep their shade as long as they could, Sievert said.

That sort of attachment is common. In southwest Minneapolis, block leaders Elona and Bruce Graff said they're worried that someday they might not be shaded by the trees that attracted them to the neighborhood 32 years ago.

"I always think of them as just the way they are," Elona Graff said. "We love these trees. And we're happy to rake the leaves."

Staff writer Chris Havens contributed to this report. Bill McAuliffe • 612-673-7646

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