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News
Emerald Ash Borer devastating Oswego trees : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisEmerald Ash Borer devastating Oswego trees
| Village crews have removed almost 300 trees this year, more to come down
| by John Etheredge
| 6/21/2012
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The Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) beetle is continuing to take a devastating toll on ash trees in the Village of Oswego.
Jerry Weaver, the village's director of public works, told a gathering of village homeowners last week that public works crews have cut down almost 300 EAB infected ash trees located in public parkways this year.
Weaver estimated that an additional 300 ash trees are currently tagged for removal in village-owned parkways.
"Through the summer, we'll be taking down more trees," he added.
But the public parkways should not remain bare for too long.
Weaver said he expects public works crews will plant between 400 and 500 replacement trees this fall.
Weaver noted that some residents have begun chemical treatments of the ash trees in an effort to save them.
He asked that residents who may be treating their parkway trees to notify the public works department.
"If we see a positive sighting of the EAB in parkway tree, we're going to take it down unless we know its being treated," he said.
Weaver said he regrets his department has had to remove so many trees over the past year.
"The village has been a Tree City, U.S.A. for the past 17 years now and the last thing we want to do is to be spending money taking down all these trees and then spending more money to replace them," he said.
Weaver said the spread of the EAB in the village may have been slowed earlier this year by the mild winter.
"We were able to take down a lot of (infected) trees before the beetle got into its flight stage," he noted.
However, he said, the early removal of the infected trees likely only served to slow the spread of the EAB.
"What the (Illinois) department of agriculture is saying is that since Kendall County is an EAB infected county, it doesn't make much difference if you take the trees down before the beetles reached the flight stage or not because eventually they're going to go wherever the food (ash trees) is," he said.
One homeowner told Weaver that he and his neighbors have been trying a chemical treatment on their ash trees.
"The treatments are relatively inexpensive. It's like 10 bucks a year for five years," he said.
The EAB was first detected in the United States in 2002. Since that time, it has spread rapidly to 14 states and Canada and destroyed an estimated 50 to 100 million ash trees, according to information provided by the department of agriculture.
Adult female EABs lay eggs in the bark and bark crevices of ash trees. When the eggs hatch the EAB larvae bore into the tree, cutting off water and nutrients that eventually kills the tree.
In Oswego, the EAB was first detected in trees in the Blackberry Knolls and Gates Creek West subdivisions on the village's west side two years ago this summer. The beetles spread quickly and were soon found in trees in subdivisions throughout the village.
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