Ash borer beetle could take a bite out of your wallet
The Asian insect cutting a swath out of the city’s urban canopy could soon be taking a bite out of homeowners’ wallets.
Toronto residents are on the hook for the removal of dead ash trees killed by the Emerald Ash borer on their property. A recent city map shows the beetle has infected trees throughout the eastern half of Toronto and is moving fast to the other side of Yonge St.
The city estimates that two-thirds of the ash trees — almost 600,000 — are on private property. Their removal could cost some homeowners thousands of dollars.
“We want the general public to maintain trees on their property and to recognize that that is their responsibility,” says Beth McEwen, the city’s manager of urban forest renewal. Private tree maintenance is mandated under the city’s property standards bylaw. “And we want them to replant trees if their trees die because that’s part of maintaining Toronto’s tree canopy,” she says.
That’s a concern for residents in the Guildwood area of Toronto, where 80- to 90-year-old ash trees tower above homes south of Kingston Rd.
“There are people here who are retired folks. If they’re hit with $100,000 of tree removal in three years, I don’t know how they would be able to afford it,” says resident Jean-Marc Frion, who has three large ash trees in his backyard.
Frion expressed his concerns at a public information meeting on the ash borer this summer after a neighbour was charged $7,000 for the removal of two dead trees.
He’s particularly concerned that as the infestation spreads and reaches his area, demand for tree removal will inflate costs.
In the early part of the infestation, it can take three or four years to kill trees, but as the number of beetles build up, trees could die within a year, says McEwen. By 2017, most of the city’s ash trees will be dead, a loss of almost 10 per cent of Toronto’s tree canopy.
“If we have between five and 25 trees to take down in a matter of two years, obviously we’re going to be sitting in a situation where there is going to be gouging,” says Frion.
The city is currently trying to streamline the process for residents. It is waiving the $100 permit to remove trees more than 30 centimetres in diameter from private property. Instead, residents can call 311 and provide photos of the infested tree or provide proof from a reputable arborist.
About 70,000 trees will fall into this category. McEwen says the remaining 530,000 are less than 30 centimetres in diameter.
Parks staff is also working on guidelines to help homeowners find qualified arborists able to evaluate, treat and remove ash trees.
“A lot of people think that hiring a tree-care company is a confusing process to go through and that they get a lot of different offers of different kinds of services,” says McEwen. “They don’t know who is a reputable service provider and they don’t understand the qualifications that kind of service provider would have to do their work.”
The city is holding information meetings from 7 to 9 p.m., Tuesday at the Scarborough Civic Centre, Wednesday at Etobicoke Civic Centre and Thursday at the Masaryk Cowan Community Recreation Centre.
The forestry division has already removed 950 dead and dying ash trees from streets and parks in Scarborough, parts of North York and west Toronto. Some 400 more will be removed this fall.
Is your ash tree infected?
Symptoms: Infested trees can have shoots growing from the trunk, cracking bark, yellowing foliage and dead branches. The symptoms are usually evident after two to three years of infestation.
Detection: Because the same symptoms result from drought or other pests, it’s extremely difficult to determine if a tree is infested with the beetle. Peeling back the bark can reveal the s-shaped paths of the larvae as they feed between the sapwood and bark, but at this point, the tree is usually heavily infested.
Leaves: Adults will chew a D-shaped hole through the bark on their way out of the tree and then feed on the leaves. Foliage at the crown will look ragged if there are large numbers of beetles feeding on leaves.