Barrington pulls plug on rescuing ash trees

Barrington officials have decided not to pay for the treatment of public ash trees threatened by the emerald ash borer, but won’t prohibit property owners from treating their own trees or any public trees nearby.

The only provision is that property owners notify the village of any public trees they’ll be treating.

“The policy we’re looking for calls for licensing, so we’re at least aware,” Barrington Village Manager Jeff Lawler said.

No residents argued against the new policy before its approval at Monday night’s village board meeting.

Though different suburbs have been taking a variety of approaches to the emerald ash borer, Barrington is opting to save its financial resources for a reforestation program that will diversify the village’s tree stock, Lawler said.

As such, the village declined to perform a detailed analysis of exactly how much money chemical treatment of ash trees would cost. Such an analysis would have to measure the size of each individual tree and weigh which of a few different chemicals would be used in their treatment, Lawler said.

Instead, under the policy approved Monday night, the village will be restarting its public tree canopy from scratch.

Starting again will allow the village to ensure that its public tree stock is diversified and not completely vulnerable to any one threat — as has already happened with Dutch elm disease and the emerald ash borer. It also allows the spacing between canopy trees to be more strategically placed than was the case before, Lawler said.

This year has seen many communities’ response to the emerald ash borer transition from reaction to establishment of long-term plans. Barrington’s plan is based on the results of a recently completed study evaluating the best step forward, Lawler said.

Village board members agreed that the best policy was to plan for the long-term future with tree species other than the ash.