Streamwood approves removal of up to 500 ash trees

A maximum of 500 ash trees will be removed in Streamwood by the end of this year.

Village manager Gary O’Rourke said the village board at its meeting Thursday night approved a $310,500 unit price contract with Kramer Tree Specialists Inc. for tree removal. The cost could vary, depending on how many trees are removed.

O’Rourke said there is not a particular area of the village that the tree removal will target. Instead, trees that are clearly dead or dangerous because of their condition will be the first to get removed.

The contract also provides for the removal of some stumps left behind from trees that have already been cut down, O’Rourke said.

Since 2011, approximately 600 trees have been removed in the village, O’Rourke said. About 450 of them have been replaced with a variety of tree species.

“If there’s some other issue, whether it be an insect or a disease, we have not recreated the ash problem,” O’Rourke said.

Streamwood also has a bid out to purchase more trees for replacement of ash trees, O’Rourke said.

“The village is working to replace trees that we remove, although it is not necessarily on a one-to-one basis,” he said, noting that there are an estimated 2,500 ash trees along streets in the village.