Carol Stream OKs deal for parkway trees

Carol Stream trustees unanimously approved a contract Monday to purchase 2,000 trees to be planted on public parkways over the next eight years.

The $340,000 deal with St. Aubin Nursery in Woodstock comes as village officials continue to monitor trees on village property for the presence of the emerald ash borer.

Under the terms of the contract with St. Aubin, the village will gradually plant the saplings during the last four years of the contract. The nursery agrees to replace any saplings that die above 10 percent of the purchased stock.

In July, an infestation of the tree-killing beetle was found in neighboring Glendale Heights.

Later that summer, the Illinois Department of Agriculture placed a quarantine on 18 northern Illinois counties, including the entire Chicago area, barring the removal of ash wood.

The new saplings purchased by the village will ensure public streets in Carol Stream aren't stripped of treetops by the beetle. Village officials have been working with Morton Arboretum to monitor whether the emerald ash borer, a highly aggressive Asian insect that eats away at the insides of ash trees, has made its way into town.

In Carol Stream, there are about 7,000 trees in public parkways. Of those, 2,741 are ash trees, which are subject to infestation. If those trees were lost, the village would lose about 40 percent of all parkway trees.

Village trustees typically defer the cost of replacing sick or dying trees on public parkways to homeowners. The village reversed that policy earlier this year.

The emerald ash borer was first discovered in southeast Michigan in 2002. To date, it has killed or damaged about 20 million ash trees and has already shown up in some areas of Kane and northern Cook counties.