Ash-borer touches off property rights debate in suburbs

In the battle against the gluttonous emerald ash borer, is it fair to force someone to cut down an infested tree in the hope that doing so will spare others?

It's a question with which Geneva - like many towns - is wrestling.

The city council recently agreed to designate emerald ash borers a nuisance, much as the state did in a 2006 declaration, but city leaders stopped short - for now - of forcing homeowners to remove diseased trees from private property.

City Administrator Mary McKittrick said the state is suggesting her city declare the bug a pest, in case the state comes up with money for local ash borer-fighting efforts or provides access to technical expertise.

The debate for many communities is just how far they should go to stop the beetle.

Neighboring Batavia recently named ash borers a specific nuisance, requiring ash trees to be removed.

Sugar Grove is the latest community to discover an infestation. The village will pay to remove 12 infested trees this month, and officials are working on a policy outlining what happens if the bug is found in resident-owned trees.

In Algonquin, residents must shoulder the cost of removing trees on private property. Village leaders also are uprooting diseased village-owned ash trees. There are more than 4,400 ash trees in the village.

In Huntley, where a third of its trees are species of ash, authorities will conduct a survey to determine the number and location of trees throughout town and create a plan to replace trees on village land.

Campton Hills leaders will be forced to remove 400 ash trees that have been exposed to the ash borer.

The bugs, which likely came to American shores from Asian wooden packing materials, feast on ash trees in the following way: They move from tree to tree in search of a partner, and once they mate the eggs are laid underneath the bark. They hatch into larvae that bore into the tree and feed on it throughout the winter.

The cycle repeats itself the following spring once the larvae turn into adults.

The larvae siphon off the tree's nutrients and water while destroying its circulation system, so it can no longer nourish itself.

The rapid spread has prompted towns like South Elgin to update existing laws.

"We're working with our attorney about tightening up our ordinances to have people remove the stuff from their yards from the emerald ash borer, the trees and the stumps," public works director Chuck Behm said.

After the borer was found in Glendale Heights last summer, the village banned the planting of ash trees. Six trees that were infested have been removed, and the bug has not resurfaced there. But they're working on a long-range plan outlining what to do if the bug bites back, deputy parks director Timothy McKenzie said.

To prevent the bug's spread in Naperville, the public works department will remove all infested trees, will inspect the ones within a half mile of the outbreak and treat all parkway ashes within a half mile of the infestation with insecticide. The city is coordinating efforts with the state of Illinois, the townships and the park district.

Geneva aldermen nixed a plan to expand the city's tree ordinance that would have made it illegal to possess any plants that are infested with the bug. Furthermore, aldermen questioned a 33-year-old provision of the ordinance requiring property owners to take down a diseased tree or plant within 10 days of notice from the city or face having the city do it for them, bill them and fine them $750.

That part of the tree ordinance was enacted when towns were battling Dutch elm disease, which moved through the United States starting in the 1920s and essentially eliminated the American elms that once graced many streets in the suburbs.

The thought was that cutting down a diseased tree would stop the spread to other trees, as elm bark beetles prefer to breed in diseased or dying trees.

Geneva public works director Dan Dinges said the city doesn't intend to go on private property to inspect trees. The language is there so that if the city gets a call about a diseased or hazardous tree, or happens to notice one, it can do something about it, Dinges said.

Alderman Charles Brown said he has no problem with the city mandating the removal of hazardous trees on private property.

"I agree 100 percent that a hazardous tree should come down," he said.

But he thinks homeowners should be allowed to try to treat an infested tree to save it.

The point may be moot anyway: The state has the authority, under the Illinois Pest and Plant Disease Act, to order any property owner to remove a diseased plant or tree.

But it, too, has no intention of mandating that private property owners do it, said Warren Goetsch, bureau chief of environmental programs.

"We have not exercised that authority (for the emerald ash borer infestation) to date. All removed have been voluntary," Goetsch said. And that includes several hundred trees cut down in Campton Township in Kane County, one of the first areas in the state to be infested with the borer.

The state does, however, recommend removal to prevent the spread. "Early removal will, if nothing else, retard the rate at which they are ultimately going to have to reduce trees," Goetsch said.

• Daily Herald Staff Writer Nancy Gier contributed to this report.