St. Charles to mark ash borer trees for winter removal

With more than 10,000 ash trees in St. Charles and Emerald Ash Borers already infiltrating the city, the first steps of what could be a dramatic change to the landscape will get underway soon.

City staff will mark with purple dots more than 100 trees infested with the bugs. The marking is to help educate St. Charles residents about what infested trees look like. Once a tree is marked with a purple dot, a pink dot is inevitable. A pink dot on a tree means it will be removed by the city within two to four weeks. Removal isn't slated to begin until November.

For now, all the trees that will be marked and removed are on public property. That doesn't mean homeowners won't see a visible difference to their landscapes. The trees that will be removed are on the parkway between the sidewalk and the street.

The city staff estimates there are about 5,000 ash trees in the public parkway. There are at least that many ashes on private property throughout the city. City Arborist Ben Deutsch said that may mean this first tree removal marking is only the prelude to a much larger removal effort. Taking down ash trees on private property is nearly a foregone conclusion, he said.

"Unless we find a cure-all, that's the direction we are heading in right now," Deutsch said. "If we're going to slow the infestation down, it has to be addressed. But nothing is in stone yet."

Emerald Ash Borers have been detected in all four quadrants of the city. That's bad news for newer subdivisions, Deutsch said, because it appears many of them were built with a tree population that's almost exclusively ash trees. The Timbers subdivision, the city's industrial park and the Harvest Hills subdivision are all examples of areas with almost nothing but ash trees. There's a chance that every one of them may need to be removed at some point.

Since the ash borer became a known problem, the city has altered its laws to require developers to plant a variety of trees.

Infected ash trees that are removed are chipped twice and then reused. Trees that are removed will be replaced by non-ash trees for as long as the city's budget allows. Residents should be aware that replacement trees will often be notably smaller than existing trees.

Deutsch said the city hasn't set a timetable for removing trees from private property. In the meantime, he advises homeowners to contact a private arborist to come inspect any tree they are concerned about.

The city will update its count of infected ash trees near the time removal begins.