Wauconda ready should ash borer strike

With an invasive pest that kills ash trees closing in on Wauconda's village limits, officials are prepared with an Emerald Ash Borer Infestation Response Plan.

"It's real basic, real simple and it covers the needs of the community," said Chris Esvang, village arborist, who presented a plan to combat the Emerald Ash Borer beetle this week to the Wauconda village board meeting as a committee of the whole. "There are many communities experiencing this and we want to be ready."

Officials estimate that there are trees as close at 5 miles away that are infested.

More than 700 publicly owned ash trees in Wauconda have been pretreated with insecticides, but there is no guarantee that any treatment will prevent the spread of an infestation, according to the plan.

As for trees on private property, the village arborist will perform visual inspections of ash trees at the property owner's request, or if a privately owned tree is showing symptoms of infestation. The village of Wauconda does not plan to require removal of healthy ash trees from privately owned properties. However, there is a village ordinance requiring property owners to remove and destroy infested trees in compliance with regulations from the Illinois Department of Agriculture, according to the plan.

If the Emerald Ash Borer is identified within the village borders by the Illinois Department of Agriculture, the response plan calls for the public to be notified through a news release and the village electronic newsletter. Property owners near an infested tree will be notified by a door hanger with information about what they can do.

An infestation would have a huge financial impact on the village, officials said, with the cost of having to remove all 1,300 ash trees in Wauconda's rights of way at about $770,000, and the cost of replacement at $325,000.

The Emerald Ash Borer is a highly invasive, nonnative metallic green beetle that deposits eggs on the surface or in cracks of ash tree bark. When the eggs hatch over seven to 10 days, the larvae that emerges feeds on a tree's inner bark and create tunnels inside the tree, disrupting the tree's ability to transport water and nutrients, eventually killing the tree. Affected trees quickly decline in the second growing season and are usually dead in the third, according to the plan.

Esvang said ash trees were planted 10 to 20 years ago because they were the hardiest tree to plant. About 40 percent of the 3,300 trees located on public rights of way and village property in Wauconda are ash trees.