EAB Management Plan - City of Oshawa

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1 Executive Summary Oshawa’s landscape includes environmentally significant and attractive ravines, marshes, parks, tree lined streets and various beautiful landscapes. The rural and urban tree canopy established within these areas is an important part of the City’s green infrastructure. Oshawa residents take great pride in the “green” aspect of our City which includes over 28,000 urban and rural street trees, 393 hectares (971 acres) of parks and 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) of open space and natural areas. Ash trees are an important native tree species that grow quickly and naturally in Southern Ontario. Ash trees are a major component of woodlots, fence rows, and along stream banks. The growth habit of ash trees made it an excellent tree for urban streets. Oshawa currently faces a threat to its public and private ash tree resource. An invasive and exotic pest known as Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) has infested many ash trees throughout Southern Ontario and is responsible for the demise of significant numbers of ash trees. The City of Oshawa has approximately 3,500 ash trees along city streets representing approximately 10% of the City’s total street tree canopy. Additionally it is estimated that there are approximately 1,500 ash trees located within the City’s active parks, and numerous ash trees in the City’s open space areas, the numbers of which are currently unknown. Ash trees have been a popular tree planted in many private property landscapes. On May 20, 2011 the Parks and Environmental Services Branch was informed by Canadian Food Inspection Agency that a positive identification of the EAB larva was discovered in an ash tree on Laval Drive (see map 1 and photo 1). As EAB populations are known to increase exponentially over time a proactive plan is recommended which will: ensure ash tree protection, support public safety and the environmental benefits of trees through the removal and replacement of trees. EAB was first discovered in Windsor, Ontario in 2002, since then, many other municipalities have had positive EAB identification. The City of Oshawa is fortunate in the ability to learn from other municipalities’ mistakes and accomplishments. Lessons learned from other municipalities support the proactive approach of treating ash trees as being economically feasible and is the best method for management of EAB while moving forward. With the arrival of EAB in Oshawa, Staff has developed an Emerald Ash Borer Management Plan that will guide the City over the next 15 years. The Plan includes; ‣ Monitoring and Assessment ‣ Treatment ‣ Tree Removals ‣ Tree Planting ‣ Wood Waste Disposal ‣ Public Education and Communication Emerald Ash Borer Management Plan 3 January 2012 City of Oshawa
The cost for 2012 is approximately $10,000 and will be covered in the Annual Operating Budget under the Pest Management Plan. However costs will increase exponentially over the next 5 – 10 years (Table 1 page 7) with the long term financial impact being greater than $5 million. In addition to removal and replacement costs, costs will be incurred for wood waste disposal, ongoing treatments, and additional tree planting in order to keep Oshawa’s tree canopy equal to what it currently is today. Map 1: Positive identification of the EAB larva was discovered in an ash tree on Laval Drive Emerald Ash Borer Management Plan 4 January 2012 City of Oshawa
Page 1 and 2: CS-12-02 Attachment 1 EMERALD ASH B
Page 3: Table of Contents Executive Summary
Page 7 and 8: 2002 near Windsor, Ontario. Despite
Page 9 and 10: As EAB is expected to be a long ter
Page 11 and 12: 2.3 Biology EAB belongs to a group
Page 13 and 14: 3.2 Provincial Government The Minis
Page 15 and 16: 4.1 Environmental Impacts All trees
Page 17 and 18: Chart 2: Costs for Treatment vs Rem
Page 19 and 20: The City of Toronto has recently se
Page 21 and 22: 2. Mitigate the Loss of Significant
Page 23 and 24: • Assessment of information gathe
Page 25 and 26: 7.3 Tree Removal Based on the degre
Page 27 and 28: Photo 12: Ash Trees on Sheridan Str

EAB Management Plan - City of Oshawa

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