West Island municipalities are looking at new measures aimed at slowing down the emerald ash borer’s progress now that the invasive insect’s arrival has been confirmed in the region.
The West Island’s first two cases of EAB infestations — one in Pierrefonds-Roxboro’s Bois-de-Liesse district and the second on private property on Hymus Blvd. in Pointe-Claire — were confirmed over the past six weeks.
Hundreds of ash trees located on public property are now being treated as a preventive measure in several West Island municipalities, among them Pointe-Claire, Dorval, Baie-d’Urfé and Dollard-des-Ormeaux.
Now some of those West Island municipalities and others are looking at the legalities of introducing bylaws that would allow them to order the treatment of ash trees on private property.
Biopesticides such as TreeAzin have been shown to stave off the insect’s rapid spread in a geographical area but those efforts can be nullified if only some ash trees are treated and others are left untouched.
“Nothing at the moment gives us the power to affect change on private property so far as the ash tree goes,” said Maria Tutino, the mayor of Baie-d’Urfé and a proponent of the bylaws.
“We don’t have the right to demand a private owner to do anything,” she said.
The issue of bylaws was raised on June 13th at the last meeting of the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal, said Tutino.
The CMM is an organization that brings together elected officials representing the region’s 82 different municipalities to debate issues of regional importance but, has limited powers.
Although nothing concrete has been put forward yet, Tutino said, the growing consensus is that municipalities must be empowered so that they can protect ash trees on private property as well.
Since 2002, when the EAB first arrived in Canada in southwestern Ontario, the Canadian experience suggests that 100 per cent of ash trees within a 2.5-kilometres radius of an EAB infested tree die within six years if preventive measures are not taken.
At the same time, Tutino said, municipal officials are also looking at finding additional sources of funding for their fight against the EAB.
“This is not a Baie-d’Urfé problem, not a Montreal Island problem, but (rather) a Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal problem,” she said.
Although informal at this point, she said, there is also discussion among CMM members about lobbying federal and provincial government officials to have trees included as infrastructure under the federal-provincial gas tax funding program.
The government program provides municipalities with funding for municipal infrastructure, including waste water plants, local roads and bridges, solid waste management facilities and disaster mitigation.
The thinking is why not a municipality’s trees?
Tens of thousands of ash trees line residential streets throughout the West Island, fill in the canopy of city parks, give shade to private homes and characterize the region as Montreal’s leafy suburbs.
The funding could go toward subsidies that would help private homeowners defray the cost of treating ash trees on their properties, she said.
“Our trees are our identity,” said Tutino. “When people think of Baie-d’Urfé, they think ‘country in the city,’ large lots and lots of trees.”
Tutino said town officials have counted 347 ash trees on public property and estimate there are another 5,000 to 8,000 on private property, roughly 10 ash trees per property.
To protect that wealth, she said, the town will invest $15,000 in treatment of ash trees on its public property. At the same time, she said, town officials will step up efforts to educate citizens about the ash trees on their property and what can be done to prolong their life.
Over a two-week period in July, she said, they will be outfitted in T-shirts and name tags identifying them as part of the ash-tree squad and will go from property to property talking to homeowners.
“It’s all happening sooner than we expected,” she said. “Right now, our concern is that because of the emergency situation, we have to act fast.”
Over the years, she said, there have been wise plantings by previous town officials, including a wide variety of tree species around the town hall. But there is no denying the impact the loss of ash trees will have on the community.
There are 44 ash trees alone on Morgan Road, the main residential street that runs from Highway 20 to Lakeshore Rd. and serves as a gateway to the town, she said.
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