For a brief time, Brementowne subdivision resident John Lynch may have had the only healthy ash tree on his block. But when village workers turned infested parkway ash trees near his home into wood chips, the emerald ash borers “came to my tree,” Lynch said.
Those neighboring trees on the 7600 and 7700 blocks of 161st Street were among hundreds felled since June in response to damage caused by the exotic beetle’s larvae, which feed on the ash tree’s inner bark, disrupting the tree’s ability to transport water and nutrients.
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In all likelihood, initial spotters simply missed the injury to Lynch’s tree.
But by September, its lower foliage was gone. Pulling back outer bark revealed larvae trails around the tree, which is so large most persons can’t put their arms around it. Lynch contacted the village.
“I’m so mad,” he said, “But what can you do?”
The half-inch long, one-eighth-inch wide metallic green beetles are viewed as minor seasonal pests in their native Asia, but here in North America they spread fast. They were first detected in the United States near Detroit in 2002 and arrived in the Chicago area around 2006. In their migration, they have wiped out huge swaths of ash trees in natural and urban forests.
And they’ve been more aggressive this year after getting a reproductive boost from above-average spring temperatures.
Public Works Director Dale Schepers said the village is increasing its efforts to stay ahead of the beetles.
“Everybody we can spare is going to be making sawdust for the foreseeable future,” Schepers told the village board’s Public Works committee last month. He said village crews had taken down 427 of Tinley Park’s estimated 1,000 ash trees.
Lockport-based Homer Tree Care, whose $160,000 contract was approved Sept. 18 by the village board, is supplementing the public works effort. Homer Tree Care was the high bidder, at $255,495. Tinley Park trustees rejected Orland Park-based Groundskeeper Landscape Care’s $78,570 bid, saying the company doesn’t pay the prevailing wage, as required by the village.
Schepers told Public Works Committee Chairman Tom Staunton the contract enables public works employees to tackle the simpler jobs and leave the complicated ones to Homer Tree Service, effectively making “the most efficient use of our dollars.”
He said village workers need the extra help because they often have to interrupt cutting trees to respond to other calls. A contractor, he said, has no such distractions.
Schepers also said replacement trees would be planted during the next three to five years. The village would pay Lockport-based Beary Landscaping, the lone bidder on the project, up to $100,000.
“We want to have some diversity in our suburban canopy,” Schepers said. “Some neighborhoods won’t have any trees because we didn’t have diversity.”
Lynch’s neighborhood is diverse. Although most of the trees are gone from the grass-lined 161st Street parkway, front yards still sport evergreens and, in Lynch’s case, maples.
“I’d rather they took the maple,” he said sadly. “This is a beautiful tree.
Lynch’s ash, which has a couple of large nests in its remaining upper foliage, now sports a painted circle marking the tree as eligible for a chainsaw blade.
Fortunately for Lynch, his ash is in the parkway, qualifying for a free takedown by the village.
Not so his neighbor, whose front yard was littered with ash branches and twigs as workers from Midwest Tree Service removed that large tree from the front-yard.
“It cost him $1,000,” Lynch said.