Cities tallying up the cost of fixing grass wrecked by chafer beetles

The cities of Port Moody, Port Coquitlam and Coquitlam are assessing damage caused by chafer beetles and the birds and animals that eat them.

image credit: FILE PHOTO

Lawns and grass fields torn up by crows and raccoons in search of chafer beetles could cost thousands of dollars to repair, according to Port Coquitlam and Coquitlam, with Port Moody and School District 43 still assessing the damage.

"There is a lot of damage all over the place. We are doing a full audit. It is very extensive," commented Raul Allueva, general manager of parks and recreation for the city of Coquitlam.

Healthy lawns and sports fields appear to be untouched, with most of the damage confined to areas where grass is in poor shape.

School District 43 reports little to no damage and Port Moody is still in the midst of an audit, although staff say the problem has worsened since last year and Port Coquitlam has put a price to repairing chafer beetle-infected fields in its jurisdiction.

Repairs to the PoCo cemetery, where Terry Fox is buried, will cost $104,200, including the re-establishment of a vigorous lawn, and repairs to other areas will cost about $15,000.

In addition to the cemetery, there are 11 sites in that city with low level chafer beetle damage, six sites with medium level damage and two sites with high level damage where the site is completely disturbed and bare soil is exposed.

"Given the nature of these areas and the size of the areas impacted, we will be managing them through a combination of top-dressing, over-seeding and nematode applications," Todd Gross, PoCo's parks and services manager stated in an email.

Many homeowners are also seeing damage to their property, according to Art Knapp owner Wim Vander Zalm who has been dispensing advice on how to deal with the pest.

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Cities tallying up the cost of fixing grass wrecked by chafer beetles