Ash borer makes tree removal part of typical Cedar Rapids winter

City of Cedar Rapids worker Dave Elsbury gathers logs into a log loader after an ash tree was cut down at 5616 D Avenue NW in Cedar Rapids in February 2010. 300 ash trees were cut down by the city to try and prevent the Emerald Ash Borer infestation. (Julie Koehn/The Gazette)

Its part of the citys winter landscape now.

City forestry crews on Monday began their winter ash tree removal effort, a program in its fifth year and designed to take down old, declining ash trees in the citys right of way along city streets and replace them with a mix of other tree species.

Ash trees taken down now will mean fewer to take down once the ash killer, the emerald ash borer, shows itself in the city.

Todd Fagan, Cedar Rapids city arborist, on Monday estimated that 18 to 30 percent or 12,000 to 20,000 of the trees in the citys right of way are ashes.

The citys proactive removal program, which started in 2010, has removed and replaced between 1,000 and 1,200 ashes with the plan in the next three months to take down up to another 200.

Craig Hanson, the citys public works maintenance manager, on Monday said the citys number of ash trees in the city right of way probably peaked a decade ago after the emerald ash borer first starting killing ash trees in the Detroit area and the city stopped planting ash trees here. Hanson estimated that the city today has 2,500 fewer ash trees in its right of way than it had a decade ago because of trees taken down from storms and those taken down with the citys ash removal program.

Fagan said he believes that the killer ash borer has arrived in Cedar Rapids now, but it so far has eluded discovery, which is typical of the insects arrival in a community.

In recent months, the killer insect has been found in Mechanicsville in Cedar County, just east of Cedar Rapids and Linn County, and in Creston, southwest of Des Moines. Previously, it was found in two spots in Allamakee County in far northeast Iowa and in Burlington and Fairfield in southeast Iowa.

Its all around us, Fagan said. So to think theres no way its not in Cedar Rapids is not really a responsible way to go about things. But theres no reason to lose our cool.

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Ash borer makes tree removal part of typical Cedar Rapids winter