Losey to be closed a day for ash tree removal

La Crosse residents will get a wake-up call in April as to the severity of the emerald ash borer infestation in the city.

The city plans to shut down busy Losey Boulevard, the main north-south route in east La Crosse, for nine hours on Saturday, April 11, so crews can take down 117 ash trees.

City staff estimate they will be able to fell 24 trees an hour that Saturday if they can just drop them in the street a safer, faster and less disruptive option, they said, than trying to work around traffic. Losey will be barricaded from La Crosse Street south to Ward Avenue from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.

East-west crossings will remain open at State Road, Ward Avenue and Main, Market and Green Bay streets. The Village Shopping Center should be unimpeded as well but access to the Kwik Trip store and Catholic Cemetery on Losey will be affected, officials said.

With the help of other departments, the city that day will have triple the normal number working to remove the Losey trees, Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department Supervisor Jay Odegaard told the Board of Public Works on Monday in seeking approval to close off Losey to traffic.

Three loaders and five trucks will be continuously running the wood to Isle la Plume, where it will be cut up or chipped. The mass effort should condense what otherwise take a month into a single day, Odegaard said.

But perhaps more importantly, it will show on a high-visibility route just what the city is dealing with in the emerald ash borer, an invasive species first confirmed in La Crosse in November 2012 and considered 100 percent fatal to untreated ash trees.

Crews already have removed about 1,000 boulevard ash in neighborhoods throughout the city but not on a major thoroughfare like Losey Boulevard. While the city has tried to get the message out about the ash-killing beetle, likely a fair number of residents remain unaware of the threat.

This is a way to show the citizens, Here it is, Odegaard said. It might be almost like a billboard for the cause.

Added council president and board member Dick Swantz, This is going to be rather stark for those people.

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Losey to be closed a day for ash tree removal