Superior council hears multi‑option plan to address emerald ash borer; refers response to committee with power to act

City Forester Mary Morgan presented three response scenarios to the Superior Common Council for addressing an emerald ash borer infestation affecting the city’s ash tree population and asked council members to consider treatment, staged removal and replanting, or targeted specimen‑corridor protections.

Morgan told the council the city is working from an estimated population of about 3,000 public ash trees and outlined a model the staff labeled “treat, take and replace” that would treat roughly 2,000 trees in year one, remove about 200 trees a year and replant 200 per year to hold overall tree counts steady. She said the first‑year cost to treat 2,000 trees and plant 200 is about $194,800 and that staff used a treatment cost assumption of $7.50 per diameter inch for contractor injections.

The presentation included two faster removal scenarios and a third focused on protecting high‑value corridors such as the Tower Avenue and East Second Street waterfront corridors. Morgan said a GIS review identified about 186 small ash trees along the Tower Avenue corridor and estimated a three‑year treatment for that corridor in the range of several thousand dollars. She emphasized staff were not seeking a final decision at the meeting: “We’re not looking for a decision on this tonight,” Morgan said, offering that council could refer the matter to a committee, involve the tree board, or ask finance staff to review funding options.

Residents and contractors spoke from the public gallery. Certified arborist Louise Levy described her approach for pre‑treatment inspection and said she examines trees before applying treatments. A state entomologist’s inspection in a north‑end neighborhood had found larval tunneling at the base of a tree, evidence Morgan said indicated severe infestation in that specimen.

During council discussion members asked about treatment timing, what signs constitute infestation, the potential for biological controls such as parasitoid wasps, and funding sources other cities used. Morgan and Assistant Public Works Director Todd Janigo (who walked the council through the spreadsheet scenarios) told the council that other municipalities had used a mix of capital funds, staged removal and chemical injections and that treatment windows in the research are typically mid‑May to mid‑June but manufacturers say injections can be applied from leaf‑on to leaf‑off.

On a follow‑up agenda item (7.2) the council approved a package of interim measures requested by staff: waiving the city’s pesticide‑ordinance posting requirement to permit injections in the public right‑of‑way by private contractors, allowing the city to remove boulevard ash trees at the request of adjacent homeowners, directing staff to establish a marshaling yard for private residential ash wood, and approving an operational plan to chip public ash trees on‑site and transport wood to the city’s receiving area. The vote on those permissions passed by voice vote: “Aye. Opposed? Motion carried.”

Later in the meeting councilors moved and passed a procedural action to refer the overall emerald ash borer response package to the Committee of the Whole with power to act, giving the committee authority to convene the tree board and make operational decisions before the full council returns to the item.

The staff recommended next steps include additional cost refinement, finance committee review for funding options, and tree‑board engagement. Morgan urged the council not to delay action because of the steep “death curve” observed in other quarantine counties.

The council did not adopt a single long‑term strategy at the meeting; instead it approved interim operational permissions and sent the matter to the Committee of the Whole for a decision with power to act.