Emerald ash borer found in Omaha

This adult emerald ash borer is in a tree in Pulaski Park in Omaha. (Couresy Nebraska Forest Service)
This adult emerald ash borer is in a tree in Pulaski Park in Omaha. (Couresy Nebraska Forest Service)

The emerald ash borer, the tiny green beetle that has killed tens of millions of ash trees across the country, has been discovered in an Omaha park.

The discovery means most ash trees in the Omaha area will be dead within five to eight years unless they are treated.

It also means the ash borer is probably already in Lincoln or almost here, but it hasn’t yet been discovered.

The beetle found in Omaha was spotted Friday during a demonstration at a news conference in Pulaski Park, where Mayor Jean Stothert announced she will budget $1 million a year beginning in 2017 to deal with the pending problem.

City forestry crews were shaving back the bark of a tree to show how to look for the insect when they saw one of its telltale tunnels, said Mark Harrell, forest health program leader for the Nebraska Forest Service.

But they had to keep their cool and act as if nothing was wrong until the news conference was over, he said.

On Monday, state and Omaha city forestry staff found several insects in the park, and Michigan experts confirmed they were ash borer, Harrell said.

The emerald ash borer is expected to move across Nebraska and kill the state's estimated 44 million ash trees, about 9 percent of all its trees. Forty-three million ash trees are in rural areas.

In Lincoln, the city has no money budgeted for next year to deal with the emerald ash borer and the likely death of 14,000 public ash trees, said Parks and Recreation Director Lynn Johnson.

The Omaha discovery will create pressure here, he said, and he expects there will be a community conversation about how to pay for an ash tree program in Lincoln.

The city has said it expects to spend $2 million a year for 15 years to deal with it, including additional forestry staff, money to cut down dead trees and a system to slow down the death spiral.

To keep the number of trees that die each year to a manageable level, city officials plan to treat 12,000 ash trees the first year, then drop the number by 2,000 each year.

The plan is to start doing that when the borer is found within 15 miles of the city, said Johnson.

Last summer, the ash borer was found in Red Oak, Iowa, and in St. Joseph, Missouri, both about 30 miles from the Nebraska border.

The larvae of the half-inch insect eat around the trees right under the bark and kill them within a few years.

Discovery of the insect usually means the tree is halfway through the eight-year average death timeline.

The insect is usually in an area for two to four years before it is discovered, and there are generally no clearly visible symptoms during that time even though most trees are within three or four years of dying, said Harrell.

In general, 10 percent of ash trees die within four years of the insect being found in a community. Seventy percent die in the next four years, and 80 percent are gone in eight, according to state experts.

Lincoln homeowners should take no action yet, said Harrell.

When the borer is within 15 miles, they'll need to decide if a tree is valuable enough to justify the expense of treatment and the damage that comes with treatment, he said.

Treatments are effective for a year or two, so trees have to be treated continually, Harrell said.

Communities in the path of the emerald ash borer should begin removing publicly owned ash trees that are of poor quality, which Lincoln park staff have been doing.

That means there will be fewer dying trees that need to be cut down during the height of the disease, said Harrell.

The Republican majority on the Lincoln City Council recently decided not to seek $2 million to begin an ash tree program through a stormwater bond issue because it was not directly related to the stormwater program.

For tips on how to protect your trees and landscaping, visit http://plantnebraska.org.

- Nancy Hicks, Lincoln Journal Star

More details at: http://journalstar.com