Edmonton braces for pest that has decimated ash tree populations to east and west

Calgary Herald

02-06-2025

Traps are expected to go up around Edmonton this week to capture the emerald ash borer.
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The shining and dangerous pest is poised to wreak havoc on Edmonton's $400-million population of ash trees, and the city has two staffers working full time to detect any advance here as the invasive bug closes in from the west or east into Alberta.
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'We have the largest percentage of our urban forest canopy in green ash of almost any city in North America,' said Michael Jenkins, senior scientist with the City of Edmonton.
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Ranging from 8.5 mm to 14 mm long and 3.1 mm to 3.4 mm wide, the beetle is difficult to spot.
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'A single piece of firewood can destroy millions of trees,' warns a poster depicting a stack of ash firewood as dynamite sticks with an emerald ash borer at the tip of the fuse.
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Ash has been an ideal boulevard tree in cities like Edmonton and Calgary, where urban planners have a very short list of trees that can do well with northern winters.
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Most of Edmonton's neighborhoods built in the Baby Boom 1960s and 1970s were entirely ash, and one-quarter of our urban forest canopy — 180,000 (40 per cent) of the boulevard trees — are green ash, Jenkins said, noting that in period neighbourhoods like Westmount, Inglewood and Prince Charles, nearly 100 per cent of the boulevard trees are green ash, playing their role in storm water management.
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Overland flooding has been observed in areas where the urban forest is decimated by pests.
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Deadly origin
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The emerald ash borer was likely inadvertently imported to Detroit in infected wooden packing materials from China in the 1990s.
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At its epicentre, Ontario, it blew past a feverishly cut fire break-style buffer zone swath of 30 kilometres, working its way to the Atlantic provinces.
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In its destructive path, emerald ash borer devastated millions of trees — and the baseball bat industry — and impacted the manufacture of everything from electric guitars and coffee tables to hockey sticks.
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The emerald ash borer was found in 2018 in Winnipeg. By 2023, it had leapfrogged on infested wood products to British Columbia's Lower Mainland.