BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

CANTON -- A St. Lawrence County planner says although municipalities and private utilities are finding solutions to mitigating potential damage by the invasive emerald ash borer, there is no public policy for dealing with the issue on private land.

St. Lawrence County Planner II John Tenbusch and Forester Aaron Barrigar discussed the potential impact of the invasive bug.

Tenbusch said that National Grid, various St. Lawrence County towns and villages and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe are all working on taking inventories of where ash trees are located. He said once the bug hits an ash tree, it’s dead within two to five years.

“Another factor, ash trees killed by emerald ash borers … they’re prone to what is called catastrophic collapse, which is basically they fall apart with no precipitating incident. There’s no wind, there’s no kind of a storm. A tree just collapses,” Tenbusch said. “As a board, I think the county is doing what it reasonably can, in that they’re working with Aaron [Barrigar] and National Grid and others to do surveys of trees.”

“Nobody has been able to figure out a public policy solution to the trees on private property,” Tenbusch said.

National Grid is planning to take down all ash trees in their rights of way. That includes one side of county roads.

“The county has 600-some miles of roadway. So [one] side is going to be handled by National Grid. That’s a hell of a partnership,” Tenbusch said.

As far as the rest of the county roads, the Highway Department is working with Barrigar, who is able to use his expertise to get a rough idea of which trees pose the most danger.

“He’s able to rate trees so he has an idea as to the degree … he can’t necessarily say, ‘this tree is ready to fall down now.’ He can say ‘this tree or the trees in this area are further along the process of deterioration than trees in other areas.’ It gives us a way to go,” Tenbusch said.

Barrigar said the bug has been found in St. Lawrence County’s northern regions, and moves one or two miles per year.

“That could change if infested material is transported to new locations, so potentially the movement of firewood,” Barrigar said.

He expects the EAB to be “widespread throughout the county” in seven to eight years.

“It could be expected to be in the ash trees in Canton within five years,” Barrigar said.

He said about 10 to 15% of trees in the St. Lawrence Valley area are ash trees. This is because after all of the elm and chestnut trees were wiped out, ash trees replaced them.

“In our most settled areas, they can be up to 25% coverage. That’s one of every four trees,” Tenbusch said. “They are therefore closer to things they could impact, if and when they catastrophically collapse.”

He said the St. Regis Mohawks are trying to find solutions because the tree is tied in with their culture. It is used for basket-making and traditional lacrosse sticks.

“The US Forest Service is actually working closely with the SRMT. They are finding potential black ash sites that they can try and keep alive as long as possible so they can maintain some level of resource into the future,” Tenbusch said. “They’re putting trap tree clusters around known black ash resources in attempt to slow down how quickly emerald ash borer can impact those trees.”