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Elm Tree Injection Facts
When pressed by Alderman Jean-Baptist, Mr. Gaynor said: “I think we have established that the cost of removal is greater than the cost to inject.” In budget memo #38, which was handed out to council on Saturday, (and you may want to post here) he said: “The incidence of Dutch Elm Disease (DED) within the public tree population has steadily declined since the DED Inoculation program was implemented.” And, “As these tables point out, there has been a decrease in the total number of public elms removed since 2004.” And, “Staff contributes this reduction directly to the fungicide injection program that was implemented in 2004.”
Of course we will continue to have a Forestry Department, which performs many other tasks. The Forestry Dept. budget is made up of three parts: Parkway Tree Maintenance, Dutch Elm Disease Control, and Tree Planting. The Forestry department will continue to perform storm damage cleanup and removals, non-elm removals, tree cabling, removal of wasp nests, stump removals tree planting, mulching and watering, chain saw and small equipment maintenance, snow removal, holiday wreath installation, Fountain Square Christmas tree installation, Christmas tree pick up, city-wide flag installation and replacement, firewood splitting, wood waste loading and hauling. The fact the Forestry department will continue to function is a red herring.
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Mimi :
You wrote
" Mr. Gaynor said: “The incidence of Dutch Elm Disease (DED) within the public tree population has steadily declined since the DED Inoculation program was implemented.” And, “As these tables point out, there has been a decrease in the total number of public elms removed since 2004.” "
What do you mean by "incidence"...if it is just the raw count, as in 'number of public elms removed', then this is meaningless. If the number of dying elms decreases, it could just be because there are fewer elms around to die.
{ e.g. : The number of World War I vets who die has been steadily decreasing for many years now. }
What is needed is a rate - a proportion. And I would like a tree expert or biologist to answer this: maybe fewer elms are dying because the strong have survived - they are less susceptible to disease. Should we try to fight evolution by "protecting" the week trees?
Sharon
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