Guildwood hit hard by emerald ash borer

Watch the video above: Guildwood hit hard by the emerald ash borer. Mark McAllister reports. 

TORONTO – Hundreds of trees in Scarborough’s Guildwood Park are being cut down and removed as part of the city’s $75-million plan to remove the emerald ash borer from parks and public trees.

But the borer doesn’t limit itself to government-owned trees: if it’s on your property, you have to get rid of it.

“If we don’t remove those trees we will end up with a huge amount of hazardous and then downed wood in the park,” Beth Mcewan, a spokesperson for the Toronto Urban Forestry Renewal said.

The Guildwood area of Scarborough is one area of Toronto particularly hard hit by the beetle. Hundreds of trees are scattered across Guildwood Park just waiting to be removed.

The Asian beetle was discovered in North America in 2002 and has since infested millions of trees across the continent.

The beetle burrows deep into a tree and eats at it from the inside.

It’s not known exactly how many trees could fall victim to the beetle but there are approximately 860,000 ash trees in Toronto that could be at risk.

The city is taking several steps to prevent the borer from spreading to every ash tree in the city:

• Removing dead or dying city owned trees
• An aggressive pesticide injection program
• Intensive tree planting program to mitigate losses
• Cooperation with neighbouring municipalities
• Raising awareness with the public

While the government pays to have trees removed from public lands like Guildwood Park, if an ash tree on private property is being attacked by the emerald ash borer, the owner has to pay for its removal.

“We moved into the house and the trees were already infected,” Guildwood resident Lily Irvine said. “So I think it would’ve been the city’s responsibility to remove trees that we couldn’t even treat.”

If they refuse, the city will do it and add the cost to the property tax bill.  It cost Irvine close to $1,000 to have the trees removed from her property.