Proposal would label ash borer public nuisance in all of St. Paul

While it might not be at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted list, the pesky emerald ash borer is likely to be outlawed in St. Paul. The City Council is considering an ordinance that would label the pest a public nuisance and give the city the power to go on private property and require infested ash trees to be removed.

Under the proposed ordinance, any tree, stump, log or firewood that has the ash borer in it would be considered a nuisance and would be required to be destroyed. A similar ordinance exists for Dutch elm disease.

The city has plans to deal with the pest on public land, but it wants to be able to handle things on private property too.

Mike Hahm, Parks and Recreation director, said the ordinance is necessary for dealing with an inevitable loss of ash trees.

"We have a situation where we know ash trees will provide environmental and safety hazards," Hahm said. "Based on what's happened elsewhere, the widespread eradication [of ash borer] has not been possible."

Under the proposed ordinance:

If the city finds evidence of ash borer on someone's property, a notice will be sent to the property owner ordering the removal of the tree within 20 days. If it's not taken care of, the city will dispose of the tree and charge the property owner for the work.

If city or state officials think the bug presents an emergency, then property owners would be required to remove infested trees sooner than 20 days, but not less than seven days.

The city could provide full or partial subsidies to private property owners who must remove infested trees.

Since the emerald ash borer was first found in the St. Anthony Park neighborhood of St. Paul last May, at least 80 trees in the city have been found to be infested. All were removed and destroyed.

The bug was discovered in southeastern Michigan in 2002 -- possibly a decade after its arrival in the United States from China -- and it has destroyed tens of millions of trees in the Midwest. The tree was the preferred replacement for elms after they were ravaged by a beetle-borne fungus a generation ago.

St. Paul and Falcon Heights are the only Minnesota cities in which the ash borer has been found.

St. Paul officials have been mapping out strategies to deal with the pest, and it's expected to cost the city a couple million dollars a year.

The city has 120,000 public ash trees, about 60,000 of which are easily accessible. Plans call for the removal of about 3,000 of them each year.

"In some ways, this is just managing a problem so it doesn't hit us at once in a way we can't afford to deal with," said council Member Russ Stark, whose ward includes St. Anthony Park.

A public hearing on the matter is set for early January.

Chris Havens • 612-673-4148