Omaha has 11,000 ash trees in its parks, on the right of ways the city maintains and on public property.
At this point, the emerald ash borer has been located about 35 miles away from Omaha in Red Oak, Iowa. The emerald ash borer infects ash trees and hollows them out from the inside.
Once it arrives in an area, it’s nearly impossible to stay ahead of it because of the sheer numbers of insects.
Brook Bench, Parks, Recreation, Public Property Director, says millions of ash trees have been killed by the emerald ash borer.
He says Omaha’s forester and staff have been busy talking to other cities that have already been infested.
Bench says the advice they’ve received is to get ahead of the issue by removing the ash trees they know they won’t be treating.
"Our focus right now will be removing ash trees that are already damaged or are past their prime and aren’t worth treating. Because once you treat them, you have to treat them for the rest of their life so you have to do it every two years for the next 15-20 years. And then the other thing about the ash tree, different than some other tree issues we’ve had, is that when an ash tree dies, it becomes brittle and they will fall so you have to get them out of there.”
With 232 parks, miles of right of way areas and eight golf courses, Bench says the city will be focusing any potentially dangerous areas where trees could fall and cause injury to the public, such as trails, playgrounds or shelters.
He says they are replanting new trees in place of as many as they can but plan to diversify the types of trees planted. For more information, the website is EmeraldAshBorer.info.