By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
LAWRENCE — Faced with the prospect of dead or diseased ash trees because of the emerald ash borer insect, Lawrence Township officials are planning to cut down the ash trees in the street rights-of-way and on public property.
The township has allocated about $100,000 in the operating budget toward the project, and recently received a $30,000 state grant to cover the cost of replacing some — but not all — of the ash trees with new trees of a different species.
Some of the money in the operating budget will be used to treat the trees that can be saved, but other trees will have to be cut down. Only the trees that have been planted on public property or in the street right-of-way will be treated or removed by Lawrence Township.
The work will be done in several phases over the course of the next several years, Municipal Manager Richard Krawczun said. The first phase calls for cutting down about 30 ash trees along Dix Lane, off Bergen Street. Those are the only trees that will be replaced, but by a different species, he said.
The first phase will begin in late fall or early winter, Mr. Krawczun said. The new trees will be planted in the spring. A contractor will be hired to perform the work.
The emerald ash borer is a beetle. The larvae feed and bore tunnel-like “galleries” underneath the bark of an ash tree, cutting off the circulation between the roots and the leaves of the tree. Eradicating the beetle is not practical.
The emerald ash borer landed in Michigan in 2002. The pest has left several millions of dead ash trees in its wake as it has moved east.
