Kiss your ash goodbye

June 11, 11:57 AMSouth St. Paul ExaminerRob Shirk

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Ash tree in decline

My boyhood backyard had the most magnificent tree living in the back yard. It was the noble elm.

A lot of people know what happened. The elms got a highly contagious fungus growth on them and they died by the millions. Entire towns in the upper Midwest, the east, all across America lost the canopy of shade over the yards,  streets, and boulevards of Main St. They were glorious with an immense trunk with boughs the size of a torso. The ash tree is next.

Dutch Elm disease killed around 200 million trees. Another devastating epidemic was the Chestnut Blight which killed approximately 3.5 billion trees nationally. To get a better perspective of what is coming there are around 3.5 billion ash tress in Ohio alone.The Emerald Ash Borer will kill around 7.5 billion ash trees in the United States and Canada and unlike previous diseases, the Emerald Ash Borer is indiscriminate on which specie ash tree it migrates to.

The elms grew wide and tall. It seemed as though their leaves, long and wide tapered fingers on the boughs were tailor made for American homes and towns. They let in just the right amount of sun to a yard; enough to grow healthy grass while protecting it from the harsh, relentless, July and August sun of the northern prairie. When the wind blew at night and as the the noise of ourselves quieted it was as if a conversation was underway all across town. We would sit outside on the patio and inadvertently listen. It was not unlike the sound you get when you're on the ocean shore at night.

Ash trees are not as big as the elms were nor as regal but they do have some attractive traits. They grow up in a comparative hurry and so a person wouldn't have to wait a couple generations to enjoy it. They provide shade pretty well and has been the tree of choice in countless towns and cities replacing the condemned elm. I suspect that even though we are aware of the disease we probably won't be cognizant of the devastation until we look down a street that has been defoliated just as clean as a Vietnamese jungle after an agent orange attack, for the only way to stop the Emerald Borer is to kill the tree. In another Viet Nam comparison it is like the theory that in order to save the village we have to destroy it.

Andersen Windows Corporation in Bayport, Minnesota has a few surviving iconic elm trees. The corporation's main factory sits alongside the St. Croix River, less than twenty five miles from here. On the site they have preserved a number of buildings going back to the beginning of the the company including the original house. It overlooks the scenic St. Croix and serves as a guest house or corporate dinners. On that site it was deemed essential to save the elms and they spared no expense doing so. I do not believe that Mr. Andersen saved those trees to impress anyone. They are just that pretty and stately along the river. The public is not invited to see this stand of elms and I was working a real job out there where I found out about them.

The Emerald Ash Borer was fist detected in the Detroit area and has marched inexorably toward Minnesota as well as everywhere else. The beetle has been detected in my neighborhood in St. Paul and there are hundreds of thousands of ash trees in the Twin Cities. The true devastation will perhaps be more visible in the smaller towns and cities, the boulevards receiving no shade or beauty. The cost of removal is daunting for already financially stressed communities.

It will be twice in my lifetime that I have lost friends, for that is what they are. First the elm and now the ash. There is a tsunami on its way. Trees can make such an impression. The reason my father bought the house he did was because of that magnificent elm tree sprawling over our backyard. I'm pretty sure that many people bought homes where they did because of the lovely ash shaded street where it is situated.

Below is a short video from the Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources.

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