Board Meeting: ‘Devastating’ EAB Will Kill up to 40 Percent of Parkway Trees

Emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis), the destructive bright-green beetle infamous for its ability to lay waste to Fraxinus (ash) trees, has been positively identified in Western Springs, Trustee Suzanne Glowiak announced at the Village Board meeting on Monday.

“It will be devastating for our town,” Glowiak said. “We will lose maybe 40 percent of our parkway trees… We are looking at some streets that will be bare; there are streets that are almost all ash trees.”

The penny-sized borer, native to Asia, is an invasive species that first appeared in Michigan in 2002 and was in Cook County by 2006. Its larvae destroy the inner bark of the tree in which they are laid, cutting off its supply to water and nutrients. The extent of the damage is considered similar to that of Dutch Elm disease.

Approximately 1400 of Western Springs’ 3600 parkway trees are of the Fraxinus genus, especially those alongside roads. Many residents also have ash trees on their private property.

While treatments for EAB are available, they typically can only prolong a tree’s life by two or three years. Still, this can be helpful in avoiding a rash of trees all requiring removal at once, said Trustee James Horvath—but at a high cost.

“It gets to be a cost-benefit analysis of the treatment versus the removal process,” Horvath said. “We need to get more information, and we need to make a decision by springtime.”

To that end, the Village will be sending out an informational packet to residents about emerald ash borer, including the Village’s planned response and what residents should know about removing their own blighted ash trees.

Whatever course of action the Village takes, they will remove all dead or doomed parkway trees at their own expense. No quick action will be required, said acting Director of Municipal Services Matt Supert, since Western Springs is within the northeastern Illinois EAB quarantine zone.

“Essentially, when we see a diseased tree, [we’ll] take the tree down,” Supert told the Board. “But we don’t have to do any sort of proactive [removal].”

Hillgrove Cellars bistro update

The long-delayed addition of a wine bar and bistro to the central Western Springs store Hillgrove Cellars is nearing fruition, and is scheduled to open in January 2012.

Hillgrove Cellars owner Keith Chadwick spoke briefly to the Board, who are processing his request for a new liquor license that will allow both bar patronage and outdoor alcohol service.

Both parties are also negotiating the logistics of how many tables and bar chairs can be feasibly fit inside the somewhat small and irregularly-shaped business.

“We thought that we would finish out this season in the retail component, and then hopefully take it to a new and more exciting level for the new year,” said Chadwick, who added that the business is currently too busy with holiday orders to finalize their bistro addition this year. “We just want to be ready to start come January.”

The Board said that a vote on Hillgrove Cellars’ liquor license, and any other alterations to the Village Code necessary to accommodate the bistro, should be ready for the November and/or December voting meetings.