Tree pest is out of control

By Jennifer SmithStaff reporterMar 09 2007 http://www.kelownacapnews.com/

For those who came late to the public information meeting on Wednesday night, learning about the pine beetle infestation heading our way meant standing in the back of the main fire hall on Enterprise Way, craning your head to hear and see. But the overflow crowd’s mere presence, hovering along the sidelines, stood as poignant illustration of the kind of devastation headed our way, courtesy of the pine beetle. Of the close to 100 people packed into the fire hall to hear City of Kelowna arborist Ian Wilson and Kelowna fire chief René Blanleil speak, those 20 or so people lining the back of the hall represented the same percentage of pine trees officials expect to remain standing when after the mountain pine beetle washes over this city over the next six years.

By 2015, Wilson estimates just 20 per cent of the city’s pine stock will remain standing.“…Really what we are finding is these beetles are going to come into the city whether we like it or not,” he said, noting efforts to save trees in Prince George and Kamloops have largely failed. The meeting was intended to debrief residents on how to protect their trees and the costs they will face to do that. While plenty asked questions, definitive answers to those queries were few and far between. “We thought we knew everything about the beetles, but now we have to throw a lot of that out the window because we’ve never seen this level of devastation before,” said Wilson, who did his masters thesis on the pest in the mid-1990s.

One Mission resident, who lost nine trees on her property last year despite taking every precaution recommended to her, pushed him for answers on how the city can offset those costs. "We’ve already spent quite a bit of money on this,” she said, noting she bought repellants then hired someone to fell the trees and contacted the city to haul the logs. “What is the city going to do for the small property owners?” Central Okanagan mayors are lobbying for more money, she was told, but Wilson had no answers to offer that night. “That’s where city council is looking for help from other levels of government,” Wilson said. Some $200 million in federal funding was set aside last fall to deal with pine beetle, he said. But to date, Wilson said no one has indicated how those funds will be spent.

The commitment replaces a previous program to help larger property owners (those over 10 hectares), however, city officials have no idea whether any of the money will go toward helping smaller home owners, municipal governments or again be directed toward those with large tracts of land. Removing trees from hard to reach places can run as high as $1,000 to $1,500 a stump. Residents in the Hall Road and Mission areas are already paying the price and this year the city expects to see more residential trees under siege. Asked about different methods of fending them off, Wilson could offer little hope. “I think it was more critical when we were actually trying to win this war,” he said. “We’re not trying to win this war. We’re not going to stop the beetle.”

A non-toxic repellant known as Verbenone will be on sale in stores and may defend some trees, he said. Last year the city selected a few “high value” trees in local parks to wrap with fiberglass in hopes that the beetles could not work their way through to the bark. The concept was tested with some success in the 1920s and the city’s team did see promising results when they tried it out on a few trees at the landfill to pilot the idea. But it’s not a perfect solution. “We’ve got thousands of trees out there. We’re not going to be able to do everyone,” said Wilson. There are 6,000 pine trees on city-owned properties alone.

The only pesticide that works on either the mountain or western pine beetle is a product called SEVIN. While the city is reluctant to use it in public parks where children could be playing, it may be effective for some home owners. The best advice for every measure to deter or mitigate effects of the bugs is to hire a professional—and even that advice is not as simple as it sounds. Anyone felling trees must get a timber license from the province and any contractor must be licensed and insured before working on anyone’s property or the home owner may face a WorkSafe BC claim should that contractor get hurt. To check your contractor has the necessary clearance letter, residents can log onto worksafe.ca or contact the city for help. Information on Pine Beetle details can be found on the City of Kelowna web site (www.kelowna.ca) http://www.kelowna.ca/CM/Page1077.aspx or by calling the Pine Beetle Hotline at 469-8457. The city’s web site includes a listing of contractors and log buyers for homeowners looking for assistance clearing their trees. A Services Canada-sponsored yard waste pickup program is also in place. Residents are asked to contact the city to coordinate pickups of pine beetle infested wood.