By Rumasa Noor
Staff writer
Racine County Park and highway crews removed dead trees from the Old Settlers Park in the Union Grove in late June.
“This area has been devastated by the Emerald Ash Borer and the trees need to be removed as soon as possible,” according to the post on Union Grove Area Chamber of Commerce Facebook page earlier in June.
The county also assisted the Racine County Fair to remove dead trees from Fairgrounds.
Fair President Scott Gunderson said the tree removal went well. Most of the work, including the cleaning up of ash trees, was done in just over a week, he said.
The Facebook post also mentioned that the county will work on replanting those trees later this year.
“The Ag Society and the county are going to meet to see if we can work together on a replanting plan,” Gunderson said.
The Emerald Ash Borer has been a growing problem in the state throughout the past two years. Quarantines have been issued for Adams, Brown, Buffalo, Calumet, Columbia, Crawford, Dane, Dodge, Door, Douglas, Fond du Lac, Grant, Green, Iowa, Jefferson, Juneau, Kenosha, Kewaunee, La Crosse, Lafayette, Manitowoc, Milwaukee, Monroe, Oneida, Outagamie, Ozaukee, Racine, Richland, Rock, Sauk, Sheboygan, Trempealeau, Vernon, Walworth, Washington, Waukesha and Winnebago counties.
Residents and affected businesses in these counties are restricted from moving any hardwood firewood, ash nursery stock or ash logs or timber out of the quarantine area. Regulated materials can be moved anywhere within the quarantine.
The regulations on ash material and hardwood firewood also apply to other quarantined states, including Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, and Lower Michigan.
In spite of the quarantine, the borer has continued to spread across the state, with the bug recently found in Dane and Lafayette counties, according to the University of Wisconsin–Madison research site on the EAB infestation.
The loss of the ash trees has created additional issues in the state because ash trees were used to replace Dutch Elm trees – most of which in the state were lost due to Dutch elm disease.
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