Help has arrived for Evanston’s embattled population of American elm trees after Evanston City Council voted unanimously earlier this month to set aside $30,000 for the immediate inoculation of 100 trees against Dutch elm disease.
For members of To Rescue Evanston Elms, the homegrown organization that has been campaigning to save the city’s elm trees, the plan is hopefully the first step in initiating a publicly-funded citywide vaccination program of Evanston’s 3,000 elm trees on public property.
“It’s clear what the people of Evanston want,” said Virginia Mann, co-founder of TREE. “The unanimous vote of the City Council is reflective of the tremendous level of support that citizens have shown for this cause.”
The motion comes on the heels of one of the worst Dutch elm disease seasons in the past several years. City officials predicted Evanston would lose up to 800 trees this year — twice the normal rate.
The scope of the disease this year — along with continued campaigning by Mann and other members of TREE — has helped keep the issue on the minds of both aldermen and residents.
“The members of TREE did a wonderful job and I also think that for whatever reason, we lost more elms this year than we ever have,” said Ald. Elizabeth Tisdahl (7th). “That pushed it into crisis.”
Dutch elm disease is spread by a beetle that carries a fungus that can spread through a tree and kill it. The vaccine is a fungicide that kills the beetle and prevents the fungus from growing through the tree.
The motion also set aside $75,000 for a survey to locate elm trees on private land. Since Dutch elm disease can also be spread through the root system, a program that only vaccinates trees on public property still would not protect trees from root infection from unvaccinated trees on private land.
Finally, the city staff was charged with constructing a vaccination program for 100 percent of elms on public property as well as a policy for the private trees. Any vaccination plan would have to be approved along with the rest of next year’s budget.
“We have to find the money,” said Ald. Gene Feldman (9th), who helped create the motion. “We have to have an inoculation program. There’s no question about it.”
But some aldermen were concerned that the price tag on a citywide vaccination program would be unrealistic, especially when Evanston has a slew of other needs that could be more important.
“If it turns out that these inoculations are really the key, I’d love to see a citywide initiative,” said Ald. Edmund Moran (6th). “The question of would I support spending millions of dollars every year on elm trees, that’s problematic. It’s a lot of money.”
For Mann and other members of TREE, that battle isn’t quite over yet. Although inoculating 100 trees and exploring a citywide vaccination program is a good first step, nothing is set in stone.
“They might come back and say, ‘Oh, we don’t want to do it,'” she said. “There are a hundred variations of where we could go with this. At least they are putting in place the right steps so that we can do it.”
Reach Mike Cherney at [email protected].
