Greenspace Alliance of Canada's Capital / Alliance pour les espaces verts dans la capitale du Canada

In reverse order: Sol Shuster's cover note to Council with our media release of July 22, a response from Councillor Maria McRae, and a reply by Sol Shuster:
 
From: Sol Shuster
Sent: July 25, 2012 10:27 AM
To: 'McRae, Maria'
Cc: 'Jim Watson'; 'Allan Hubley'; 'Bob Monette'; 'David Chernushenko'; 'Diane Deans'; 'Diane Holmes'; 'Doug Thompson'; 'Eli El-Chantiry'; 'Jan Harder'; 'Katherine Hobbs'; 'Keith Egli'; 'Marianne Wilkinson'; 'Mark Taylor'; 'Mathieu Fleury'; 'Peter Clark'; 'Peter Hume'; 'Rainer Bloess'; 'Rick Chiarelli'; 'Scott Moffatt'; 'Shad Qadri'; 'Stephen Blais'; 'Steve Desroches'; 'TimTierney'

Subject: RE: Greenspace Alliance Media Release
 
Dear Councillor McRae,

Thank you for your very prompt response on this issue. Unfortunately, you have completely misconstrued our intention, as we in no way wish to undermine staff. Our dual objectives are to urge the City to save as many Ash trees as possible before the August 31 treatment deadline, and to increase public awareness of the need to treat Ash trees in order that they may be saved.
 
We did indeed appreciate the opportunity to speak with staff, and it is unfortunate that you were not available to join us. Quotations in the media regarding your wishes to spend money on larger trees unfortunately did not highlight the urgency of using injections to the maximum extent possible. When, as you indicate, there are many possible options, selection of best choices is key, and we see that treatment should be by far the highest priority.

Our meeting with staff on July 13th was amicable but unfortunately yielded very little in the way of specific indications of what staff was planning to do and we were also left  with the impression that there was a lack of real  urgency in the their approach.  In fact, the only indication we received was a general statement that they would try to increase treatments, but with no suggestion of the quantum of trees they would like to see treated this year. Over the next week we tried unsuccessfully to follow-up both by our group and through Councillor Chiarelli. Key to maximizing tree injections will be engaging additional firms, in addition to the present contractor. Staff spoke only of one contractor; we therefore hope that you will support staff to engage multiple service providers. Furthermore, as our MR makes clear, the supply of TreeAzin and related supplies are no obstacle to treatment and the ability of certified treatment service providers to handle increased demand should also not be an issue.
 
You seem to equate having legitimate differences with the City’s EAB strategy with “undermining City staff” or “beating up on staff”.  This accusatory tactic will not deter us from speaking out on what we see are the deficiencies in the City’s approach to the EAB problem. Furthermore, flinging general accusations against our group of “providing misleading information” or “spreading gossip” without substantiation only demeans the office of the Chair of the Environment Committee. I challenge you to cite specific examples we can either refute or correct.
 
Finally, you raise the issue of collaboration. We have been trying for over two months to work collaboratively with the City. Our efforts have been rebuffed, in part, we fear, due to your attempts to defend and justify the City’s 2008 EAB strategy rather than engage in constructive dialogue. In case you were not aware, we have been working cooperatively with Councillor Hume’s office for the last several weeks trying to assist his EAB communications outreach to his constituents. At our July 13 meeting we offered similar assistance but with no apparent uptake.
 
I hope this clarifies our position and we continue to hope that we will be able to work with the City to save as many Ash trees as possible.
 
Sincerely,
Sol Shuster
Chair, Greenspace Alliance EAB Working Group
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: McRae, Maria
Sent: July 22, 2012 11:45 AM
To: Sol Shuster
Cc: =City Council

Subject: RE: Greenspace Alliance Media Release
 
Thank you for your e-mail Mr. Shuster.  To confirm, City staff are aware of the urgency regarding this issue.  By a unanimous recorded vote, members of City Council provided extra funding to augment the current the EAB program via more injections and tree plantings.  City Council also strongly reaffirmed their support of City staff, who are credentialed forestry experts.  As part of the direction to staff, the City Forester was asked to report back to City Council, via memo, with information as to how the additional funds were allocated at some point later this year.
 
City staff tell me you have mischaracterized your meeting with them.  Staff were clear at their meeting with you that they will maximize all treatment opportunities based on the availability of the pesticide, equipment and certified operators.  They will also use these additional funds to apply treatment with the goal of achieving the best results for all of the trees treated.  Staff will also use funds to plant more trees, as was unanimously supported by City Council.
 
Your NR is hardly a collaborative approach and once again seeks to undermine City staff.  It also provides misleading information to the public as to what proven commercial treatment options are readily and legally available for municipal application in Canada.  Our staff need to focus on their operational duties and will not be further responding to your correspondence.
 
I have full confidence that our staff will carry out their duties with diligence and in the most professional manner possible.  I will also continue to do everything that I can to ensure that the City continues to use all options available to address this serious issue. 
 
With regards,
Maria
Maria McRae
River Ward City Councillor
Conseillère, quartier Rivière 
City of Ottawa/Ville d'Ottawa
110, avenue Laurier Avenue West/ouest
Ottawa, Ontario  K1P 1J1
Tel./tél.: (613) 580-2486
Fax/Téléc: (613) 580-2526
MariaMcRae.ca
Twitter: @CouncillorMcRae 
River Ward - home to more than 49,000!
Quartier Rivière – Le choix de plus de 49 000 résidents! 
P  Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.
P  Veuillez penser à l’environnement avant d’imprimer le présent du courriel.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Sol Shuster
Sent: July 22, 2012 9:09 AM
To: Watson, Jim (Mayor/Maire); Hubley, Allan; Monette, Bob; Chernushenko, David; Deans, Diane; Holmes, Diane; Thompson, Doug; El-Chantiry, Eli; Harder, Jan; Hobbs, Katherine; Egli, Keith; McRae, Maria; Wilkinson, Marianne; Taylor, Mark; Fleury, Mathieu; Clark, Peter D; Hume, Peter E; Bloess, Rainer; Chiarelli, Rick; Moffatt, Scott; Qadri, Shad; Stephen Blais; Desroches, Steve; Tierney, Timothy

Subject: FW: Greenspace Alliance Media Release

Importance: High
Dear Mayor and Councillors,
 
Please find attached a media release issued this morning.  
 
We are highly appreciative of the initiative approved by Council and, in particular, thank you, Mr. Mayor, and Councillor McRae for it.  However, when we met with City staff on July 13th and following that meeting, we have made every effort to ascertain how the additional $1 million approved by Council on July 11th will be allocated and, in particular, how much of these new resources will be devoted to treatment of ash trees before the deadline for treatment this year that extends only to August 31st.
 
We know that all of you recognize that the situation is urgent and requires emergency solutions, particularly in light of the tight timeframe to save as many trees as possible.  Unfortunately, we have had no indication of such a sense of urgency on the part of City staff and therefore saw no alternative but to go public again on this issue.
 
Mr. Mayor, we urge you to firmly instruct staff to immediately take advantage of the remaining window of opportunity to save many more ash trees.  Our industry sources assure us that the capacity to do so exists, both in terms of supply of TreeAzin and of available operators. 
 
We continue to hope that we will be able to work cooperatively with City staff, particularly on helping to get information out to the public through community associations and our other networks. 
 
Regards, 
Sol Shuster
Chair, Greenspace Alliance EAB Working Group.  

In response to a comment by Kanata North Councillor Marianne Wilkinson that the city was facing the loss of 65,000 Ash trees, Donna DuBreuil wrote to the Kanata Kourier -- succinct and to the point!

[7 May 2012]

Dear Mayor Watson, 

The Emerald Ash Borer infestation will have an impact on Ottawa like none other this City has faced before.   

The Greenspace Alliance of Canada’s Capital has put together a Working Group that is finalizing a Position Paper to further a productive discussion with City staff and others and to help enlist public support to respond to this unprecedented challenge.   

I wrote today to David Barkley, Manager of Forestry Services, asking him to provide us with additional information prior to meeting with him and Councillor McRae in the near future so that we may discuss our Position Paper with them. We would then like a follow-up meeting with you at the earliest opportunity to present to you our approach based on our economic analysis and the latest scientific evidence we have collated and to answer any questions you may have. 

Residents, once they become aware of the full impact, will be extremely concerned about the loss of one-quarter of Ottawa’s municipal tree canopy as well as the huge cost that will fall to ratepayers to remove, dispose of and replace these trees over the next number of years. This does not include the significant cost to homeowners where the loss of mature trees will result in increased air conditioning costs, and reduced property values. Furthermore, it does not include health costs from poorer air quality, or costs of reduced water retention on the landscape. 

With so much at stake, we feel that an adaptive management approach needs to be implemented that is in line with the most current science, as well as to learn from the experience of other communities. Cities such as Burlington and Hamilton are significantly revising their approach based on current science, and the severe potential consequences of doing little or nothing to save their Ash trees. Ottawa too must address this emergency.  Ottawa’s situation is indeed more dire, in that Ash trees represent only 10% of these cities’ urban tree cover while in Ottawa, Ashes represent 25%.  

As you may by now be aware, the City’s Forests and Greenspace Advisory Committee recently passed a set of resolutions that included requesting Council to immediately shift its priority policy response to EAB, to a proactive approach of treating trees with TreeAzin.  Should council agree, and we very much hope they will, this could have serious implications regarding the City’s tender on Ash Wood Sorting and Processing which has a May 7^th closing date. We see as highly problematic any contractual obligations to supply large quantities of ash wood in ever increasing volume over a four year period; particularly live trees, the most economically valuable.  We are therefore asking the City to defer making any formal decision or commitment on a contract until we have had an opportunity to meet.  

We hope to hear from you in the very near future as there is considerable urgency in meeting with you since the window of opportunity to significantly increase the number of trees treated is soon closing.  We can assure you that we very much want to work with the City on this critical issue.   

Sol Shuster

Chair, Greenspace Alliance EAB Working Group

[See also a Memo from staff to Council, 23 April 2012]

[24 April 2011]

Mr. Shuster,

The 2008 Report is the Strategy that set out the high level approach for EAB in Ottawa, each year since then at Committee staff have updated Councillors on actions being taken, much of this information is found on the City’s web site at http://www.ottawa.ca/en/env_water/tlg/trees/preservation/eab/index.html I have also attached for reference the last presentation to the Environment Committee last October 2011 [1.46 MB].

The strategy as approved by Council in 2008 (report ACS2008-COS-SOP-0012) is laid out in 5 steps or approaches:

• Regulation of wood movement and disposal;
• Tree removal;
• Selective tree injections;
• Proactive tree planting and replacement tree planting; and,
• Public Consultation / Outreach. 

Each year we have worked on various pieces within each of these areas to help mitigate the impact of EAB on our Community.  There are a number of pieces that we have to consider when we are examining next steps with Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), the actual location in which we are finding populations of the insect and the trends for the spread, it makes no financial sense to inject trees that are not currently under pressure from the insect, and expansion is based on a the reality of funding we have available, and the information we can gather in the field.  Ottawa has been working since 2009 on the trial/pilot with Treeazin, it has been exactly that a trial product still does not have full registration in Canada, but shows very good results.   From early on in when this insect made entrance into the USA and Canada there were only 2 research papers on this insect in its home territory in Asia, 5 years later when it reached Ottawa in 2008 and still to today the research in all aspects is underway not complete, our goal is that other solutions will be found over the next 10 to 20 years to help ensure the Ash is still around for future generations in some form.

The City of Ottawa’s EAB strategy includes tree injection as mitigation measures to minimize the impact on the forest cover.  Ash trees located on City property are assessed before deciding if it is a good candidate for treatment.  Some trees may be too infected to be treated, in poor condition due to other health factors, or in a poor location.  To date, the City has injected over 20,000 cm or 750 ash trees with TreeAzin, and the program will be expanded again this spring to 55,000 cm or 1500 ash trees. If the management strategy adopted by the City of Oakville is followed, the City of Ottawa would require $10M per year until the end of the ash trees life cycle or until another solution is found through the ongoing research as the cost of TreeAzin treatment is directly related to the size of the tree.   

To date Council has been funding the approved EAB Strategy, which in most circumstances when faced with tough challenges typically you can arrive at more than one solution, with EAB there are only a couple of options inject the tree, do nothing, or remove the dead trees and plant new ones to help diversify species in Ottawa.  When it comes to injection we have taken a gradual increase approach for the first couple of years as it was a trial being undertaken by the Canadian Forest Services looking at if the injection worked or not, three years in it looked promising and we started to increase the amount of injection being done, in that trial period the insect was still reproducing and spreading this means we have to remove dead and dangerous trees as a result.   At the same time staff are setting criteria and reviewing candidate trees for injection, with in that we have found that there are a lot of Ash in very poor condition(just think back to the 1998 ice storm), bad locations(e.g. under hydro wires) and trees that some residents have tolerated but hated for a number of reasons we have  looked at all those factors in determining what to invest in a long term treatment program and what is not a good use of tax dollars.  The  injection needs to be done every other year for how long we are not certain, a note of interest we are still injecting the remaining American Elms from the 60 and 70’s injection program, so we are not against injection just have benchmarks for how long we could be into injecting these trees once we start.   

As for costs on average at this time the tree size is about 40cm in diameter, this is down from previous years of 50cm, the City’s cost is around $6.00 per centimetre, therefore $240.00 on an average tree, it was $300.00.  That would mean we would need roughly 10 million dollars a year to go City wide immediately just for street trees no woodlots, ravine edges along backs of homes. Up to now the estimates that have been quoted by the City have consisted of average market costs so that in fairness to residents and the contractors that supply the services they had an average price, what we know is that a resident will pay anywhere from $6-$10 per cm,  so to then give people a ball park we have used a cost of $8.50cm on a 40cm tree that is $340 to $425 based on our average sizes in our program.  When it comes to cost comparisons for removal and injection removal and replacement of a 40cm tree(lots of variables in tree removal but using averages) $1000.00.  I can commit to you that we are always looking at options, solutions and research to ensure the best use of the City’s resources. 

It should be noted that residents have the option to inject City owned trees located on their property, at their own cost, if it is deemed reasonable to do so.  If residents have questions, they can call 3-1-1 and speak to City staff for advice on whether the tree may be a candidate for injection and how to proceed before engaging a qualified contractor. TreeAzin injections should only be performed by a qualified professional and trees must be re-injected every two years, potentially for the life of the tree.  

Forestry Services has been actively consulting with many groups, both internal and external.  It was recognized that a made in Eastern Ontario solution was needed and this has been addressed through the formation of a Regional Forest Health working group.  The group is made up of the City of Ottawa, City of Gatineau, National Capital Commission (NCC), Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), Canadian Forest Services, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR), local Conservation Authorities, Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, Ontario Parks, Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), and Forest Industry representatives, all of whom bring various backgrounds and expertises.  Since 2008, all partners have been reaching out to educate the public, generate public input and work to mitigate the impact of EAB on Ottawa’s residents. 

The City has also actively participated with EAB working groups across Canada and Ontario, to provide advice and to seek expert advice from south western Ontario who have been dealing with the impacts of EAB longer than Ottawa, and have seen the impacts on areas that Ottawa has not yet experienced, specifically forests and riparian areas.

The City has actively worked through local Community Associations across the impacted areas since 2008 presenting at their meetings the City’s EAB Strategy and providing advice and information on EAB.  In addition four publicly advertised hands on training sessions focused on the local contract industry on identification of the insect, sign and symptoms for EAB have been done.  In the last two years outreach to Ottawa Region Landlords Association (ORLA), Building Owners and Managers Association of Ottawa (BOMA), Ottawa Housing, the Ottawa Hospital and Ottawa Universities occurred to provide them information on what they need to start to consider being large land owners in the Ottawa area.  This spring the Environment Committee has hosted two City wide EAB sessions, at Ben Franklin Place and at the Jim Durrell Centre.     

In addition, Forestry Services has worked with the private sector on wood handling and processing pilot programs, so that a Request for Proposal (RFP) could be released for competition this spring to achieve two specific goals:  (1) value added use of the ash material being produced as a result of EAB; and (2) cost reduction for the disposal of ash wood for both the City and private residents.  In addition, information is provided to developers when they are applying for approvals through the Planning and Growth Management Department on the proper handling and disposal of wood when working on sites in Ottawa. 

In response to the question on Wildlife, staff review these sites once when determining the work required and again before any work takes place the day they show up on site, observations for nests and activity is key as the City does not want to damage habitat or wildlife in the course of our work, we also consider the time of year and stage the wildlife might be at before scheduling the work.  The majority of our staff are trained in Forestry which includes a component of wildlife management in their schooling, as well we have consulted other experts through the course of the development of the EAB strategy which is a living document and will be adjusted as change is needed. 

I appreciate that it would appear as though we are justifying our approach or direction, it is more explaining some very specific and large scale differences in strategies, based on the realities we face with geography, tree age, size, number growing, condition and location, Ottawa is over 80% rural and at this time EAB is not into our forests areas but our 20% urban is larger than any other place dealing with this issue.  We are very much trying to lead the way on solutions in an attempt to help preserve the City’s trees and help residents make tough decisions on their own property.  The difficulty in what has occurred with EAB is that it is a Federally regulated insect that comes with no Federal or Provincial support, funding or policy guidance, so what you see in Oakville, Ottawa, Hamilton, Burlington are strategies that have been evolving by municipalities working together and sharing of ideas to try and help each other deal with what looks to be a slow natural disaster.  I assure you my staff nor do I look forward to what we are working on, we all trained to plant, prune and maintain trees and forests for our communities and this is not how we saw or want to see Ottawa’s forest. 

I look forward to meeting with you and your group in the next couple of weeks to discuss how we can move ahead together, as EAB is a long term issue and requires active partners to help communicate proper messages to residents so we can all make good decisions. 

If you need any more information please feel free to contact either myself or Jason Pollard at 613-580-2424 ext. 16012. 

Yours truly, 

David E. Barkley
Manager Forestry Services, Gestionnaire, Services forestiers
Forestry Services Branch - Services forestiers
Public Works Department - Direction des travaux publics
City of Ottawa - Ville d'Ottawa
100 Constellation Cres
Ottawa ON K2G 6J8
T: 613.580.2424.21148
F: 613.580.2611
E: david.barkley [at] ottawa.ca