by Kevin Zimmermann
SHEBOYGAN, WI (WHBL) – When your fall color tour of Sheboygan County reveals large swaths of already-bare trees, then you’re likely not seeing signs of early autumn, but the work of the Emerald Ash Borer, a small beetle which kills ash trees in a few short years when the larvae eat the tree’s sap-carrying tissue beneath the bark.
That small beetle is now a big problem in Sheboygan County which, it’s estimated, hosts some 17 million ash trees of 4 different species. That’s according to Attorney Tony Fessler, a Sheboygan Rotary Club member and organizer of “ROOTS,” which stands for Restoration of Our Trees Sheboygan. The effort between Sheboygan Rotary Clubs and the Lakeshore Natural Resource Partnership began replacing ash trees on a large scale in September in Plymouth. Five Sheboygan County projects in all, funded by a $200,000 federal grant, a $5,000 corporate gift from Alliant Energy and another $15,000 raised by Rotary, will help replace the lost Ash trees. On Friday the effort begins in Elkhart Lake, while the Sheboygan project kicks off on Saturday morning.
Fessler said that the public is invited to the ceremony at 10 AM when Rotary members, city officials and representatives of Alliant Energy plant the first trees at Area 5 of Evergreen Park on the north side of the Pigeon River. A final push for now will happen at River Park in Sheboygan Falls, and it’s hoped that more can be done in the future as long as funding makes it possible.
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