By JIMMY LAWTON

OGDENSBURG -- Ogdensburg Parks and Recreation Director Matthew Curatolo says the city is looking how best to handle the emerald ash borer, an invasive species that decimates ash trees.

He said a meeting was held Wednesday to discuss various options and a trip is being planned to Onondaga where the ash borer has already arrived to assess what measures were most effective.

In January County Planner John Tenbusch and Cornell Cooperative Extension Horticulture and Natural Resource Educator Paul Hetzler spoke to the city council.

They said the ash borer will come to Ogdensburg and has the potential decimate trees and property, but being proactive could save the city’s ash inventory and reduce substantial removal costs.

Hetzler said once the ash borer arrives it will quickly destroy trees, making them weak and dangerous.

Since the green beetle arrived from Asia in 2002 it has destroyed 50 million trees in the United States and cost a total of $20 billion in damage.

Hetzler has been reaching out to communities across St. Lawrence County to raise awareness of the imminent threat and discuss ways to lessen the impact physically and financially.

He said that when an ash borer damages trees they become brittle and dangerous. He said the science is unclear as to exactly why this is, but suggest that these weakened trees are dangerous.

The trees become unstable and can fall without losing branches and become a greater liability during wind, snow and ice storms and have great potential to knock out power lines or damage vehicles, homes or other structures.

Using estimates of similar sized cities, with similar ash tree inventories, Hetzler estimated the removal cost for trees destroyed by ash borers at more than $112,000.

He suggested that some trees could be saved using chemical treatments. He said additional cost savings may be found if the county pools it’s resources to purchase the treatments in bulk.

He said that while many trees are worth saving, these trees should be taken down to avoid high removal costs and damage that they could cause in the future.

According to estimates presented at the January meeting ash trees make up about 7 percent of the total shade trees in the city’s inventory, with about 140 ash trees in Ogdensburg.