The City of Winnipeg is battling the spread of dutch elm disease and River Heights is a hot spot.

Councillor Orlikow is working with many groups to put a stop to the spread of this disease.

"I know that one things we all treasure is our trees. They are part of what makes our neighbourhood so great" states Councillor Orlikow.

The following addresses listed for Dutch Elm Disease (DED) removals so far this year and they are:

McMillian

Campbell

Elm

Grosvenor

Harvard

Kingsway

Montrose (worst hit)

Niagara

Oxford

Wellington Cr

Yale

Once a tree shows signs of DED it has to be removed. There may be an option to treat the tree with fungicide injection IF the tree is showing very early stages of disease and the diseased portion can be removed effectively.

Decisions for this type of treatment are made on a case-by-case basis and this treatment generally does not have a high success rate.

At the same time, that diseased (and treated) tree is left standing with the potential to infect other trees in the area. It is a risky thing to do.

The better way to treat trees with fungicide injections is for preventative means. The City is presently attempting to find money for a single source contract to treat 500 trees in River Heights to try to stop the big increase this year and the steady increase over the past few years in River Heights.

For areas that will not fall within our intensive treatment area, residents can pay a contractor to inject their trees for preventative means whether private or blvd.

Information treatments is available at: Winnipeg.ca - UD - Public Works Department . Unfortunately, The City cannot reimburse residents for the treatments. Cost is on average about $300 per tree that can protect a tree from DED for 2, possibly 3 years – it is not a guarantee.

The City is also looking at possibly augmenting elm bark beetle control in this area by quickly changing up our plan for this year. I am also reviewing our pruning plan for this area. We have already started to remove DED marked trees in River Heights to get the diseased trees out sooner.

There are two significant challenges that we need residents' help with.

1) Residents need to provide access to City crews to remove diseased trees on private property - otherwise diseased trees are left standing and cause the disease to spread to the rest of the area.

2) Residents must stop illegally storing Elm firewood.

This is a problem throughout the City and not just in River Heights but these two little things above can make a big difference in our fight against DED.