The village of Genoa’s battle to remove trees infected with Emerald Ash Borer disease has gotten a little help from the state.

An Ohio Department of Natural Resources grant of $9,700 was used to remove tainted trees in Veterans Park in recent weeks, according to Village Administrator Garth Reynolds.

Genoa, guided by its tree commission, had had a fairly aggressive tree removal plan in place for several years. “But the money just doesn’t go that far,” Reynolds said, noting budget concerns have kept the program stalled for a while.

Then came the 50/50 matching ODNR grant approved earlier in the year.

Village crews have cut down about 100 trees. Grant monies, however, were used to hire Travers Tree Service of Curtice to remove another 72 in the park by the ball diamonds, said Public Works Director Kevin Gladden.

The height of the trees as well as other problems required professional tree trimmers to handle the complex job, Gladden explained.

The focus now has turned to the replanting project.

Members of the village tree commission are reviewing the park and tree varieties to select the best replacements. The plan will probably take a while to put in place, Gladden said.

The Emerald Ash Borer invasion was first identified in Ohio in 2003, attacking a number of the state’s more than 3.8 billion ash trees, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources website. What followed was a series of quarantines across the Buckeye State’s 88 counties to prevent the transportation of infected wood into clean areas.

EAB kills ash trees within three to five years of infestation. Adults are dark metallic green, 1/2 inch in length and 1/8 inch wide, and fly only from mid-May to September. Larvae spend the rest of the year developing beneath the bark.

To date, infestations have been identified in Allen, Ashland, Auglaize, Butler, Clark, Clermont, Cuyahoga, Defiance, Delaware, Erie, Fairfield, Franklin, Fulton, Greene, Hamilton, Hancock, Hardin, Henry, Huron, Lawrence, Licking, Logan, Lorain, Lucas, Mahoning, Marion, Medina, Mercer, Miami, Montgomery, Morrow, Ottawa, Paulding, Perry, Pickaway, Pike, Portage, Putnam, Richland, Sandusky, Scioto, Seneca, Union, Summit, Van Wert, Warren, Wayne, Williams, Wood, and Wyandot counties.

Because of the state quarantine, the remaining 38 counties that have not been identified as positive for the Emerald Ash Borer are also quarantined, the ODNR reported.

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