Montgomery Parks is asking the county’s Planning Board to approve more funding in its effort to clean up dead or dying trees in Kensington taken down by an invasive beetle called the emerald ash borer.
The department’s Horticulture, Forestry and Environmental Education (HFEE) division says it needs $383,010 in this fiscal year’s budget to continue trimming and removing the dead trees that could fall on Rock Creek Trail users, Beach Drive motorists and other infrastructure.
The emerald ash borer, which has spread rapidly in Montgomery County since last fall, feeds on ash trees, in many cases leading to the trees’ death.
While Montgomery Parks estimates only 2 percent to 4 percent of trees in the county are ash trees, it also estimates 20 percent of those ash trees are on its 37,000 acres of parkland, mostly concentrated in its stream valleys.
In January, Montgomery Parks crews and contractors began trimming and cutting down hundreds of dead or dying ash trees it identified as hazardous along Beach Drive near its intersection with Connecticut Avenue in Kensington.
The department had budgeted $400,000 for the work in fiscal year 2016, which ends June 30.
According to the budget request expected to be approved at Thursday’s Planning Board session, the department needs the extra $383,010 to continue the work through the end of the fiscal year and before more money for the effort is added in the fiscal year 2017 budget.
Montgomery Parks budget manager Nancy Steen said the $383,010 comes from unused compensation and benefits. The initial $400,000 is expected to run out in early May and the department has cost estimates from private contractors for the continuation of the operation along Beach Drive.
Since the budget request is less than 10 percent of the HFEE division’s appropriation, it doesn’t require County Council approval.
