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th ei fp .c a Th e IF P -H al to n H ill s | T hu rs da y, N ov em be r 30 ,2 01 7 | 16 The Town of Halton Hills has included $200,000 in its proposed 2018 budget to replace trees lost a few years ago during the emerald ash borer infestation that decimated the province's ash tree population. Despite such a signifi- cant investment, accord- ing to Halton Hills super- intendent of public works Richard Spear, town staff still has a long way to go before being able to fully replenish the town's can- opy. "Currently we have in excess of 1,500 trees that we need to replace. So, with the funding we had available in 2017, we were able to plant I think 257 trees, I think it was. With this extra money, I antici- pate we should be able to do in excess of 400 trees (in 2018)," Spear told the Halton Hills budget com- mittee at its Nov. 15 meet- ing. "Doing the math, we're still quite a bit behind. And while we're that far behind, we're still cut- ting down trees as they die," added Spear. According to Spear, staff is planting a number of native species of trees to replace ash tree losses. The type of tree depends on location, and factors like road proximity to road salt and power lines. "We have the list of lo- cations already, and once we find out how much money we have available to us, we know roughly how many trees we can plant," he said. "We try to mix up the variety because we had certain streets that were all ash trees. So, when you see a whole street obliterated by the ash trees being killed, we like to mix up the species in case some- thing like this comes along again," added Spear. According to the num- bers presented, if the town can plant 400 trees for $200,000, and there are more than 1,500 trees left to replace, assuming cur- rent funding levels mov- ing forward it could take up to three more years and somewhere around $800,000 to undo the dam- age caused by the emer- ald sh borer infestation. Councillor Moya Johnson raised the possi- bility of seeking addition- al funding through pro- vincial and federal pro- grams, while Coun. Clark Somerville suggested looking into possible con- tributions from the pri- vate sector to possibly speed the process up and reduce costs to the tax- payer. While the town has ac- cessed such funding in the past for the purpose of replacing its tree cano- py, according to town staff, no such funding has yet been yet sought for 2018. The $200,000 included in next year's budget for tree planting has been ap- proved by the budget committee, but must still be given final approval by council when it considers the proposed budget next month. NEWS Halton Hills tree population still long way from full recovery GRAEME FRISQUE gfrisque@metroland.com Despite a proposed investment of $200,000 in 2018 for tree planting, a lot more time and money will be required before the town's canopy is fully replaced. Ryan Pfeiffer / Metroland