Committee endorses ash cutting in Campus Woods
Taylor County is faced with the choice of cutting the ash trees out of the Campus Woods in Medford now while the trees still have value or wait until they die over the next few years and pay to have the dead and dangerous trees removed.
Members of the Taylor County Buildings and Grounds Committee on June 4 voted to move forward with plans for a timber harvest in the Campus Woods with the primary goal of removing the ash trees.
The Campus Woods contains multi-season non-motorized recreational trails. Management of the area has typically focused on conservation with cutting limited to trail maintenance and hazard tree removal.
The Campus Woods are infested with emerald ash borer. According to county forester Lucas Williams, the state estimates the invasive pest has been in the woodlot for the past three to five years.
Emerald ash borer kills trees by its larvae burrowing under the bark and destroying the ability of the tree to get nutrients and water from the soil to its branches.
Different species of ash trees have levels of resistance. Black ash is the most susceptible. Williams noted that the all of the black ash he observed in the Campus Woods are standing dead trees. He said he has checked with timber buyers and noted that this black ash, if harvested next winter, would still have value, however if the county waited it would lose its value.
According to Williams, ash accounts for about 30 percent of all the trees in the Campus Woods. “We are likely to see near 100% die within two to three years,” Willams said.
If the county chose to do nothing and allow the trees to die, the county would still have the responsibility of removing trees as they became a hazard to people using the woods. “Once we are aware of the issue, we have to remedy it,” Williams said.
Under county code, the buildings and ground department has jurisdiction over the Campus Woods as a county park. In this case, the county forestry department is assisting as they look to do ash mitigation and removal in the county forest. Williams said a reality of emerald ash borer is that there will be no ash trees left in the state within several years as the infestation works it way across the state.
“We need to be operating that there will be no ash in Wisconsin,” he said.
Williams proposed having a selective timber sale in the Campus Woods to remove the ash trees and at the same time remove selected over-mature hardwood in the stand to take out trees that Williams described as having a high potential to become hazard trees in the near future.
In addition, Williams gave the option of having a coppice harvest of 9 acres of aspen located on the south end of the Campus Woods. Aspen (popple) is a fairly short-lived tree species and is reaching the point where trees will begin dying and falling. The aspen area is also heavily overgrown with buckthorn. If the county does nothing to that area, the buckthorn will out compete aspen regeneration and it will become entirely buckthorn. In a coppice harvest, the aspen area would be clear cut, along with the buckthorn. Aspen regenerates from the roots left in the ground and Williams explained the aspen would be able to get ahead of the buckthorn and maintain the area as a forest into the future.
Williams said it would make sense to address all of these with a single timber sale.
Buildings and grounds director Joe Svejda said it comes down to if the county wants to do it now, or have to pay to have hazard trees removed in the future. “This will cost us money and safety in the future,” he said. He noted the only reason this is being brought up is because of the ash borer infestation. “If there wasn’t ash borer, we wouldn’t be in there,” he said. Svejda noted that as stewards of the land, they have a responsibility to maintain it.
Williams said any timber harvest would be done in the winter with access from the former mink ranch property to the south. Williams proposed that the money generated from the sale of the marketable timber could go back into improvements in the Campus Woods. Svejda supported this idea, noting there are portions of the trail that could use more gravel and other work that could be done to make the area more accessible.
Depending on the total value of the timber being harvested, the county would have the option of putting it out on bid with the other winter timber sales or they could approach specific loggers and ask them to do the work. Williams said he did not want to show favoritism to one logger over another, especially among the local loggers who do a lot of work in the county. Committee members agreed, but also noted that given the nature of the location going only by bid price would not necessarily be in the county’s best interest.
Williams also noted that the contract would be only a one-year sale, which he said would limit the number of potential contractors willing to do the work.
Committee members unanimously approved recommending going ahead with the Campus Woods timber sale including selected hardwoods and the aspen grove. The request will come to the June 24 county board meeting.
In other business, committee members,
• Approved replacing the 1998 John Deere mower used at the courthouse with a Gravely zero-turn mower and bagger from Klingbeils at a price of $11,277. The existing mower is starting to struggle due to age. The county is looking to offer the older mower to the highway department to use to cut the grass at the Rib Lake shop. Svejda said that the highway shop having its own mower for Rib Lake will free up time for his crew which is spread thin.
• Reviewed the building plans for the ADRC addition to the county multipurpose building. Bids for the project are due on June 18 and will be approved at the June 24 county board meeting.
• Tabled action on the potential to rent out the Perkinstown Wintersports Area. There was concern having the area added to those available to rent would result in increased cost and work for the county’s maintenance crews.
“If there wasn’t ash borer, we wouldn’t be in there.”
— Joe Svejda, county buildings and grounds director
