Dying Trees Overwhelm Park Department Resources

As chainsaw-wielding crews cut down dead eucalyptus trees in Valley Village Park on Thursday, officials contemplated where they will get the approximately $2 million needed to remove an additional 5,000 infected trees in the city’s parks that could be dead by September.

Despite the release of predator insects and the use of pesticides, Los Angeles has been unable to control the infestation of the red gum lerp psyllid, a tiny Australian insect that is ravaging eucalyptus trees statewide. The pest feeds on the fluids of the trees, making them susceptible to fatal attack by other insects. Infected trees cause an additional nuisance, dripping a sticky substance on cars and sidewalks.

The financial consequences of removing thousands of trees that are expected to die in coming months are weighing heavily on the minds of city officials.

‘We’re talking [about] a magnitude that we don’t have the means to address,” said Jim Combs, assistant general manager of community services for the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. “Our budget is tied to people and programs. We do not have the money.”

The removal of 25 dead trees in the Valley Village Park section of North Hollywood Park began on Tuesday and is expected to conclude today. The park has another 20 trees--some more than 75 years old--that are so sick that they may not make it through the summer, said Teresa Proscewicz, principal forester for the Department of Recreation and Parks.

In removing them, the city is trying to eliminate the danger posed by dead trees, which drop their bark and eventually fall over. So far, there have been no reports of injuries.

Last week, 19 trees were removed along Riverside Drive in Griffith Park, in addition to 37 that were cut down in December.

The Department of Public Works, which is in charge of street trees, has already removed 200 trees in Woodland Hills and Toluca Lake. They anticipate another 200 to 300, mostly in Woodland Hills, will die, said George Gonzalez, the department’s chief forester.

“The inland trees in the Valley are suffering much more than those by the coast,” he said. “We’ve had none die in the metro or beach areas.”

Gonzalez said there’s no explanation yet why inland trees are more affected. “I haven’t found why this is happening,” he said.

There are an estimated 5,000 infected trees near playgrounds and picnic areas in city parks that will need to be removed. Another 20,000 trees on the hillsides of Griffith Park and Elysian Park near Dodger Stadium are likely to die, although they will probably not be removed due to a lack of funds, Proscewicz said.

“This is a huge problem. It’s almost like a disaster,” she said.

Officials said they are looking for grants from foundations and public agencies to finance the replanting of new trees.

Since the red gum lerp psyllid was first seen in California in El Monte in 1998, thousands of trees from Palo Alto to San Diego have been infected by the pinhead-size pests that attack two types of eucalyptus trees, the red gum variety and the flooded gum variety, also known as the desert gum eucalyptus. Out of 20,000 street trees in Los Angeles, about 4,000 are one of these two types of eucalyptus and thus, could become infected.

When park workers discovered some infected trees in Valley Village Park in June 1998, they released 1 1/2 million ladybugs that were supposed to eat the infecting pests. Instead, they went after easier prey.

Tiny wasps from Australia thought to be a natural predator of the psyllids have also been released, as part of a program organized by experts at UC Berkeley. For some trees, it was too little, too late. Also, scientists reported recently, the wasps are not reproducing quickly enough to be effective.

Still, Proscewicz said: “We’re hoping the wasps will be able to control the psyllids, but I don’t want to make any predictions.”