Salem staff outline Emerald Ash Borer readiness plan and urge residents to report suspicious trees

Meredith Greer, the City of Salem’s natural resources planning manager, presented the city’s Emerald Ash Borer readiness and response plan at the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting on June 11, 2026. Greer said EAB has been found in nearby counties and that Salem is within roughly 5–7 miles of known infestations, making early detection and public outreach priorities.

Greer described EAB as an invasive wood-boring beetle that has killed tens of millions of trees nationwide and said it can be hard to detect until trees are severely weakened. “We’re talking specifically about this bug. It’s an invasive and highly destructive wood-boring beetle,” Greer said, summarizing the insect’s lifecycle and the signature signs—thinning crowns, epicormic shoots, bark splits revealing S-shaped galleries and D-shaped exit holes—that staff watch for in ash trees.

The plan centers on four strategies for different park and street-tree contexts: detection, inventory, treatment and natural-area management. Greer said the city has deployed 16 purple prism detection traps around Salem, to be checked in July and September, and has inventoried about 4,000 urban ash trees (street and park trees) with roughly 95% of those street/right-of-way ash trees accounted for.

On treatment, Greer described trunk injections of emamectin benzoate as an effective short-term tool. “About 95 percent of the trees that are treated then can live to their normal healthy life,” she said, noting treated trees require re-treatment every two to three years and that internal staff capacity affects cost if the city must contract work.

For natural areas—about 1,500 acres citywide with roughly 450 acres of ash canopy—Greer said wholesale removal is not feasible; staff plan to underplant native species where possible, create habitat snags when appropriate and selectively remove trees that pose hazards to people or infrastructure. She also emphasized homeowner outreach: the city is preparing press releases, site visits and website resources and is coordinating with state partners for confirmations and quarantine notices.

During questions, Greer urged residents to report suspicious trees to the Oregon Invasive Species hotline so state or forestry staff can inspect them, and said staff are discussing waiving permitting fees for emergency ash removals to lower barriers for homeowners. She also described statewide research collaborations and seed-collection efforts aimed at identifying trees with genetic resistance to EAB for future replanting.

The board did not take formal action on the plan at the June 11 meeting; staff said they will continue outreach and return with updates as monitoring and the community-forestry strategic plan move forward.