Additional Funding Sought For Chadakoin River Restoration
A slide which was presented to Jamestown City Council members on Monday. This slide shows locations of known sittings of the Spotted Lantern Flies and what an infestation looks like in New York City and parts of Pennsylvania.
Twan Leenders, director of conservation for the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy gave an update brief to Jamestown’s City Council members at a working session Monday. Leenders spoke about the Chadakoin River management and restoration project, the eradication of the invasive Tree of Heaven and keeping the Spotted Lantern Fly out of the county. Submitted photos
A slide which was presented to Jamestown City Council members on Monday. This slide shows locations of known sittings of the Spotted Lantern Flies and what an infestation looks like in New York City and parts of Pennsylvania.
Twan Leenders, director of conservation for the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy gave an update brief to Jamestown’s City Council members at a working session Monday. Leenders spoke about the Chadakoin River management and restoration project, the eradication of the invasive Tree of Heaven and keeping the Spotted Lantern Fly out of the county. Submitted photos
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The Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy is looking for another $224,500 from the city's remaining American Rescue Plan Act funding to finish its work on the Chadakoin River.
Twan Leenders, director of conservation for the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy, gave a briefing to City Council members this week about the additional work as well as the work the conservancy has done in the previous year.
Leenders proposes tree mitigation and debris removal be completed before Nov. 1, as would a second round of herbicide treatment for surviving Tree-of-Heaven. Removal of dead Tree-of-Heaven, as well as protecting mature bank trees, will continue throughout the winter.
It will cost $175,000 to remove debris and for pre-emptive tree maintenance; $17,500 to re-treat Tree-of-Heaven that didn't die off after herbicide treatment last year and removal of large dead Tree-of-Heaven trees; $23,000 to treat Tree-of-Heaven that is in its first year of treatment near the railroad tracks; and $9,000 in materials and staff tme to engage community groups and wrap mature Chadakoin River bank trees.
"The situation we're in right now is that 90% of Tree of Heaven is gone from the city, but because these trees have been here for several years, even though the standing trees that were treated last year are dead now, they've been dropping seeds for years, however long they've been here," Leenders said. "So, the seed banks are coming up all these young plants are coming back up again and there may be about 20 trees that did not quite completely die that need to be retreated to make sure those are finished off as well."
It turned out that the original estimate Leenders gave in 2022 of 1,200 Tree-of-Heaven trees turned out to be an understatement. More than 3,500 trees were injected with herbicides in September and October 2022. The Tree-of-Heaven is an invasive tree commonly referred to as ailanthus. It is a rapidly growing deciduous tree native to both northeast and central China, as well as Taiwan and by all accounts is very difficult to irradicate.
"We've treated about 3,500 trees, and some require a second round of treatment to kill them off," Leenders said. "There's a big batch of them still left below Paces Pizza, on railroad property."
Tree-of-Heaven also attracts the spotted lanternfly, an invasive species that county officials fear could decimate the region's grape crops. Spotted lantern fly has been found in Buffalo and other parts of New York but has yet to make its way to Jamestown. Spotted lanternflies is a planthopper species indigenous to China and part of Vietnam. However, it has spread invasively and aggressively to Japan, South Korea and the United States, and its preferred host is the above mentioned Tree-of-Heaven. Once the Tree-of-Heaven stocks are depleted, the spotted lanternfly will then devour other crops including soybeans, stone fruit and grapes.
"New York City has been overrun with the spotted lantern flies," Leenders said. "So far, luckly, only one has been found in Buffalo. However, that's how the trend has gone. One is found and the next year or the year after that then its full infestation. You can't even walk in some parts of the city -- New York City -- without stepping on them, they're everywhere."