By BILL BERRY
of The Gazette
Given the option, Todd Ernster would rather save a city tree than take it down.
That's not always possible in the urban setting, where trees have to mingle with humans, automobiles and concrete.
As city forester in Stevens Point, Ernster's job is to guard the health and well being of about 7,000 street trees and thousands of others in city parks and other land holdings. He'll also provide advice to residents about their trees.
It's a big job, but one that he loves. Ernster took over as city forester last September when longtime forester Mickey Simmons retired. Prior to that, Ernster was city arborist, the number two position in the forestry section of the city's Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department. He has been with the city for 13 years.
Ernster works in what's commonly known as urban forestry. He sees trees as playing a vital role in the urban setting.
There's the aesthetic side, of course: Trees are nice.
There are also plenty of practical reasons to protect the urban forest. "Trees reduce heating costs, absorb noise and filter pollutants," he says. "They add property value, help provide a sense of neighborhood and slow runoff."
These, the tallest living organisms in the community, are protected by an ordinance. It seeks to protect street trees, whenever possible, from harm caused by human activity. Other city departments cooperate well toward that goal, he says.
Stevens Point has been a National Arbor Day Foundation Tree City USA award winner for 20 years. It also has won two Growth Awards from the Foundation (arborday.org). Tree City and Growth awards were established by the Arbor Day Foundation to underscore community efforts to enhance their urban forests. They're considered feathers in the hats of those communities that have earned them. Elsewhere in Portage County, the village of Amherst has earned three Tree City USA awards and the village of Plover seven. Iola in Waupaca County has earned four.
Ernster's office, based at the city Recreation Center, has many duties. They include planting, trimming and watering live trees, and taking down dead ones. The city has a tree spade mounted on a truck that can move large trees with minimal disruption to tree roots. His crews also maintain city flower beds.
But the trees get most of his attention.
"City street trees are on a three- to four-year trimming cycle," he says. In that time, all the trees are viewed, and those needing trimming receive it. The city does some of its own work, and hires out some of the larger jobs to a private contractor.
"That's about 1,700 trees trimmed a year," Ernster says.
Summer is a busy time for the city forester's office. Five seasonal employees are added to the regular staff, and other seasonals from the parks office sometimes pitch in on forestry projects. Ernster and City Arborist Paul Ziemann oversee their work.
Urban forestry was born of the deaths of millions of elm trees in America.
Stevens Point and other communities in the Midwest were hit hard in the 1970s by Dutch elm disease, a fungal disease that devastated elms. It cost loads to deal with and virtually changed the way communities looked, because elms were the most common tree species, forming characteristic cathedral canopies over street after street.
Stevens Point still has a Dutch elm program. Forty-six city or private trees were cut down last year because of the disease. Once Dutch elm disease is identified, removal is mandated by ordinance.
Actually, the city still has a good elm population, Ernster says. He's among those who think that the remaining trees may be somewhat resistant to the disease. Elm lovers can only hope so. There are also new varieties said to be resistant through careful breeding. A few are planted in the city's Forest Cemetery.
Some communities didn't bother to replace the elms that came down, and they're known today by long stretches of tree-less street. Others, Stevens Point among them, were aggressive in efforts to re-establish their tree populations. The efforts gave birth to a new science, urban forestry, one that's still growing today.
"It's really kind of blossoming," says Bob Miller, a professor of urban forestry in the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point's College of Natural Resources.
"Wisconsin communities are really embracing the idea of encouraging more green space, more tree canopy cover over neighborhoods," Miller says. "That has a strong role to play in some of the Smart Growth initiatives."
Communities are recognizing the ecologic values of urban trees and plants, and Wisconsin is ahead of the curve, Miller says. Communities are also rapidly learning, sometimes by necessity, that urban forestry is about a lot more than trees. It's about water quality, storm water drainage, heat reduction in summer and windbreaks in winter. It's about natural systems and the important role they can play in urban areas.
One of the biggest lessons from the Dutch elm disease epidemic was to build a more diverse urban forest. "Maple are now our most common trees. We're continuing to try to diversify," Ernster says. Matching another growing trend in the country, Stevens Point tries to plant native tree species whenever possible.
His first job is to assure safety, Ernster says. Tree health is next, and providing information to the public is also important.
In the latter category, he's quite flexible. He'll provide information to residents about trees, shrubs and other plants within the city limits.
Miller and several students have looked at the urban forest in Stevens Point and beyond. They've produced a canopy survey of all open space left in the urban area, including Stevens Point, Hull, Stockton, Plover and Whiting. It becomes an important development tool, given the pace of growth.
"We identified the nondeveloped land and ranked it according to ecological, recreation and aesthetic values," Miller says. They produced a computer program that prioritizes areas for protection. In part, the work helped lead to creation of the local Portage County Citizens for Green Space.
The information helped Portage County develop a recently-passed green space plan.
"I really see a lot more activity as we move on a couple of decades," Miller says of urban forestry. Efforts to preserve and enhance a green infrastructure aren't anti-growth, Miller adds. "If you design wisely, you can be ecologically efficient and economically efficient."
The university's urban forestry program has about 120 students. Graduates are finding 100 percent placement rates. Some work for communities, while others work in the "green industry," including jobs in landscape contracting and with commercial tree companies, Miller says. Meanwhile, the city trees are leafed-out in Stevens Point and throughout Portage County. To enjoy them, one has only to imagine our communities without their tallest living sentinels.