METROPARKS M A G A Z I N E Summer 2010 Metroparks of the Toledo Area Summer Symphony 15 A Photo Essay Battling The Beetle 4 Cleanup Time Metroparks & Scouting 11 Longtime Connection METROPARKS M A G A Z I N E SPRING/SUMMER 2010 VOL. 17, NO. 1 n eason published by I S Metroparks of the Toledo Area 5100 West Central Avenue Toledo, OH 43615-2100 The Perfect Park For Summer 419.407.9700 emember summers at Side Cut? Generations Board of Park Commissioners o Toledo area residents have been drawn to the Scott J. Savage, President scenic spot or the cool breeze along the Maumee Fritz Byers, Vice President R River, where people have been gathering since, well, Lera Doneghy, Vice President probably as long as there have been people here in northwest Ohio. Sta: It also has the distinction o being the frst Metropark. Donald R. Rettig, Jr., Director [email protected] It was 80 years ago this summer – August 7, 1930 to be exact Denise Johnson, Director, Visitor Services – that the Toledo Metropolitan Park District entered into an [email protected] agreement with the Ohio Department o Public Works to lease Patty Morgenstern, Side Cut Park or $100 a year or two years. The parkland Membership/Customer Service Supervisor [email protected] included land rom Lock 1 to Lock 6 o the old “side cut” that linked the ormer Miami and Erie Canal with the city o Scott Carpenter, Maumee. Public Relations Director/Editor [email protected] Today, Side Cut is a popular local park as well as a destination Jesse Mireles, Art Direction [email protected] or fshermen rom throughout the region and beyond during the nationally known spring walleye run. Valerie Juhasz, Production Manager [email protected] Did you know: © Metroparks of the Toledo Area 2010 • The Ohio chapter of the National Audubon Society lists Side Cut as one o the Important Bird Areas in the state. On the cover: Nothing says summer like damselies • Side Cut includes Blue Grass Island and the Audubon Islands (pictured) and dragonies. For more in the Maumee River. images rom the “Summer Symphony,” see the photo essay beginning on • You can go from Side Cut to Oak Openings on foot or page 15. bike. Take the Fallen Timbers Trail up to the Fallen Timbers Monument, then over the bike/pedestrian bridge to Jerome Opposite page: Road. Follow Jerome to the Wabash Cannonball Trail, then Some o the most stunning scenery in take the north route o the trail all the way to Oak Openings Lucas County can be enjoyed rom the and beyond. our Maumee River parks: Side Cut, Farnsworth, Bend View and Providence. The Side Cut Explorer is one way to enjoy the park. The 15-passenger tram takes visitors on guided tours each Tuesday at 10 a.m. in summer and all. Reservations are needed; call 419-407-9700 or register online at MetroparksToledo.com. Beetle Leaves Path O Destruction 4 To date, researchers have no Two-Year Eort reason to believe that any ash Federal Funds Will Remove trees will survive in places Welcome inested by the emerald ash Thousands O borer, whose larvae eeds on The urban ecosystem restoration Hazardous Trees the tissue under the bark o project, which will continue ash species, starving the tree o through 2011, is being unded nutrients. t just a hal-inch long, the by a $1.3 million grant rom shiny, green beetle looks the American Recovery and “It’s a staggering number,” harmless enough. Yet in Reinvestment Act (ARRA). A Gallaher said o the ash trees less than eight years, the emerald in the Metroparks, particularly ash borer has cost taxpayers The project will create or sustain at Pearson and Secor. Both and property owners millions o about 15 private-sector “green” parks have wet areas where ash dollars, and it threatens to erase jobs in the arborculture and accounts or even more than 10 one o the region’s most common orest restoration industry while percent o the trees. trees rom the landscape, restoring orest ecosystems in possibly orever. the economically-challenged Pearson has been at the center greater Toledo area. o the ash borer story beore. The borer has let a path o In 2005, Metroparks closed the destruction across 13 states, two “The emerald ash borer has park rom April 23 to July 13 Canadian provinces and more been devastating, and it could while crews contracted by the than two-thirds o the counties in not have come at a worse time Ohio Department o Agriculture Ohio. Since the borer landed in because o the current economic worked to remove ash trees in Michigan in summer 2002, tens o challenges,” said Gallaher. “This an attempt to stop the beetle millions o ash trees have died, project will allow us to remove rom advancing urther into Ohio. and tens o millions more are hazardous trees more quickly When ederal unding ran out, certain to suer the same ate. In than we would have been able to work stopped ar short o the Ohio alone, an estimated one in do with our own resources. This state’s goal. 10 trees is an ash, which means is important because o the large up to a hal-billion trees are in number o dead ash trees we are The current project has nothing jeopardy. seeing in the Metroparks. to do with stopping the borer, which has already let its mark. Faced with the prospect o “We are so ortunate to be in the Instead, crews working or thousands o dead, alling trees in position we’re in now with the Metroparks are removing trees the years ahead, Metroparks has grant to be able to remove these that pose a hazard to people or begun the process o cleaning up hazardous trees,” he said. property when they eventually the little beetle’s big mess. tumble over. “Hazard trees” The project, announced by also are being removed at Oak “It’s just terrible,” said Tim Secretary o Agriculture Tom Openings Preserve, Secor and Gallaher, Metroparks land Vilsack a year ago, is one o 191 Wildwood Preserve this year. management supervisor, who Forest Service ARRA projects or The parks will remain open, but had just nished marking another acilities and trails. The American sections o trails will be closed 100 mature trees (26-30 inches Recovery and Reinvestment Act rom time to time during the work. in diameter) to be removed at directs the Forest Service to Pearson back in March. Ash trees marked or removal at Pearson in 2003. Facing page: A towering ash at Secor has no leaves this year. Thousands o mature trees are dying. Those that pose a hazard are being By then, more than 300 trees taken down. had already allen at Pearson, representing just 10 percent o the total number o ash trees at the Oregon park. Tree removal at several Metroparks will continue through this year as part o a large project that also includes restoring areas where trees have come down. 5 improve, maintain and renovate plots have been established “So ar, the big story has been public and administrative at Pearson, Oak Openings, the invasive plants,” said Knight, acilities. Wildwood and Fallen Timbers to who has previously researched study the voids let by ash trees. invasive species in Minnesota Gallaher said Metroparks chose and Poland. “There are invasives to approach the project with a “The restoration work is the good in these ecosystems and they series o small contracts to make news,” said Kathleen Knight, seem to take o in these areas. the best use o local contractors Ph.D., a research ecologist with It’s bad enough to lose the ash with specialized capabilities. the USDA Forest Service, who trees, but then we have this is overseeing the research and second wave o invasions rom In addition to contractors, restoration eorts. other non-native species.” Metroparks has hired two people or two years to be crew leaders, “I’m really hopeul that we’ll One question or researchers: plus ve seasonal employees. do something useul in the once a wave o ash borers moves The grant will also pay or three Metroparks themselves – setting through an area, killing all the researchers who will be on the up these orests to be sustainable ash trees and thereore their ood Metroparks payroll but work over time. I’m also hopeul that source, will there still be beetles at the direction o the Forest we will be able to tell other states let to eed on new ash trees that Service. what we’ve done, what were the grow? results and the costs.” “So ar they seem to be staying Filling The Void Knight, who is based at the around,” Knight said. Forest Sciences Laboratory in As part o the project, Delaware, Ohio, has studied the Restoring areas previously in the Metroparks and the Forest eects o the borer on orest shadow o ash trees will include Service will also research and ecosystems in Ohio or the past weeding out invasive species and restore natural areas where ash our years, working with others planting new trees. trees have been removed. Test doing the same in Michigan. continued on page 8 Emerald Ash Borer to restrict movement o inested wood; and establish a barrier Timeline within the state o Ohio The emerald ash borer has • 2003 - In accordance with its killed millions o ash trees in plan, the Ohio Department o the eastern U.S.A. and Canada, Agriculture began the eradication and it’s only been here or eight o ash trees on Metroparks lands.