From Mike Caplow: “All of the trees on the west side of the Columbia between 9th Ave and Terry are dead from Dutch Elm disease. Trees on the west side of Terry between Columbia and Marion are being treated with an antifungal agent; there is uncertainty about whether trees on the other side of the street in front of O’Dea High School will be similarly treated. Treatment with the antifungal agent thiabenzadazole is expensive; the drug costs about $400/gallon and the labor cost is high for the slow injection of 40 gallons of diluted drug into the soil around the tree. The drug protects the tree for three years. The disease is caused by a fungus that is distributed to the tree by the a bark beetle.”
The disease was first reported in the United States in 1928, with the beetles believed to have arrived in a shipment of logs from The Netherlands destined for use as veneer in the Ohio furniture industry. Quarantine and sanitation procedures held most cases within 150 miles of metropolitan New York City until 1941. The disease spread from New England westward and southward, almost completely destroying the famous elms in the “Elm City” of New Haven, Connecticut, reaching the Detroit area in 1950, the Chicago area by 1960, and Minneapolis by 1970. Of the estimated 77 million elms in North America in 1930, over 75% had been lost by 1989. It looks like it is Seattle’s turn for dealing with this awful problem