Liberty Parks & Natural Resources Manager Chris Wilson has earned the City’ of Liberty its sixth a Tree Resource Improvement and Maintenance (TRIM) grant from the Missouri Department of Conservation.As with the previous three grants, this $10,000 award will help continue the progress on the City’s Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) management plan. The City will add a $5,000 match for a contract to remove larger trees and to fund staff costs to treat and remove selected trees and to plant new trees. The EAB is an exotic beetle that has killed tens of millions of Ash trees nationwide and was confirmed in Liberty in 2015.
When Wilson began the EAB management plan, he already knew that that 215 or 12 percent of the City’s street trees are Ash trees thanks to a tree inventory that was funded through a 2013 TRIM grant.“Ultimately, all of the Ash trees along our city streets will need to be either removed or treated with an insecticide every 2 years,” Wilson said. “Thanks to this year’s grant and grants in 20014 and 2015, we will have been able to remove 100 trees, replace them with 100 trees of different native species and begin treatment of another 100 ash trees.”
TRIM is a competitive cost-share tree care program administered by the Missouri Department of Conservation in cooperation with the Missouri Community Forest Council. The initiation of this ongoing EAB management plan and the Liberty street tree inventory were made possible by past TRIM grants in 2014 and 2013, respectively. Since 2011, Liberty Parks and Recreation has successfully applied for six grants, totaling $72,500.