The city of Centralia’s streets have been lined with ash trees for generations. But now, a small insect is putting a strain on the city’s greenery — and its budget.
The emerald ash borer is an insect that feeds on and eventually kills ash trees. Its larvae feed on the trees’ inner bark, disrupting their ability to get water and nutrients from the soil, according to the Emerald Ash Borer Network.
Most of the city’s trees are ash trees, and they are also mature, meaning that a falling branch from a dead tree poses a large hazard.
Matthew Rusch is the director of public works and utilities for Centralia. Rusch is overseeing the city’s tree removal project and said around 800 to 900 trees will need to be removed over the next 3 to 5 years.
“In the scheme of safety, those are the worst ones that you can have fall because those are the large ones at the top of the peak that, you know, momentum brings them down at a rapid pace,” Rusch said.
Rusch is contracted with Braik’s Tree Care, a tree removal business in Columbia, to remove concerning trees.
Nick Cox is the foreman of the tree project for Braik’s, and removed the tree on Lakeview Street this month, alongside two other Braik’s employees.
“It's the city of trees, specifically the city of ash trees,” Cox said. “There's, I would venture to say, hundreds that need to eventually be cut down, but we’re just kind of prioritizing the most dangerous ones for the city right now.”
This is a priority project for the city, which means it has also taken priority in the city’s budget. Rusch said Centralia is having to hold back on funding some other projects to focus on getting the hazardous trees down.
“Of course, we have other projects that are on our priority list that may get pushed back because of the need to have to spend that money for trees,” Rusch said. That includes street, curb and sidewalk repair and some water projects.
For brush and tree care alone, Rusch said the city has allocated about $175,000 out of the general fund for fiscal year 2025-2026. Typically, the general fund would only designate about $5,000 to $7,000 in that area.
Another $203,000 for the project will come out of the electric fund. Last year, Centralia only spent about $48,000 on brush and tree care from the electric fund.
This amounts to about $378,000 that is not normally spent in brush and tree care, about seven times more than past years. Rusch said the city is working to ensure that the people of Centralia still have access to and funding for necessary services.
“We want to budget as much money as we can without really disrupting any services that our customers pay for,” Rusch said. “That's a super hard thing to do. But I think we can get it done.”
Despite the use of a large chunk of the city’s budget, Rusch said people have been generally supportive of the project.
“The biggest concern is safety and property and things like that,” Rusch said.
After all of the trees are removed, Centralia’s streets might look bare without much greenery left lining them. The city plans to replant trees once the stumps of the old ones are removed. Rusch said they hope to plant multiple different types of trees to prevent something similar happening again.
“You can't plan for everything, but what we can do is try our best to make sure that what we put back is hopefully better than what we're taking down,” Rusch said.
