An insect smaller than a penny could ultimately cost the village of Wilmette millions -- and that insect now is in La Salle County.

One year ago, the emerald ash borer was discovered in a grove of ash trees near a middle school within the lakeshore village just north of Chicago. Wilmette has more than 2,800 ash trees in the public right of ways within its boundaries, about 16 to 17 percent of the total tree population.

"It was one thing to go from a readiness plan to an action plan in a matter of hours," Village President Christopher Canning said of the news.

Wilmette launched a plan upon discovery of the Asian insect, a pest that already has killed 20 million trees in parts of Ontario, Michigan, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

Canning shared Wilmette's experiences with the emerald ash borer with local community representatives and business owners during a program at Illinois Valley Community College this week. Officials from the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources joined Canning at the presentation.

First appearing in Michigan in 2002, the insect has no natural predators as it does in its homeland and therefore can move from tree to tree, killing each one with little resistance. So far, insecticides have yielded mixed results in stopping the spread, which is difficult to monitor since an ash tree may appear healthy for more than three years before it shows signs of distress from the infestation.

"There is no silver bullet yet," said Warren Goetsch, IDA bureau chief of environmental services.

Wilmette's plan included educating residents, landscaping businesses and the media about the borer, including a warning that wood from ash trees, including wood in yard waste, cannot be transported outside of the quarantined area surrounding parts of northern Illinois.

Artificial transportation of the emerald ash borer likely is responsible for its rapid spread. The insect can fly on its own only about a half mile, but attempts to eradicate the infestation by cutting down all ash trees within a half-mile radius of known infections -- a tactic used in Michigan -- proved unsuccessful.

Now states where the emerald ash borer has been discovered are waging a campaign to warn residents not to move firewood and are monitoring the transportation of yard waste that includes ash wood.

Emerald ash borers do not distinguish between a healthy and a distressed ash tree in seeking a home.

From May to August, adult borers emerge from their wintering sites in ash trees and mate. Female emerald ash borers lay their eggs in the crevices of the bark of ash trees and the eggs, upon hatching, tunnel under the bark throughout the fall. A tree infested with the pest will have serpentine (S-shaped) tunnels under its bark. This activity by the larvae over time will kill the tree.

In the spring, larvae emerge from the trees as adults, leaving unique D-shaped holes in the bark. The borers usually begin at the crown of a tree and work their way to the trunk. By the time the ash tree shows distress, it likely has been infested for years.

For Wilmette, the initial survey of its trees led to the removal of 44 trees -- not a significant number. Then, foresters returned in the spring and 87 more trees they thought were healthy were showing signs of distress.

Wilmette officials, along with an education campaign, also launched a financial effort. Because the emerald ash borer is fatal to trees in all cases, the village assumed a worst-case scenario -- that it would lose all of its 2,855 ash trees. The village calculated the cost to remove these trees, plant new ones and hire an additional forester to help with the process.

The total cost is expected to be $2.5 million.

But Canning said the village does not expect to pay all at once. The village will levy an additional 1 to 2 percent each year for six years to raise the funds needed to eradicate the pest. With the cost spread out over six years, the expense becomes more manageable -- though those dollars do not cover the 9,000 ash trees owned by private citizens and businesses.

Canning himself had infected ash trees in his yard. The bids to remove two of those trees totaled $5,000.

Mark Cinnamon, of the IDA bureau of environmental programs, said no funding is available for private citizens and business owners to deal with these pests. However, funding is available for municipalities -- and the state Legislature is expected to approve more funding in the future.

The No. 1 step a community can take to prepare itself for infestation of the pest is to perform a tree inventory to qualify for those grant funds and to create a readiness plan in the event the borer is discovered in the community.

Given last week's discovery of the insect in Peru, Cinnamon said it is only a matter of time before nearby communities also find evidence of the borer, particularly communities along major roadways since people often are responsible for transporting the pest.

"You will not be able to avoid this," Cinnamon told area residents. "You will have to address it."

Cinnamon noted comparisons being made between the emerald ash borer and Dutch elm disease, "but there is really no comparison."

Canning agreed. While Dutch elm disease killed 10,000 elm trees in Wilmette over 50 years, the emerald ash borer is expected to kill 11,000 ash trees (both publicly and privately owned) in the next four years.

With the discovery of the pest near Peru, the quarantine area in Illinois has been changed. The quarantine area creates safeguards regarding the transportation of ash wood to prevent its spread outside of the immediate area. It does not mean all ash trees within that area must come down immediately, though that could be a possible tactic.

The IDA will begin a systematic survey of the areas surrounding the known infestation, taking down selected ash trees and stripping their bark to check for the telltale serpentine tunnels. The outcome of that survey will direct officials' next steps.

Cinnamon noted that when the borer first was discovered five years ago virtually nothing was known about the insect. Now, more information is known but the prognosis remains bleak once a borer infestation is found in a particular area.

"A lot of hard lessons have been learned by the first states (that were infected)," he said. "We still have a lot to learn. Our goal is to eradicate it, but that looks doubtful. It will take full cooperation to even have a remote chance."

Several Web sites have been created to provide more information about emerald ash borer, along with contact information for more assistance or to report a suspected infestation of the pest, including www.emeraldashborer.info and www.illinoiseab.com.

People who suspect an ash tree is infested should call a local arborist or University of Illinois Extension office. If an infestation is confirmed, people should call the IDA at 800-641-3934.

Ag department widens quarantine zone

SPRINGFIELD -- The Illinois Department of Agriculture has expanded its emerald ash borer quarantine to include all or portions of the 18 northeastern-most counties of Illinois. Additionally, adjustments were made to the quarantine to further restrict movement of potentially infested wood products during the EAB flight season.

The most recent detections of the tree-killing beetle in La Salle and DuPage counties, each a considerable distance outside the present quarantine boundaries, prompted the expansion.

"These latest EAB finds necessitate a considerable adjustment of the EAB quarantine boundaries as well as some additional requirements for movement of wood products within the quarantined area," Agriculture Director Chuck Hartke said. "We must do all we can to limit the artificial spread of this devastating pest. These new boundaries reflect the regional nature of landscape waste management in the greater Chicago metropolitan area that has been in place for over a decade, and acknowledges the fact that the EAB has probably been present here for five or more years."

The other adjustment to the quarantine helps prevent the artificial spread of the pest during the transport of yard waste and landscape debris within the quarantined area.

"When potentially infested wood products are being hauled to and from waste management facilities during the EAB flight season, there is a potential for contamination of 'healthy areas' within the quarantine zone," Warren Goetsch, bureau chief of environmental programs, said. "The adjustment requires waste haulers to cover the products from an infested area during transport through EAB flight season, which is from June through August, to curb this threat."

Additionally, the quarantine prohibits the removal of the following items from regulated areas:

-- The emerald ash borer in any living stage of development.

-- Ash trees of any size.

-- Ash limbs and branches.

-- Any cut, non-coniferous firewood.

-- Bark from ash trees and wood chips larger than one inch from ash trees.

-- Ash logs and lumber with either the bark or the outer one-inch of sapwood, or both, attached.

-- Any item made from or containing the wood of the ash tree that is capable of spreading the emerald ash borer.

-- Any other article, product or means of conveyance determined by the IDA to present a risk of spreading the beetle infestation.

Anyone convicted of moving prohibited items from the quarantine area without prior certification by an IDA nursery inspector may be fined up to $500.

How the emerald ash borer arrived in Illinois is unknown, but the department suspects it may have been transported in contaminated firewood. To avoid the accidental introduction of the beetle to new areas, the department encourages Illinoisans to purchase only locally-grown nursery stock and locally cut firewood. Anyone who suspects a tree has been infested is urged to contact their county University of Illinois Extension office or their village forester for a consultation.

Effective Thursday, the quarantine includes the entire counties of Boone, Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, Lake, La Salle, McHenry, Putnam, Will and Winnebago, as well as portions of Ogle, Lee, Bureau and Livingston counties.