CBC Television News
Dutch elm disease: an old enemy returns
Broadcast Date: Aug. 14, 2001
Prairie towns like Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg had one advantage in the fight against Dutch elm disease: they saw it coming. Through vigorous municipal and community tree protection programs, they've kept the scourge at bay for decades. Now Dutch elm disease is making a comeback. Winnipeg has lost 5,000 elms this year alone. The city is fighting back, but as we see in this CBC Television clip, some residents are not happy with the city's pesticide-heavy response.Dutch elm disease: an old enemy returns
• Since the 1940s, Dutch elm disease has spread westward from Eastern Canada. In 2004 it threatened the 500,000 elm trees in cities across Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Each year, three to five per cent of these elms die. Winnipeg spends over $2 million annually on elm pruning and sanitation, but has lost 40,000 trees in the past two decades. Only 200,000 remain.• Dursban is a product name for the organophosphate insecticide chlorpyrifos. Organophosphates work by interrupting the communication between muscles, overstimulating them, resulting in paralysis and death.
• Organophosphates were developed in the 1800s and used as nerve gas agents in the Second World War. They are highly toxic to mammals and dissipate very slowly once they enter the body.
• In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency determined that these pesticides pose a risk to children's health. The agency banned Dursban from consumer use, but it is still commonly used in agriculture and by professionals in Canada and the United States.
• In 1997 Red River floods that devastated Winnipeg helped spread the bark beetle that carries Dutch elm disease by distributing infected wood and debris in the floodwaters.
• Fredericton, N.B., is known as "the City of Stately Elms." But since the 1970s Dutch elm disease has claimed many of the old trees, including the last one left standing in front of the legislature.
• In 2001 researchers in Fredericton took cuttings from one of the city's largest elm trees because it seemed to be resistant to the disease. They cloned the tree to see if, in a few years, the seedlings would prove to be resistant.
Dutch elm disease: an old enemy returns
Medium: Television
Program: CBC Television News
Broadcast Date: Aug. 14, 2001
Guest(s): Paule Hjertaas, Elizabeth May, Phil Pines
Reporter: Jo Lynn Sheane
Duration: 2:05
Last updated:
July 30, 2009
Dutch elm disease: an old enemy returns.
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Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: July 30, 2009.
[Page consulted on Feb. 13, 2012.]