The Dunkirk Common Council approved A Tree For Thee’s effort at its meeting. A Tree for Thee sells memorial plaques, set into the ground so mowers aren’t obstructed, placed next to new trees that it plants. Revitalize Dunkirk has also been planting trees around the park in a separate effort, without plaques.

Councilmember Nancy Nichols, who chairs the council’s Department of Public Works Committee, said at the meeting that A Tree For Thee founder Mary Louise

McGraw “came to me a little over a year ago and I invited her to come to a DPW meeting… because of the issue of the trees. We all came to an agreement. She did a thorough job, she dotted her Is and crossed her Ts, did everything superbly on her end of it.

“I suggested that she bring it to us for resolution approval, so that the only ones planting trees in our city parks would be those authorized by the city of Dunkirk – that not just everyone can get a sapling, dig a hole and plant a tree,” Nichols continued, adding additional praise for McGraw and her effort.

The orange “X” is the mark of death for numerous ash trees at Point Gratiot Park, signaling to workers that they need to be cut down.

Mayor Kate Wdowiasz said A Tree For Thee will provide insurance documentation and work with DPW to plant the trees in approved areas.

The emerald ash borer, an invasive insect species native to northeastern Asia, killed the ash trees at the Point. It has destroyed tens of millions of trees in North America since its 2002 discovery in Michigan.

Department of Public Works Director Randy Woodbury said earlier in the council meeting that parks workers continue to remove dead ash trees from Point Gratiot Park.

That was quite evident early Friday, the east end of the park near the Lighthouse buzzing with woodcutting activity.

Woodbury told the OBSERVER the emerald ash borer “tends to non-preventably kill whole clusters of ash trees in about 10 years. At Point Gratiot, the ash destruction is sadly nearly complete… The new trees will not be ash species but will be resistant native species specified by experts at (the Chautauqua) County Soil and Water (District) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.”

The damage from the emerald ash borer is tough to comprehend this time of year, when everything except pines is bare of foliage. However, it is starkly evident in a July drone video of Point Gratiot, posted by a YouTube user. Giant, bleached-out skeletons of dead ashes — dozens of them, at least — stand out against the greenery of healthy trees in midsummer.

If you’ve ever seen a purple box high up in the trees while going through a forest, it’s an emerald ash borer trap, to study the amount of infestation in the area.