The Emerald Ash Borer survey has landed in Milwaukee as Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection continues to check for the ash tree-killing pest in the state.
Crews began cutting down and peeling trees in Milwaukee county to look for the insect, which bores into ash trees and ultimately kill it. This could be a major problem in Wisconsin, where a large portion of the tree population is ash.
Fifteen trees were felled and 10 were peeled and there was no sign of the pest. Cutting and peeling continues this week in Milwaukee County, as well as in Kewaunee and Rock Counties.
In the city of Milwaukee the loss of the ash tree population would mean the cutting down of more than 1/3 and perhaps as many as half of all the trees.
"Our goal is to locate 5,900 trees in 17 counties," Jane Hewston Larson, the DATCP's public information officer, told me in October 2006. "That's about 347 trees per county but the southern counties along the Illinois border will be sampled more heavily compared to more northern counties. Also, we may end up with fewer trees as we do our work in the field because there may not be trees where we survey."
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
