Crew on lookout for Dutch elm disease this week in Spruce Grove

Yellow STOPDED (Society to Prevent Dutch Elm Disease) tape is wrapped around a tree in this undated file photo.

Spruce Grove is on the lookout for Dutch elm disease this week.

According to a news release, the city of about 40,000 is employing workers to look for signs of the disease as part of an Edmonton-area survey by the Society To Prevent Dutch Elm Disease. Workers with Living Tree Environmental are visually inspecting elms across Spruce Grove, the city told CTV News Edmonton, on behalf of the society.

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Spruce Grove is 15 kilometres west of the Edmonton city limit.

The fungal infection has spread across North America over the last century, killing the trees, with Alberta and British Columbia the last areas considered free of it until 2024.

The infection, which isn’t curable, clogs an elm’s water-conducting system and kills it in one to two years.

It is spread by elm bark beetles, which feed on healthy trees and breed in dead and dying ones over the winter.

Last month, the City of Edmonton removed several elms in the Alberta Avenue area after it confirmed a case of Dutch elm disease there on July 16 after planned tree assessments in the neighbourhood.

The Edmonton case was the first this year and sixth since the disease was discovered in five trees a year ago in Killarney and the east Yellowhead Trail corridor between 97 Street and 66 Street.

Elms within 20 metres of an infected tree in Edmonton are removed, while all elms within a one-kilometre radius are closely monitored, the city said last month.

In Spruce Grove, the city inspects public elm trees and prunes them between Oct. 1 and March 31, when the elm bark beetle isn’t active, to help prevent the disease’s spread.