Just last week, Saskatoon found cases of Dutch Elm Disease in some of their trees. The City of Estevan is hoping not to have the same misfortune, but recent years have taught them that Estevan is not immune from this problem. 

The city will soon start their survey for Dutch Elm Disease in Estevan. After going several years in a row without finding any, there were some cases last year, and they're hoping they won't find any more this time around. 

"It takes probably five days for the entire city," said parks and facilities manager Rod March. "We look at all the elm trees. What we're looking for and why we wait until July is we're looking for flagging or yellowing of one side or the other of the top branches of the tree. If we do see that, whether it's a private or a public tree, we take a sample of the bark."

At that point, the surveyors look for branch striations, though they'll still send it away to a lab for analysis. They certainly hope not to find evidence of the disease, because if they do, it doesn't take long for it to kill a tree.

"Dutch Elm is a disease that's carried by the elm beetle," March said. "It carries it in... and then deposits this disease on the bark. So every year, we've got to be looking out for this because it will kill a tree within a year."

A tree tested positive for the disease in Saskatoon last week, a reminder that Dutch Elm is still in Saskatchewan. For March, however, there was no need for a reminder. 

"It's always been in the province, and that's why the regulations are so strict on this," he said. "You can't prune an elm tree between April 1 and August 31 of any year, you can't store elm, you can't trim those trees. It's very important to stick by those, and it's a hefty fine but that's provincial legislation."

At the start of the year, the city had 780 elm trees in their possession, in addition to the ones owned privately in Estevan. They found cases of DED in seven trees in city limits last year. 

"Estevan is like a little bit of an urban forest island so we're somewhat protected that way," said March. "It's not a continuous forest all the way across. Saskatoon and other places where you're almost into boreal forest, you have continuity for the beetles to travel."

March added people transporting firewood for camping is the main way DED spreads in the area, but because Estevan is not on the Trans Canada Highway, even that is lessened.