City cutting down dozens of ash trees at Confederation park and the waterfront trail

More ash trees are coming down in Hamilton, this time alongLake Ontario.

The city will chop down about 65 trees in Confederation Beach Park and along the waterfront trail. It's doing this because of the emerald ash borer, an exotic pest devastating the ash population.

The borer has the power to destroy all of Hamilton's ash trees in the next decade, the city says. In 2012, city council approved a 10-year, $26.2 million plan to fell and replace affected trees.

It will take crews about two weeks to cut down the trees, but each one will be replaced with a new species.

The borer is native to China and eastern Asia and has killed millions of trees across the U.S. and Canada. It attacks and kills healthy trees, and the city and Hamilton Conservation Authority regularly inspect public trees.

The pests are metallic green, 8.5 to 13.5 mm long and slender. They have flat heads mostly covered by their black compound eyes.

When larvae enter a tree, they leave holes about 1.1 mm in diameter.