Tree treatment to close part of Heritage Park on Friday

Part of Heritage Park in Olympia will be closed Friday morning so a local tree-care company can treat 34 London planetrees with a fungicide to help control a disease that causes the trees’ leaves to drop prematurely.

The treatment will require the closure for several hours that day of the crushed gravel walking path that curves along the lake’s eastern shoreline. The north Heritage Park parking lot at Fifth Avenue and Simmons Street also will be closed during the treatment. The park areas off limits to public use will be indicated by barriers, yellow caution tape and signage.

While the treatment is scheduled to start at about 5 a.m. and be finished by 7 a.m., the park will not fully reopen until the fungicide has dried completely. Drying time is weather-dependent but the goal is to have the entire park open by noon.

The fungicide will be applied to the entire tree using a truck-mounted sprayer. The treatment is weather-dependent and cannot be done if conditions are wet or winds exceed about 5 mph.

Enterprise Services staff and the applicator — Wolbert’s Inc. — will evaluate conditions before starting the treatment.

All areas sprayed will be flagged with treatment signs, in accordance with state law.

A second fungicide treatment of the London planetrees is tentatively scheduled to be done about three weeks later.

The London, planetrees are being affected by Sycamore anthracnose, a fungal disease that can cause premature leaf drop, cankers and the sudden death of most of a tree’s new-shoot growth. While the disease will probably not kill the trees, severe successive infections will weaken the trees and they could die if not properly cared for, according to Washington State University Extension.

The state planted the trees in 2005.

This story was originally published April 6, 2016 at 5:26 PM with the headline "Tree treatment to close part of Heritage Park on Friday."