Eagan gets money for preemptive hit against ash borer

Eagan is girding up to battle wood-munching beetles that can strip and kill ash trees in short order.

The defense, using one of the biggest grants of its kind awarded in Minnesota, will involve removing from the boulevards any trees that have splits or other defects that could make them vulnerable to the pests that are spreading across the nation, and are nearly on the city's doorstep.

Come spring, residents with trees deemed vulnerable to the attackers will find a city employee on their doorstep, offering to remove the tree and stump to help stave off the emerald ash borer, said Tom Garrison, the city's spokesman.

"We're a city of trees," he said Friday -- and officials want to keep it that way, though they stress that even with an aggressive defense, there's no way to keep the beetles from attacking trees. But weeding out the vulnerable trees before the infestation arrives, Garrison said, "will slow its march and its opportunity for causing damage."

Residents with vulnerable trees on their property, provided they're on boulevards where the city has the right-of-way, will be able to get replacement trees free. Those offered are hackberry, honeylocust, bicolor oaks and Kentucky coffee trees.

The city recently received an $89,000 grant for planning and preparedness, third largest of that type awarded by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture behind Minneapolis and St. Louis Park. Cities that have found the beetles, including St. Paul, are receiving bigger "response" grants.

The emerald ash borer was first detected in southeast Michigan in 2002, where it has killed tens of millions of trees. It's now in at least 13 states and three Canadian provinces. It was first found in Minnesota last May.

"We don't have it yet," added Paul Olson, Eagan's superintendent of parks, "but this is a lot like controlling a major forest fire with a firebreak. We'll be taking out high-risk ash trees, but also using insecticide trunk injections to preserve high-quality ash trees."

Eagan already has inventoried its trees, using a rating system developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and has identified nearly 100 that are at risk and need to be removed. That's out of a total of 3,600 ash trees in the city right of way.

The highest concentration of at-risk trees is on the city's west side, in swaths from Riverton Avenue west to Beryl Road and from Rahn Road west to Diamond Drive.

At least 20 ash trees on boulevards will be treated with pesticides for protection.

Several hundred other ash trees in city parks will be treated, and 35 in parks will be removed and replaced with other species. Those trees are mostly on the city's north side.

Letters will be sent soon

In the next week or so, Eagan will send out letters to about 120 homes, asking if at-risk trees can be removed. The city will hold an hour-long public information meeting for those homeowners and anyone else interested at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 11 in the Eagan Room at city hall, 3830 Pilot Knob Road.

Eagan was awarded one of 15 grants from more than 70 requests from the Outdoor Heritage Fund, which received $875,000 from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment approved by Minnesota voters in November 2008.

Eagan's success makes it the envy of others in the south metro that sought funding but didn't get any.

"We went after grant money really hard," said Al Friedges of Prior Lake's parks department. "I really had high hopes of getting some. We put together a great request, and placed 28th out of 73."

"Who's going to get it first?" he said. "If Prior Lake gets it first, how can Shakopee and Savage help, and vice versa?"