Arborist Study Shows Duluth's 4th Street Trees Have to be Cut Down

DULUTH - The last hope to save hundreds of decade-old trees along Duluth’s historic 4th Street has failed. "People are not happy about this at all,” said resident engineer with St. Louis County, Steve Krasaway. “Neither are any of the engineers or politicians involved in the project." If you've driven down Duluth’s East 4th Street recently, you've probably seen the massive trees with clothes and signs posted on them. Starting in 2016, a $9 million reconstruction project on the street's infrastructure is set to take out about 200 trees. With the hope of saving some of the trees, a newly released study shows they'll all have to go. The results of an outside study are in and a third-party arborist out of Minneapolis says there is no possible way the boulevard trees on 4th Street will be able to stay through the major construction project."Nobody wanted to lose them, but unfortunately to have sanitary sewer and water service to their house some things have to happen like this," Krasaway said. It's the passion from those who live along Duluth’s East 4th Street that triggered St. Louis County officials to look at every option possible to save at least some of the trees. Knowing the odds of saving the trees were slim, the county hired an arborist to look at the plans and eventually confirm what they already knew. "We just wanted to make sure we didn't miss anything,” said Krasaway. “It's nice to have somebody from the outside not involved in the project to come in and look at it with a clean set of eyes to see if we did miss something, but he just confirmed what the City of Duluth forester already told us." St. Louis County says the third party study was the last resort to save any of the trees. Now that they're not going to be able to save any of them, starting in 2016, the community will be seeing 200 fewer trees along the two mile stretch during construction. After it's done, the county plans on replanting so in a few decades the street will once again have its shady covering. County officials say many businesses and groups have reached out saying they want to use the wood to make crafts and wooden bowls, so the 4th Street trees can live on in some way.