Just outside South Point Elementary School in East Grand Forks, Reid Huttunen, the city’s Parks and Recreation Superintendent, tries to grab the attention of a few dozen kids.
Seated on a patch of grass between their school and a baseball field, seven classes of fourth-graders gather around Reid as he kicks off the annual Arbor Day event.
For 43 years, the Greater Grand Forks area has been named a “Tree City USA” by the Arbor Day Foundation. One of the criteria for being named a “Tree City” is celebrating Arbor Day — something Parks and Rec has done every year by rotating tree-planting events between Grand Forks and East Grand Forks Elementary schools.
As Reid finished speaking, each class of fourth-graders made their way to one of seven pre-dug holes with a young tree lying beside it, ready for planting. With a Parks and Rec employee overseeing the process, the kids planted, shoveled and stomped until the tree stood upright.
While the event is meant to teach kids a thing or two, while letting them have fun outside, members of the Greater Grand Forks Parks and Rec Department are also using the day to educate people about a growing problem, which ranges from a half inch to one eight of an inch in length — the emerald ash borer.
According to the Arbor Day Foundation, the tiny insect was first discovered in 2002 near Detroit after entering the country in wood packaging material from China. Though small, the emerald ash borer has decimated ash trees across the country and into Canada, with more than 40 million trees destroyed in Michigan alone.
While the problem is a serious one, Reid says the emerald ash borer isn’t an issue for the area just yet, and likely won’t be for many years.
To spot a potentially diseased tree, Reid says to look for ash trees that look as though they’re “suffocating.” He says leaves will begin falling off the tree starting at the crown and the bark will begin to peel, as if the tree is “dried up.”