Minneapolis and Hennepin County residents should soon have access to $18 million in federal funding to help low-income homeowners remove and replace trees infested with the emerald ash borer.
The Hennepin County Board accepted a $10 million grant Tuesday from the U.S. Forest Service, which is distributing money from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Minneapolis leaders OK’d a similar $8 million grant last year.
The money will primarily be used to pay for the removal and replacement of ash trees infested with the emerald ash borer. The borer was first found in Hennepin County in 2010 and is expected to kill more than a million ash trees, roughly 15% of the county’s tree canopy.
Removing an infested ash tree can cost thousands of dollars. In Minneapolis, residents who cannot pay up front can end up having the cost added to their property taxes — driving up housing costs.
Hennepin County Board Chair Irene Fernando said she heard from so many frustrated residents about tree removal costs being added to their property taxes that she wrote to Minneapolis Park Board members in November, asking them to change course.
“It is unreasonable to place this amount of financial burden on residents,” Fernando wrote. She said the tree removal costs have a “pronounced and disparate impact” on low-income and residents of color, including in north Minneapolis where she lives.
Fernando’s November letter urged the Park Board to find state and federal funds to help offset the costs. She noted recently that the grant money heading to the county could not be used to pay for previously removed trees.
The resolution asking the County Board to approve the federal grant acknowledges that Hennepin County has some of the lowest rates of homeownership in the nation for people of color. The resolution also said that lower-income homeowners were unlikely to replace trees that were removed due to emerald ash borer because of the cost.
