[0:00] Hi, I'm Josh Oberyer, city forester at [0:02] the city of Minnitonka. I'm sure you're [0:04] seeing a lot of dead, dying trees [0:06] throughout the city. And if you're [0:07] wondering why, it's because of emerald [0:09] ashbor. Currently, it's everywhere. [0:12] We're in the peak of our infestation. [0:14] And I want to talk about what you can do [0:16] on your property, what the city's doing, [0:18] and then what the next 5 to 10 years [0:20] look like. Now, as far as what you can [0:22] do on your property, you can inject your [0:24] tree, remove it, or let it stand dead. [0:27] If you've already been injecting your [0:29] tree, you should keep doing so. If you [0:32] haven't injected your trees, it's too [0:34] late and I recommend not even trying. [0:37] Next, you can remove a tree if it poses [0:40] a risk to a person or property. If you [0:43] have a dead tree in the woods, you can [0:45] let it stand dead if that's what you [0:47] choose. If you're wondering what the [0:48] city's doing about emerald ashbor, we're [0:51] doing the same thing that we're [0:52] recommending to residents. We're [0:54] removing infested ash trees within the [0:56] rightaway sections of our road and along [0:58] trails. We have about 500 lane miles in [1:01] the city. We've gotten through about 50% [1:03] of those. We have about 100 miles of [1:05] trail in the city and we've completed [1:07] about 25% of those as far as ash [1:09] reduction is concerned. As an example of [1:12] what the city is doing and what you can [1:13] be doing about emerald ashbor, we're at [1:16] Oberlin Park. Here is a good example. [1:18] Here's an ash tree right over here that [1:20] we are injecting. And this is a tree [1:22] that we'll continue to inject well in [1:24] the future. It's a high quality ash [1:25] tree. As another example, if you look [1:28] over here, we planted new trees where we [1:31] previously removed ash trees. We really [1:33] try to plant a diverse mix of tree [1:35] species. And then over here in this [1:37] forested area, we've removed dozens of [1:40] ash trees. After we remove those ash [1:42] trees, we then remove the buckthorn from [1:44] the understory of the forest. We put [1:46] seed down and then we planted a diverse [1:49] mix of tree species. The city of [1:51] Minnitonka has one of the highest [1:53] percentage canopy covers in all of the [1:55] metropolitan area. This is a great thing [1:56] for us and it's why many of our [1:58] residents live in the city of [1:59] Minnitonka. That also does mean we have [2:02] more ash trees to remove than other [2:04] communities. Given that the city does [2:06] have one of the highest canopy covers in [2:08] the area and we're investing a lot of [2:10] resources in the restoration of our [2:12] forest, I promise you our forest is [2:14] going to be in a much better place 10 [2:16] years from now than it is today.