The City of St. Paul says with labor and other expenses, the costs of the vandalism totals about $40,000.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/15292455

The trees were among 250 planted in mid-October by an army of young arborists, paid by Tree Trust for their efforts.

“We spent more than, I’m pretty sure, more than a week on that road,” explains Malick Jenke, among a half-dozen high school grads taking part in Tree Trust’s ‘Branches’ program.

The group of tree planters includes 25 high school students from St. Paul and the ‘Branches’ participants — most of whom are interested in pursuing a green career.

“One tree will take anywhere from a half hour to 45 minutes to get it completely planted, mulched and watered. In some cases, we have to stake those trees as well,” Zumach says.

She notes the value of the destroyed trees adds up to about $12,000, but the City of St. Paul says with labor and other expenses, the costs of the vandalism totals about $40,000.

A spokesperson says replanting the trees is a priority but noted planting season is pretty much at an end.

  • Flying Squid
    39•1 month ago

    America can’t have nice things, so I guess it’s good that it’s going to stop having nice things in that respect.

  • @ThekingoflordaMA
    21•1 month ago

    For one second I thought they threw the vandals in the river.

  • @[email protected]
    15•1 month ago

    Ripping out 60 trees that weigh 30 lbs each in a night? There’s no way this was just some drunk hooligans or something. This was either over money or politics.

    • @[email protected]
      8•1 month ago

      Depending on how they “ripped them out” 30lbs is an extreme underestimate.

      That’s a lot of friggin work. I hope they had PPE at least 🤷‍♂️/s

      Edit: they said 30 lbs in the article lol must be container trees. For how tall those trees are that’s really small root balls though. But still a friggin lot of work!!!

  • @[email protected]
    10•1 month ago

    Like what are the logistics here? It’s hard to get trees out of the ground.

    Someone did this for 60 trees overnight without get bored? Sounds like hard work to me

      • @[email protected]
        5•1 month ago

        People who would want that land for buisiness purposes could possibly be the ones who uprooted the trees. The thought process being someone who wants the land would cause disruption until the tree planters give up I guess.

        Idk just my thoughts on what OP meant though

        • Null User Object
          9•1 month ago

          A few newly planted trees aren’t going to be the thing that stops a business from going in if that’s what someone wanted to do. There are plenty of hurdles to opening a business, from owning or leasing the land, to business permits, etc, but a few newly planted trees aren’t going to stop anyone.

        • @[email protected]
          2•1 month ago

          These were planted alongside trails and on the medians of the road. This is just down the road from my house and the land these trees were on is not useful for literally anything besides trees.

    • @[email protected]English
      3•1 month ago

      Not sure why you’re being down voted. When I lived in Florida I watched a university take advantage of the wreckage of a hurricane aftermath to remove the “debris” with large machines. they removed a bunch of vegetation from the land (which had a conservation easement on it). Then they filed a petition with the government to remove the easement (due to the trees having been removed) so they could put a building in the land.

      Nobody gets drunk and simply uproots a few dozen trees. this seems like an effort from some rich group who wants to profit off the land