City partners with Climate Impact Corps to combat EAB

Otter sightings

Seidls Lake Trail to get extension and repairs this summer

Jake Spitzack Staff Writer

TheSouth St. Paul City Council recently awarded a $224,275 contract to Minneapolis-based design and consulting firm WSB for the reconstruction and extension of Seidls Lake trail and shoreline restoration around the lake. WSB is expected to complete a final design this spring, with construction taking place this summer and into 2024. The project is a joint effort between the cities of South St. Paul and Inver Grove Heights, with South St. Paul taking the lead role in administering the project.

Jake Spitzack Staff Writer

The City of South St. Paul has partnered with AmeriCorps’s Climate Impact Corps to combat the high number of trees infected with the emerald ash borer (EAB). Recent estimates show that more than 95% of the ash trees in South St. Paul are infected.

In October, AmeriCorps community for- estry member Elena Lozano began updating the city’s 2017 tree inventory and planning how to add more trees to public spaces in the city. She is expected to be done with the inventory in May and will organize several tree-planting events this spring and summer.

“South St. Paul is past the ‘treatment window’ so the goal is to remove them [infected ash trees] and increase tree species diversity

Trees / Page 3

The project includes reconstructing approximately 1,700 feet of badly deteriorated paved trail along the east side of the lake and adding a 920-foot extension to connect Seidls Lake Park in South St. Paul with the Seidls Lake Park in Inver Grove Heights. The current trail and the lake shoreline have both been compromised due to the lake’s water level often rising very high in the springtime. In fall 2021, $781,000 in state funding was used to install the Seidls Lake lift station, which now regulates the lake’s water elevation. Shoreline

Seidls Lake trail / Page 2