Bemidji gets $308,070 DNR grant to plant 186 trees

The first tree tied to Bemidji’s new $308,070 state grant went into Library Park, where students from Saint Philip’s Catholic School helped plant it and put an immediate face on the city’s canopy recovery. Over the next year, residents should see more tree work on Lake Mississippi, Park Avenue, Beltrami Avenue and the stretch between 5th Street and 20th Street.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources ReLeaf grant will pay for a citywide tree inventory, stump removal and planting of up to 186 trees this year. Parks and Trails Director Scott Schroeder said the work covers only publicly owned trees in rights of way, green spaces and parks, and he described it as a five-year management plan that will guide where the city plants, removes stumps and schedules future maintenance.

That long view matters in a city still reckoning with the June 21, 2025 derecho. Mayor Jorge Prince said the storm brought winds up to 125 mph, knocked down 9 million trees, caused about $10 million in damage to public property and hit nearly every home and business in Bemidji. The loss has left more than empty spaces in the canopy: residents have seen less shade, heavier exposure to sun and rain, and a changed streetscape wherever mature trees once framed sidewalks and storefronts.

Bemidji has identified 181 stumps for removal, a sign that the work will be more cleanup and replacement than a single planting day. Schroeder said downtown roots had already blown out sidewalks and pavers and created trip hazards before the storm, and the city moved into a downtown stump-removal phase the week of April 20, 2026. The target areas now include some of the places where residents are most likely to notice the difference first, especially along the corridors named in the city’s planting plan.

The ReLeaf program is designed for exactly this kind of recovery work, funding inventory, planting, assessment, maintenance, protection and restoration with no local match required. The maximum request is $500,000, and priority goes to projects in census tracts with a supplemental demographic index score of 70 percent or higher. Bemidji’s effort is also being layered with other rebuilding work, including a possible partnership with Great River Greening that could add as many as 400 more trees and a separate project for 30 larger pine trees installed by spade.

For Bemidji, the test will be whether the grant produces more than ceremonial planting. If the city can clear the 181 stumps, restore shade on the hardest-hit blocks and show where the new trees survive and grow, the canopy rebuild will start to look less like cleanup and more like a measurable repair to the city’s public landscape.