Inside Arvada

Inside Arvada's Fight Against EAB with City Forester Ian MacDonald

• City of Arvada • Season 1 • Episode 35

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Arvada City Forester Ian MacDonald discusses the alarming spread of Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) throughout the city and what residents need to know to protect their ash trees. This invasive pest has accelerated from small isolated areas to citywide presence, with MacDonald warning that we're now entering the steep part of the mortality curve where tree loss happens rapidly.

In this episode:

  • Emerald Ash Borer has spread from the Homestead Park neighborhood in southeast Arvada (first detected in 2020) to locations throughout the city
  • The City's forestry team has been proactively treating ash trees on City property since before the arrival of EAB
  • The City cannot treat ash trees that are not on City property; those trees are the responsibility of the property owner
  • If you have determined you have ash trees on your property, contact a certified tree care professional. The City and County of Denver has a Licensed Tree Contractor List.
  • The new Habitat Trees initiative preserves dead trees in natural areas for wildlife habitat
  • Tree Trivia! Including the history of the infamous hackberry tree on Hackberry Hill in northeast Arvada

News and events:

Visit us at ArvadaCO.gov/Podcast or email us at podcast@arvada.org.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Inside Arvada, the official podcast of the City of Arvada. I'm Sean Starr, one of your hosts. We have a return guest on today's episode. It's City Forester Ian McDonald talking about Emerald Ash Borer technician and he's been in his current role of City Forester since 2020, leading the city's forestry team, which is part of our park maintenance department, and, as always, I'm joined by my co-host, katie Patterson. Hi, katie.

Speaker 2:

Hey Sean. Yeah, it was great having Ian back on to talk about emerald ash borer. We definitely dove deeper this time into that topic specifically, which was great and will be good for our listeners who might have an ash tree that they aren't aware of or haven't treated and should be treating. And then fun at the end, stick around. We did trivia with Ian about various tree related things and I did not do a very good job, but I tried.

Speaker 1:

Hi, ian, welcome back to Inside Arvada. You're our second repeat guest, following Special Events Manager Adele Burton, so I appreciate you coming back on the podcast.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

We're going to switch things up, to start a little bit, and we're going to begin by having you share with us a recent success story in your line of work.

Speaker 3:

Sure, kind of more of a big picture park success story, not just forestry, but we've been tasked with median renovations and so we've been working through that and we're starting to get the swing of things. It's going smoothly, involve the removal of old, dead or dying trees, uh old plant material, um full scraping of whatever base material is there and um going through a full irrigation either replacement or repair depending on the age of the median and we then we go back with uh trees and more plant material and rock and try to make it look a little cleaner than overgrown junipers. And so, yeah, that's been going really well. Jared Cook has been really helpful in the irrigation part of that and then working with some of the other district supervisors, depending on where that median is, to get those all done.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, well done. Yeah, as we mentioned in the previous episode with Parks manager Steve Gustafson, those medians that have any sort of plant material are actually parks responsibility to maintain those. So something that maybe a lot of people don't know is that a lot of that falls on your your work for forestry and the forestry team.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, a lot of contract management with our medians for sure, just trying to keep up with the plant material and the irrigation and weeds and all that.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, yeah Well, that's an exciting project and we wanted to have you on now to talk about something a little different. Emerald Ash Borer, or EAB, is here, and we talked about it a little bit in the first episode when we had you on, but we wanted to talk a little bit more in detail about that. It's here in Nevada, it's in Denver Metro. So what is EAB?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, emerald ash borer is a invasive insect from Asia. I don't know specifically which country its origin is, but Asian continent, and it's very tiny can fit on a penny. It was originally detected in the early 2000s in the Chicago, michigan area. They think it came over in packaging crates that were built out of ash and it's been slowly spreading across the United States and in 2013, it was identified in Boulder and over the last 12 years it's been slowly spreading in the Front Range and we made positive confirmation in 2020 at the Homestead Park neighborhood. And, yeah, we've just been trying to manage it ever since. I believe Denver made their first positive confirmation about a month ago, if that so they've been. You know, now that it's in Denver, it's for certain. It will be even more amplified now that they've discovered it there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think you know, I think it was first confirmed here in Arvada in 2020, there in like the Homestead Park area. That's kind of southeast Arvada. But really in what? The five years since then, it's grown and it's spread throughout the city pretty exponentially, particularly the past couple of years. Where are you seeing it throughout the city now?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, like you said, you know 64th and Sheridan, roughly the first year, year and a half, it was like, okay, there's a couple, maybe a couple blocks that it's moved.

Speaker 3:

And then year three it was like, okay, it's 64th and Pierce, maybe a couple blocks North and South, but really between the like third to fifth year, fourth to fifth year it's gone from 64th and Pierce to like I just saw some trees like 72nd and Ward or 72nd and Sims.

Speaker 3:

Sorry, I'm seeing 64th and Ward, 86 Parkway and Sims area, like just a few trees here and there that are symptomatic, but very heavily spread on that Wadsworth, I mean the entire east side of town, for sure, north to south, I'm seeing trees that are symptomatic, they're dead. The difference between year three and year five is, like you said, it's been exponential and that's to be expected from other cities in the Midwest that were dealing with this 15, 20 years ago. It's called the mortality curve and that first five years is really insect buildup in your community, in your community, and once you hit that five year, the death rate and loss of trees like just increases every single year, faster and faster, until your supply of ash trees dwindles and host wood dwindles and then you kind of plateau out and, yeah, we're just getting into the beginning of that curve this year.

Speaker 2:

So, and it is specific to just ash trees, right, or can it affect other trees?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, my understanding is it's specifically true ash trees. So if you have a mountain ash tree, you don't need to worry about emerald ash borer. Fire blight yes, but emerald ash borer no, because it's not a true ash tree. It's Fraxinus is the genus for ash.

Speaker 2:

So what can folks do if they have an ash tree, and what's the city doing?

Speaker 3:

Sure, the city's had an EAB management plan in place since the late 2010s. In fact, in 2020, it was going to be the first year that we just started doing proactive treatment, because it was getting closer I think it had been found in Broomfield or Westminster at that point getting closer, I think it had been found in Broomfield or Westminster at that point and it was actually right, as we were getting started with that, that we made the positive confirmation. So we have been. Our goal has always been to try and treat and protect and retain about half of what we our ash tree inventory was in the 2010s, which was about 14, 1500 trees, so we're looking at 700 to 750 trees total that we treat um on a yearly basis. Um it's. They're divided into two treatment groups, so it's year one, year, two um that get a trunk injection, um M-amectin benzoate product and then there's a third year category that we treat every year with a soil injection. And those are the trees that aren't quite big enough yet to do a trunk injection on, but we want to try and size them up until we can do a trunk injection, because we want to save those trees as well, generally anything six inches and under, especially at this point where we're at.

Speaker 3:

We're working on removal and replacement and we have been working steadily towards removal and replacement on the less desirable ones. Trees that are just in poor condition aren't good candidates for treatment, maybe aren't growing in the best location. For homeowners it would be a similar approach. You're going to want to do a trunk injection if you have a large enough tree, but if you planted your ash tree in the last 10 years, it's probably easier and cheaper to do removal and replacement.

Speaker 3:

Trunk injections are the most effective treatment for trees. It's not 100%. We have lost a couple that we're doing trunk injections on, but the vast majority of the trees that we are injecting so far have done well, even in high-pressure areas. If you have a smaller tree, maybe around the 8 to 12-inch diameter, you can do a soil injection as well. It's not as effective and it is every year, whereas the trunk injections are every other year, but that is also an effective treatment. The homeowner products that you can buy from Bayer at Home Depot I know a lot of people are using that. It's a similar product, excuse me, but doesn't just. Most of the time what people are doing is just doing like a soil drench with it. It's not quite as effective as doing an actual deep root injection, where it's pushing past the root system of your grass and stuff to get into the tree. So maybe at first that was kind of something effective to do. But I would say now that we have our pest pressure where it's at, it's probably best to go a bit more professional.

Speaker 1:

An important distinction to make is trees on city property obviously the city can treat and take care of. But trees that are on private property homeowners, business owners those are the responsibility of those landowners to treat and protect those trees. We do this EAB messaging and informational campaign really just to let folks know that EAB is out there and to be aware of it. But it's not like you can call Ian and his crew and say, hey, I've got an ash tree here, come treat my ash trees for me. We're just letting folks know because it takes a collective effort to stop the spread, but it is the individual's responsibility to treat their own trees correct.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's correct. Unfortunately, we don't have a program in place where we can assist with private property tree management in general, and Emerald Ash Borer would be falling under that. It's very similar. I get a lot of homeowners that call about if they have a spruce tree or pine tree, treating for mountain pine, beetle or pine hips, spruce hips, and what options they have there as well. Yeah, it really comes down to, as a homeowner, the value that that tree places on your property. Some folks are, you know, they're like well, I just planted a few years ago, I'm okay with removing it. Other homeowners are like no, this is very essential to my property. Um, that is. I mean, if it's that essential, treatment is definitely um, where you're going to want to be at for retention, um, so yeah, it's. It's a personal thing. It's.

Speaker 3:

It's hard to make a decision on treatment or removal, especially because treatment is a long-term expense. Um, but where we're at too, with the city is this year we're taking. We've been looking pretty hard at our trees, but this year we're we're at the point where we're like, hey, if we're not treating this tree, it's probably gonna have to go Um, and we're listening more of those trees that we have not been treating but have been retaining that. We're like, okay, six inches is under, is probably going to be removed in the next year or two, either proactively or due to loss. And it's hard because you get to some of these trees and the only thing wrong with it is that it's a six inch ash tree, um, and it's just not economically feasible for us to treat um, even in-house um with our own technicians. So, yeah, it's tough to go and look at a nice tree in a park and be like, well, the only thing justifying the removal of this tree is that it's not big enough, like it was planted too late, kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

So it's tough do you just wait, in that case, until it gets infected? We're trying.

Speaker 3:

We were originally, but at this point, because of where the pest pressure is at, where we're seeing the extent of the infestation, we're taking a more like hey, we're not treating this tree, do we really want to leave it as host wood? And that's kind of where we're at Because you can get a lot of insects because they are so small and even a small tree will host thousands of them.

Speaker 1:

And so kind of going back to what property owners can do. It's kind of a two-step approach, right? Number one is like look and see if you have ash trees on your property and we have a webpage that helps you kind of identify those. Some of the quick things to look for is the compound leaves with five to nine leaflets and the pattern of diamond shaped bark. Those are some easy identifiers if you have ash trees on your property. And then, if you can confirm that you have ash trees, the next step would be to contact a certified arborist to do some sort of treatment plan. We don't have like a list of arborists that are certified, but the city and county of Denver does, and that's linked on our EAB page. So that's kind of the two-step approach, right See if you have ash trees on your property and if you do reach out to a professional to get some treatment going, Correct.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, have we limited the ability to buy ash trees Like, could someone have planted one two years ago or bought one this year?

Speaker 3:

You probably wouldn't have been bought at a local nursery. I believe there's been a moratorium on ash, at least since 2013. The last time I can remember going to a nursery and buying one and planting it was in Colorado, was 2010. But I believe most nurseries they cleared them out pretty quickly or sold them out of state. If you don't live in the Denver Front Range area, I mean, I could buy an ash tree from our supplier if I chose to do so. So yes, you can still get them. They can still be shipped here. But why you would choose to do so, I don't know. So it is possible that somebody did, but it's unlikely.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, I figured that was the case. So EAB is one pest and then you've mentioned a few others. Are there other types of pests that people should be aware of that are harmful to our trees?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, like I said, pineapps, spruce sips, turpentine beetle, mountain pine beetle all local, and by local I mean like native insects to Western United States or North America or the Northern Hemisphere, so nothing that they're not invasive. But because our winters have gotten warmer over the last few decades, their populations are increasing. They're not being killed off as much. They really need like a very cold winter to help kill larva. The pest pressure from those is also increasing and I think people are very aware of, like the situation in our mountain regions where treatment isn't as effective or even possible. But in town you can do integrated pest management with those, making sure your tree is just overall in a in a well-kempt manner, so trying to remove some of the larger dead from them. Um, you can. You can do some if you want to do supplemental watering. I mean some people might have a really big tree and you're looking at thousands of gallons of water for a big tree, so supplemental watering isn't always the best option. But if you have a smaller tree you could do that as well to help just kind of keep up the overall health. And then you can do preventative treatments for those insects as well. We do a trunk application of imidacloprid, I think, is the active ingredient in that, and we try to treat about a third of our conifer canopy preventatively. You can do trunk injections as well and as a homeowner that might be a better option, especially if you only have one tree. But those are different things that you can preventatively treat for. And spruce sips has been really bad in the last year or two and I'm hearing that from other city foresters and contractors as well. We've lost some very nice spruce trees around town that were totally fine last year and then all of a sudden this year it's like, oh, what's going on? That top's getting a little thin and these insects can kill these trees very quickly. These insects can kill these trees very quickly. You're looking within a couple months, if not a month, or some of them we've been like it seems like only a few weeks have just died. We actually took one down over at Woodrun Park today that had pine ips in it. So yeah, just trying to do whatever you can to keep that health of that tree up and do some preventative treatments as well.

Speaker 3:

Excuse me, obviously Japanese beetle people are noticing a lot more as well. Defoliating species, also invasive, front range prevalent. Every town is dealing with Japanese beetle, a very tough insect to treat. For beetle a very tough insect to treat for it's said that the best way to treat for it is in the grub phase, when it's living in the soil, which will protect your grass. The problem is they can fly up to five miles a day.

Speaker 3:

So if you treat your property and maybe a couple people around you also treat their property, if somebody two to three miles away, people around you also treat their property, if somebody two to three miles away from you isn't treating their property and they have grubs like, you're just going to have a huge population of japanese beetle coming from those untreated properties and it is like very much pervasive in the front range at this point.

Speaker 3:

They really love species from the rose family, but I've also noticed they really like elms, they like lindens, they really like newly planted plant material, for whatever reason, and foliar sprays for that insect are. You're throwing your money away but they'll be back in a few days, especially if they're next door or only a couple miles away. And then there are emerging pests as well that people talk about a lot, spotted lanternfly being one of the bigger ones. That I believe the US Department of Agriculture or US Forest Service is tracking Not here yet, thankfully, but it's moving throughout the US and Asian. Longhorn beetle, another wood boring insect, is one that the East Coast is dealing with right now but could potentially move, and that does like a very large palette of tree species. Its appetite is not limited to just one kind no, no, it likes a diverse palette, for sure, and they are big, big beetles.

Speaker 3:

They make very large wounds in the tree.

Speaker 1:

They make very large wounds in the tree. Is there any just general tree care like tips you can give someone of like what time of year to kind of maybe do an inspection, what sort of things? I mean you mentioned kind of keep up the trail for your tree of like trimming branches. I mean, is it get out in spring and visually inspect and see if everything looks healthy? What do you kind of recommend, maybe on an annual basis for folks?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean year-. Round. Really, you can kind of notice things. Winter you'll maybe notice the structure of your tree a little bit better. If you have storm damage In the spring, you'll notice. If it's leafing out properly In the summertime, you'll see, you know, is it starting to wilt, is it?

Speaker 3:

You know? Am I starting to see defoliation occurring? Even though it looked really nice a couple months ago, what does it look like now? And then in the fall a lot of insects actually overwinter in the mulch in your gardens and stuff. So like turning your mulch over and some people will clean it out and put all new mulch in, but at the very least kind of turning it over and trying to get some rotation in there helps a lot.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, it's just one of those things about you know what did it look like a month ago, what does it look like today? And just kind of being aware of what's. You know what your tree is presenting to you, because some of them are really obvious and they'll let you know when they're not happy, and other ones are a little bit tougher to look at and at that point if you have an arborist that you use regularly or trust, you can always consult with them, a lot of them will at least come out and take a look at it free of charge and they may recommend some kind of work done. But you don't always have to sign on the dotted line.

Speaker 1:

And then switching gears a bit. We wanted to talk about a project that you've been working on called the Habitat Trees Initiative. Tell us more about that, and what is a habitat tree?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we just started doing that this year kind of early winter, or I should say kind of midwinter to beginning of the spring, I should say kind of midwinter to beginning of the spring. Habitat trees are trees that have been essentially marked for removal or some kind of mitigation to be done with them in our park system or open space areas that aren't in areas that we have improved amenities, so a trail or a playground, um, uh, benches, picnic tables, stuff like that, um, that we would normally remove because it's it's just dead. And then we're like, okay, we're at a park, there's a dead tree. That's what you do. You remove dead trees. But instead what we're doing, um is we're assessing the hazard that those present to the surrounding amenities and we're doing risk reduction on them, either to remove all the limbs or we're saying, hey, this is far enough away from amenities. We're going to leave this tree as it is and the idea is to provide habitat mainly to our bird species, but also to beneficial insects that will attract those birds that we want to see in our park system. People love the birds, but there's also opportunity there presented for some of the larger mammals and small size mammals to make habitat in this whole habitat tree I don't think is a new idea, but the city of Littleton actually did a study with CU Boulder a couple years ago about how to make some more artificial habitat trees or how to retain these trees in our park system that is beneficial to the environment but also minimizes risk to our public risk to our public. And they have, and I think we actually linked on our website this study and it's not a super long study to read but it's really interesting some of the techniques that they've applied in the Littleton and that we are now applying here to help create some of that artificial habitat, whether it's just leaving a standing dead tree alone as I said, a very passive way of doing it, um, or reducing it down to a trunk of a certain height and, um, doing some you know cross cuts into it, or actually boring out a cavity that can be applied to do this. And I think we have about six to eight that we've done so far at various stages of development and so far the one that we've done the most work to. We've actually already have a bird family living in there, so they're a little nest in there.

Speaker 3:

That one is near Stanley Lake library. It's one of the trail heads or kind of close to the trailhead of the Heritage Canal, not a place that a lot of people go, but there is again. You have a trail system nearby, but it's not right at the trail system and you have a lot of natural natives, you know growth going on there, your taller grasses and shrubs and stuff. So we kind of just, instead of being like, well, this is the park, let's cut all these dead trees down, because that's what we're supposed to do, we're like, hey, let's try to work with what's already you know here and try to reduce our risk. And yeah, so it worked out yeah, very cool.

Speaker 1:

So if you're in a park or something like that and you see a tree on city property, that is clearly dead, but you're wondering why it's still there, maybe take a closer look. There might be a bird's nest in there, home to some critters.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and these are definitely trees, like in the manicured bluegrass parks. We're not going to be leaving these trees standing there. Obviously, it's going to be more in our native parks, our open space parks or the fringes of those maintained areas is probably where you're going to see those more.

Speaker 2:

Yeah very cool. Well, last but certainly not least, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners? Are there any misconceptions or misinformation out there you'd like to clear up?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and not that I can think of off the top of my head.

Speaker 2:

Okay, Having you on the second time. We've covered a lot of information we have.

Speaker 1:

Because you are a returning guest, we're not going to ask you the same lightning round questions. We can link back to that first episode, but we are going to close with some trivia. Okay, we've got three questions here, all tree-related. Oh boy. We're going to have both of you try and answer. If you know the answer right away, maybe we'll let the other one try and guess, because that'll be more fun. Okay.

Speaker 2:

And I won't know any of them.

Speaker 1:

All right, here we go. I might not either We'll see, we'll find out. Yeah, all right. What type of wood was Babe Ruth's bat made from?

Speaker 2:

I'm going to go with ash. I don't know Elm Ash is correct, specifically a northern white ash. Okay, nice.

Speaker 1:

So all the bats pretty much starting from the 1930s up into the 1990s, were made from ash. And then maple started taking over the bat industry because maple is a little bit harder, a little bit more durable. So I picked that one because it was made out of ash. All right, Good guess, should have guessed that Question number two what type of infamous tree in Nevada had to be cut down in 1935 as part of a straightening of Wadsworth Boulevard?

Speaker 2:

I don't know the answer, but Infamous tree Straightening of Wadsworth, a pine tree.

Speaker 3:

I don't know. All right, so I might be sticking my foot in my mouth here, because I said I knew the answer. What did you say?

Speaker 2:

I was going to guess Hackberry, because there's a neighborhood.

Speaker 3:

That's correct.

Speaker 2:

After I said pine, I was like oh wait, we have a neighborhood called Hackberry right there, Hackberry.

Speaker 3:

Hill Park actually is still there and there's a Hackberry tree that was planted to replace it. Yeah, oh cool, I thought that was. I didn't think it was the 30s that it was cut down, though I thought it was later.

Speaker 1:

No, so, as Hackberry Hill there, wadsworth in 72nd, was named Hackberry Hill because there was a hackberry tree there, really the only tree in that area for a long, long time, going back to like the mid 1800s, and so there was sort of this lore and folklore of like how did this tree get here? Because hackberries aren't native to the area, and so there was all these theories of like how did this hackberry tree come about? It also served as like a landmark because it was high up on that hill and people could see it from far away, and so like you know, meet me at the Hackberry tree or get to the Hackberry tree and go left or whatever.

Speaker 1:

And so it built up like this, like following. People love the Hackberry tree. There was a bunch of like stories behind how it came about. But when the Wadsworth project was decided it was going to get straightened out straight north and south. At the time I guess it went kind of around the hill. It had to be cut down.

Speaker 1:

But because it was so famous and so well-liked there was an agreement that the tree would be relocated either to McEvoy Park in Old Town or I think even to like the State History Museum. So people were happy with that idea. But I think a few nights or the night before it was to be relocated, it mysteriously disappeared and it was a mystery for 40 years. No one knew what happened until someone by the name of Ford Fox came forward. I think he lived in Denver and he admitted that he and a buddy came one night and cut the tree down Overnight. He was part of the road construction crew, I believe, and he was just tired of all the back and forth on what to do with this famous tree, and so he came and took matters into his own hands, took the tree out and stayed silent for 40 years until he came forward.

Speaker 3:

I thought that happened in the 70s. I thought maybe happened in the 70s.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay, wow, I thought maybe it was like a tree lover came and took it to their backyard.

Speaker 3:

No it would have been undertaking for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's a few web sources that we can link to. But yes, hackberry Hill Elementary, I think, has a tree planted in replacement of it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there's one. I guess it's technically at the Arvada Center, but there's like a little side park there and there's a smaller hackberry tree there that was supposed to be like the replacement. Okay, I don't know how old it is. I mean, it's not very big.

Speaker 1:

So I've read that there was a replacement tree planted in that area, but I went up to Thunderc Park. They're thinking that's where it was planted, That'd be a good spot for it, and I couldn't find it, so maybe that's actually where it was at the Arvada Center. Maybe we'll plant a hackberry up at Thundercloud too, just in case there we go. Alright, final question the official state tree of Colorado is the blue spruce. Blue spruce. That's not the question, that's a bonus.

Speaker 3:

What other?

Speaker 1:

state had the blue spruce as.

Speaker 3:

Utah.

Speaker 2:

Montana, utah is correct, dang it.

Speaker 3:

Utah claimed to have the tallest one too, could be true they did claim. I don't think the taller one was found in Colorado.

Speaker 1:

Actually, utah claimed the Blue Spruce before Colorado did, and so they beat us to the punch. Colorado followed suit. But then it was from. 1933 is when Utah claimed it all the way up until 2013, when some students at Monroe Elementary School in Utah said well, why is our state tree, a tree known as the Colorado Blue Spruce or the Colorado Spruce? So eventually they petitioned the state to change and it happened in 2013. And now Utah's official tree is the Quaking Aspen. Okay, the Quaking aspen. Okay, the quaking aspen Interesting. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there was a for a while there and I don't know if this was true, but supposedly like an award if you could find a spruce tree in Colorado that was taller than the national champion in Utah. Okay, because they didn't like I don't know if it was true yeah, the national champion in Utah, because they didn't like I don't know if it was true, I never actually looked into it myself, but there, um, I think this, I think the national champion is now in um Colorado.

Speaker 3:

Oh, but there was people very much like no, we have to find one that's taller than one in Utah. They can't have one that's bigger than us.

Speaker 1:

That's great.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it goes right back to the whole rivalry.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, who gets to have this? Hopefully we have no one cutting down the tall ones in Utah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think the one they found here in Colorado is in one of the national parks, so it'd probably be hard to track down, but I'm sure there's, I'm sure it can be found Interesting I didn't know that there was that kind of rivalry, rivalry there.

Speaker 1:

So so do you. I got one for you then, do you know which tree arvada has, that is the state champion cottonwood.

Speaker 3:

Uh, maple, it's the cottonwood. Yeah, what is what makes it a state champion? So it's the largest of that species in the state of Colorado, points-based. There's a few that have like a larger spread, but we have the biggest overall measurements. They take trunk measurements and canopy spread and height and then we have an algorithm. So it's all held by the Colorado Tree Coalition. Okay, we were huge advocates of trees in the front range and they are the ones that they're the keepers of the lists. Yeah, where's our champion cottonwood? It's on a city property but it's a secret. Okay, I don't want it to end up like the hackberry.

Speaker 1:

That's fair.

Speaker 3:

So it is interesting to know, like the value of those giant cottonwood trees, like if for some reason you'd have to remove one for a project or something what you measure, the diameter, and that's like the cost to replace, and some can be yeah, there's a whole formula that gets put into that but, um, yeah, they can be very, they can get very expensive very quickly. Um, especially the cottonwoods as, as girthy as they can get.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, well, we can claim celery and cotton.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, white celery on the state champion cottonwood for now Awesome.

Speaker 2:

Nice.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we moved up to number one. We were number two before that, but I think number one was in Longmont and I believe it finally died and they had to remove it, so we moved up to number one. Their loss is our gain.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's true, their loss is our gain. Awesome.

Speaker 3:

Well, our gain.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Well, thanks, ian, I really appreciate you coming back on the show. Yeah, Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 3:

I appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

Thanks as a reminder, we love to hear from our listeners. You can stay in touch by texting us using the link at the top of each episode or you can drop us an email at podcastarvadaorg. We love hearing feedback about what you enjoy or perhaps some ideas about who we should have on future episodes. Speaking of feedback, we got an email recently from a listener, tom Carney, in response to our Park and Recreation Month episode. Tom wanted to point out how instrumental Bob West was to the development of the city's parks, trails and open space system, as well as the Apex Park and Recreation District. Bob dedicated his whole life really to civic service, helping secure funding for public safety and community recreation projects, and in fact, he was recognized by the Arvada Chamber as the winner of the 2024 Pioneer Award for his service to the community. So thank you, bob, and thank you, tom, for the email.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, really cool email that we got. We love when our listeners write in like that, and so on to our news and events section. The final bulky item drop-off event of the 2025 year is Saturday, august 16th, from 9 am to 2 pm at the North Area Athletic Complex, the NAC, and so, as always, there's information on our website and we'll link to that in our show notes with. You'll want to check out that list of acceptable items and what to know before you go.

Speaker 2:

And then new programming with Resource Central is that we are able to offer discounts on a fall garden in the box for Arvada water customers, and so that is available now and there are still some garden in a box is available, as well as some space in the lawn replacement program, because we got some additional opportunity there as well. And so Resource Central has really great trained experts that walk you through the whole process, whether it's just planting one of their gardens or removing a section of your lawn that might sound more intimidating. They really help you through that whole process. So encourage folks to check those out, but the supply can go quickly, so act now.

Speaker 1:

Get on it before it's too late.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then finally there is a construction, a road widening project, out at the intersection of Highway 93 and Highway 72, which is Coal Creek Canyon Road. So that's a private contractor and developer on a CDOT managed road doing that work. And so if that's an area contractor and developer on a CDOT-managed road doing that work, and so if that's an area that you live or travel through and you want more information, we'll link to how to sign up for their weekly email updates with travel impacts and kind of what's going on with that project for folks.

Speaker 1:

And then, finally, I wanted to extend a congratulations to our Vata Parks Photo Contest winners and thank you to everyone who submitted photos. We had lots of great submissions. It was hard to narrow down those finalists and you can learn more about that at arvadacogov slash parks month. And our next Movies Around Town event is coming up on Friday, august 8th. We'll be hosting a free showing of Happy Gilmore at Bridgeside Park that's right over there by Vanderhoof Elementary. It's great timing, with Happy Gilmore 2 coming out recently. That movie will start approximately 9 pm when it's dark enough to show the movie.

Speaker 1:

Thanks again to our guest today, ian McDonald. Be sure to listen to our next episode with Aslan Drozki, the city's bike and pedestrian coordinator with our transportation planning team. Today's podcast was recorded and edited by Arvada Media Services and I've got two fun facts. Craig Hilligris was the city's first city forester preceding Ian, serving the city for 42 years, so shout out to Craig. And then also wanted to mention that the city provides free mulch to residents out at the entrance to Arvada Blonde Reservoir, just off West 64th Parkway, and that pickup site is open seven days a week from 6 am to 7 pm.

Speaker 3:

Whoa.