PORTAGE, MI \u2014 The city of Portage lost about 48,000 trees in the May 7, 2024, tornado. <\/p>\n
The city is replanting 250 of them in Celery Flats and Lexington Green Park this fall, said city spokesperson Mary Beth Block. <\/p>\n
For a city that boasts the slogan \u201cA Natural Place to Move,\u201d trees were a particularly difficult loss. <\/p>\n
\u201cGiven how long it takes trees to grow, it could be a generation before (Celery Flats) resembles anything like it did on May 6 of last year,\u201d Portage COO Adam Herringa said previously.<\/p>\n
City councilmembers voted Tuesday, Sept. 23, to pay Grand Rapids-based Twin Lakes Nursery $182,517 to purchase and plant 250 trees. That\u2019s about $730 per tree, plus planting services. <\/p>\n
Twin Lakes submitted the lowest of three bids \u2014 others rang in at $197,361 and $226,000.<\/p>\n
Even if all 250 trees were planted in Celery Flats, that\u2019d make up just 6% of the 3,900 trees lost there. This purchase by itself replaces about 0.5% of the Portage trees lost in the storm.<\/p>\n
Portage has $260,000 to spend on tree planting, per city documents, thanks to a $150,000 state grant and $110,000 from the city budget. <\/p>\n
Funding for the 250 trees will come out of this pool. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s spent just over $41,000 working with a forester and hosting two community planting events, per city documents. <\/p>\n
Bicentennial Park and the DNR\u2019s Gourdneck State Game Area were also hit in the May 7, 2024 storm. <\/p>\n
On the anniversary of the storm, Portage received a $100,000 donation<\/a> to remove dead trees and plant new ones.<\/p>\n The Bicentennial Park trail closed for two weeks in September while crews removed stumps and debris from the forested surroundings, Kalamazoo Gazette\/MLive reported previously<\/a>.<\/p>\n Want more Kalamazoo-area news? Bookmark MLive\u2019s local Kalamazoo news page<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTAGE, MI \u2014 The city of Portage lost about 48,000 trees in the May 7, 2024, tornado. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-200893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}