MnDot Pauses Shade Tree Reduction Along Highway 34; regular tree removal will continue

Detroit Lakes, MN (KDLM) – Opponents of the Highway 34 logging project met with lawmakers and MnDOT project coordinators via Zoom last week in an attempt to halt the controversial highway reconstruction project between Detroit Lakes and Osage.

While MnDOT won’t halt the entire logging project, they did say they will postpone the reduction of shade trees along a seven-mile stretch of highway near Snellman.

“We are currently paused on the part of the project in the Smoky Hills area where we were planning to do shade reduction,” MnDOT commissioner Nancy Daubenberger.

The original construction plans proposed cutting 85% of trees back 250 feet from the highway on that 7-mile scenic stretch, so trees would no longer shade the highway. MnDOT has since twice changed its plan after community feedback, with the latest plan to cut trees 100 feet from the centerline.

“They (the University of Minnesota researchers) are going to be looking at the effects of shade on our highways and how it directly affects the temperature of the pavement,” says MnDOT District 4 Engineer Shiloh Wahl. “The study will also look at “how that correlates to using fewer chlorides on our roads so there’s less salt, less sand, less brine out there, which ultimately is better for the environment — when we don’t have to put those chlorides into our ditches and our lakes.”

MnDOT will wait for the result of the study, he added, “and then the following winter, the winter of 2024-2025, would be the winter where we would do that selective harvesting … to take out some of those shade reduction trees.