Tons of New Trees Coming to Sioux Falls

An invasion of Emerald Ash Borer beetles in Sioux Falls in recent years has led to the loss of nearly 8,000 trees in and around the city. But now a new program is looking to replant a massive number of trees in the area to make up for the devastation.

The City of Sioux Falls is launching the Communi-Tree Program, thanks to funding from the USDA Forest Service.

The federal agency is providing a $3 million grant to focus on restoring trees in disadvantaged neighborhoods throughout Sioux Falls that were lost to EAB.

The new trees will mainly be located in the northern and central parts of the city.

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The program aims to plant 2,500 new trees on the street right-of-way at no cost to property owners. The City will prioritize planting a diverse range of trees and will maintain them for the first two critical growing seasons to ensure their survival. It targets disadvantaged neighborhoods identified through qualified census tract data, encompassing roughly 24,000 households across 25 square miles.

The city will be reaching out to homeowners in those qualified areas to allow them to have a tree planted on the street right-of-way between 2025 and 2027, with the program wrapping up in 2028 after final tree maintenance and assessment.