© Tom Stromme/Tribune Bismarck city forester Jackson Bird says homeowners should aerate trees to allow the roots to breathe in areas where there is high ground water.
The evergreens will be first, yellowing needles signaling a dying tree.
The cottonwoods and box elders will hang on a bit longer, but they, too, will start to drop their leaves as the lack of oxygen begins to starve them.
People along the Missouri River have been focused for the last month on the immediate needs of sandbagging, evacuating, finding places to live, stripping their homes, plugging drains, monitoring pumps.
But as the summer goes on and the waters stay high, public groups must start planning for the time when the water recedes and leaves behind it acres and miles of dead vegetation and thousands upon thousands of dead and dying trees all along the river.
The tree-kill problem is going to be gigantic, said ElRoy Haadem, the Burleigh County NDSU extension agent.
Haadem said he has been asked by people who wonder what will happen to the tree-lined river that Bismarck-Mandan is accustomed to seeing.
