Ten mature trees along Lake Street in Empire were spared from the felling saw after a last-minute citizen rally.

The trees, mostly maples, were scheduled to come down as soon as this week as part of a street reconstruction project that includes improved drainage infrastructure along the corridor. Lake Street has long been prone to floods during heavy rains, and drainage upgrades there have been eyed for years.

A petition launched late last week by Sleeping Bear Surf owner Ella Skrocki to save the trees gathered nearly 300 signatures, and several people on Monday went out to protest the tree removal and speak to Team Elmer's workers that were preparing to kick the project off.

After last-minute discussions between village officials, Team Elmer's and the engineering firm handling the project (Gosling Czubak), a new plan was hatched to achieve the same drainage goals while sparing the trees.

“It’s an exciting day over here,” Skrocki told The Ticker Monday. “I haven’t stopped smiling. I’ve cried a little bit. I’ve been jumping with joy and hugged the whole Elmer’s team.”

Village President Dan Davis tells The Ticker he’s glad that concerns about the trees were able to be addressed by the engineering team.

“We’re very happy with this resolution and that we’re able to please the public,” he says. “We’re a little disappointed this happened at the last minute, but that’s the way it is.”

The trees were initially recommended to be removed because the work there will probably damage their root systems and kill them anyway, Davis says. That still might happen.

“If those trees do die, they're in the village right away and it will cost us more money to take them out in the future than it would have it we had taken them out now (but) we decided we'd give them a chance,” he says.

Skrocki is hopeful they’ll pull through, and she consulted an arborist friend who shares those hopes.

“I sent him some photos and told him the scope of the project so far and he said, ‘No, these trees can recover, and what we can do is we can aerate the roots and help restore their feeder roots that are closer to the surface of the soil.'” she says. “He actually felt really confident that the trees will be fine. It could be years and years until we tell if they were damaged at all, but at least this gives them a chance.”

Team Elmer’s gets a lot of credit for the trees being saved, Skrocki says.

“I think Elmer’s really deserves so much praise in this project because they were able to take their wisdom from projects that they've done historically and their knowledge of runoff and street design and were really able to help the engineer explore a different path forward that could be less intensive and destructive,” she says.

Major credit also goes to the people who rallied to the cause, she adds.

“It feels like the moment that people understood the scope of what was happening, it was like everybody came out (and) was knocking on doors, having hard conversations, exploring alternatives and volunteering their time and energy to really push the village to step back and take a different approach,” Skrocki says. “And we're literally seeing that effort pay off right now.”