Take A Survey About PEPCO's Tree Trimming

We've been lucky so far this season; the thunderstorms haven't knocked out the power for long periods of time like they did in the fall and summer of last year.

PEPCO, our local power company, has tried to blame the trees for all of those outages and many others which have taken place in the last few years, although several officials who have investigated have come to the conclusion that PEPCO's own poor management is probably the ultimate culprit.

Last week a letter to the editor of the Gazette newspapers brought the issue forward in a new way, and it seems the Montgomery Countryside Alliance is calling attention to the issue of PEPCO's severe trimming practices in our county's Agricultural Reserve.

Caren Madsen, one of the authors of the Gazette letter, sent around the message below and ask people to take the survey and forward the link:

"Before Pepco goes into more overdrive on trimming with summer storm season approaching, let's see what others around the county are saying. "

Here's the survey everyone, have at it:


http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PFTMS2K_Pepco_Tree-trimming

MoCo Street Tree Update

I was thrilled to read an article in the most recent update from Conservation Montgomery about the street tree budget in Montgomery County.

As someone who has advocated hard for the street tree program, I had become very worried about the huge backlog of maintenance the county's Department of Transportation had acquired in the last two years. Without funding, trees inspections were not happening in a regular or timely manner either, which seemed like a big safety problem waiting to happen.

According to Conservation Montgomery, about $2 million in county street tree maintenance funding will be restored to the FY12 operating budget which was approved by the Council. Although that is a meager portion of the overall budget, it will help to alleviate the backlog of work which has built up regarding the county's 425,000 right-of-way trees. And in this tight budget time, it seems miraculous.

Visit Conservation Montgomery online to read more.

And the Survey Says: More Trees for Montgomery County

Just in time for today's primaries, Conservation Montgomery has unveiled the results of their recent online survey about our county's environmental issues. It was the first act undertaken by the new fledgling group, formed by several of the county's most outspoken and passionate environmental activists. The survey, which was posted earlier this summer, was aimed at perhaps giving environmental topics a stronger voice in the elections.

In general it seems that the environment plays pretty strong in the MoCo elections. Still, results of this kind of survey are always fascinating, even if I know that a lot the time the answers are a bit skewed by the fact that the only people who actually take the time to fill out such things are the people who actually care about the environment in the first place.

It feels like asking the perverbial choir to sing. But that's okay. We need more that kind of music, so to speak.

The thing that really grabbed my attention in the release was the final line:

"81.8% of the respondents said they are supportive of funding for the county street tree program to be fully restored in the Montgomery County budget."

As someone who testified at the last round of the county's budget sessions, I say bravo everyone. I agree. We do need more trees. Please. Let those elected officials hear that music, too. So if you haven't already voted, go now.

Testimony about the Tree Budget

Last week, Montgomery county council members sat through four straight days of testimony about the proposed budget for the coming year. Mostly, the focus was upon the nightmarish cuts we are all about to experience.

We are not a county used to cuts. We are used to words like excellence, expenditures, and growth.

As soon as I heard about the budget hearings, I knew I had to testify about the tree budget.

While I sat there with my pal Ed and waited my turn to talk, I realized one thing. It would be very tiring to be a council member. Funny, but most of the time they actually seemed to really be paying attention to what was being discussed. I'm not sure why that exactly surprised me.

But picture it: I was third to the last on the list of four days worth of testimony. *I* got tired listening. I had only been there a couple of hours. Kudos to the council members for hanging in there. Its not like this is what they had in mind when they ran for council, I'm sure.

The hours were tiring, boring and sometimes really quite heart-wrenching. There are a lot of great programs being cut.

In light of all that, I still figured I had to go. I had to speak. Feeling very much like a lorax, I had to go and say something. The tree budget is tiny. Zeroing it out at this point won't gain much for the greater budget but will cost us all in the long run. We'll pay for increased stormwater problems. We'll pay for higher energy bills, and we'll pay with higher asthma rates.

My biggest concern is that the wealthy neighborhoods will continue to get trees with private funds while the neighborhoods already suffering from urban blight will nothing.

If I had to choose some areas to cut, I'd rather see some of the extraneous top executives that sit at the highest offices over at MC Public Schools get cut than see the trees go. (MCPS seems mighty top heavy to me. Mighty top heavy. What is the deal with that PR and Communication office that costs us millions, by the way? Do they really need that much money to keep the spin going? If the schools are doing well, shouldn't that simply be enough? Why do we have to have a multi-million dollar office to promote it? But alas, this is no education blog... and the Parents' Coalition does a much better job of ranting about that than I ever could...)

Beyond the tree planting budget there have been rumors floating around that the street tree trimming budget might also get -- well -- trimmed. I'm not sure about the truth of that, but I would really urge the council to reconsider that if it should come about.... putting off maintenance is really a risky idea. Dangerous and potentially expensive. But I detail that below.

Here's the testimony I read to the council on April 8. (And thanks once again to Ed for sitting through all that with me. )

****

Good evening, members of the council. I’m a resident of Silver Spring and tonight I’ve come to ask that you fully fund the street tree planting budget for FY 2011 to at least the level which was originally proposed for FY 2010: that is, $247,000. I’m also asking that you please make every effort to avoid cutting funds to tree maintenance programs throughout the county.

Trees play an integral role in our county’s efforts to fight environmental ills.

They can:

- beautify our neighborhoods and raise property values
- cleanse the air of pollution

- lower our energy costs, and
- provide habitat for wildlife.

But at a time when our county and state are facing tough stormwater problems, trees can also provide an inexpensive solution to creek flooding by soaking up hundreds of gallons of rain water. According to some recent federal studies, a medium-sized tree can filter as much as 2,380 gallons of water a year. Controlling stormwater has become a priority of our entire state as we all seek ways to restore health to our streams, rivers and the Chesapeake.

Cutting the street tree program will place a particularly hard burden upon the older, more urbanized neighborhoods of our county. In those areas, mature street trees are dying in large numbers and need to be replaced. Legally, homeowners cannot plant trees in a Right-of-Way. Only state and county arborists can do that. Without funding, those replacements will not be made.

In the past, the street tree program also offered a way that homeowners of modest means could contribute to neighborhood beautification and environmental protection efforts. And in some dense, urban places, the Right-of-Ways where street trees are planted offer some of the only space where a tree can be placed. Without the street tree planting program, some of those same areas will become urban heat islands.

The budget for the street tree program was already very lean before the most recent cuts took place. Thousands of trees along our streets demand care. It seems that the proposed cuts may eliminate or substantially reduce pruning operations. This would be both wasteful and dangerous. Wasteful, because without regular attention and pruning, small problems on existing trees can turn into large problems very quickly. By investing in the health of these trees now, we will avoid more expensive problems in the future.

The money needed for the street tree program and arboriculture programs through out the county is relatively small, but can have a big long-term impact. Our governor, Martin O’Malley, has implored us all to plant a million trees this year. I hope that we in Montgomery County will do our part to fund the public side of this challenge. Trees are an important investment for our county, and benefit us all. Investing in the health and safety of trees is a civic duty which we should not ignore.

Thank you very much for your time and attention.

****

MoCo's Street Tree Budget Gets AXED

Citizens and tree lovers all over Montgomery County are up in arms about a budget cut which was pushed through very quietly right around Thanksgiving. The county’s street tree planting program, which is run by the Department of Transportation, has had its entire planting budget zeroed, removed, AXED.

The DOT’s street tree office performs an important role in the county. When trees along the right-of-ways or ROWs in the county have to be cut down due to disease or damage, the DOT replaces them. According to the county's own website, the office plants about 1800 trees a year. Residents can also request a tree for the ROW in front of their home and if the ROW can safely have one, the office will plant one for free using trees which are grown in municipal nurseries.

This is especially important because residents can’t legally plant anything higher than 18 inches in these spaces. But the DOT *can* plant there, and can do so in a way that is safe and will avoid future conflicts with wires, etc. Their skilled and highly trained arborists oversee both the removal of the declining trees and the replanting of new ones. And sadly, many of the oldest street trees in the county’s ROWs are dying and will need to be replaced at a rapid rate if we are to maintain any kind of street tree canopy in the future.

The tree planting program has been popular, despite being anemically funded for several years. $247,000 is a small amount of money relative to the rest of the Montgomery County budget. In return for this small investment, the trees grow and perform many ecosystem services which are extremely valuable. These include:

-water filtration
-pollution reduction
-providing shade which can often reduce energy use for homeowners
-cooling the air by evapotranspiration
-providing habitat for many kinds of wildlife.

Mature trees can also increase the dollar value of homes; homes with well tended trees tend to attract more interest and can sometimes command a higher price than those on streets which lack leafy canopies.

Many who have voiced anger over the budget cut have expressed dismay at the disconnect between tree planting goals, such as the Million Trees for Maryland sponsored through out the state by Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley, and the elimination of the street tree funding in Montgomery County.

Especially appalling is the way that the budget cut was kind of slipped through very quietly during the holidays. According to some sources, the office of County Executive Ike Leggett did not even seek the advice of its own Forest Conservation Advisory Committee before making the decision, and the group was not even alerted before the council vote took place on December 1.