Trees Trees Trees

Tonight, the Oshkosh Community Foundation and the city hosted an introduction to the new Oshkosh urban forestry initiative that involves massive tree planting throughout all of the city. The project goals, if accomplished, would put the city at the lead throughout the state and Midwest in the realm of instant urban forest canopy installation. The goasl includes planting at least 1000 new trees the Spring of 2010, and likely more in Fall of 2010 and Spring 2011. While the full details weren't available, it was enough to motivate anyone remotely interested in the future of this city and to inspire them as to the potential this new movement of sustainability has for our city.

It was good to see common council candidates Steve Cummings and Ron Hardy at the meeting, showing support for this important cause (no other candidates were present). It was also good to see a decent audience come out for the show - in the neighborhood of 125. It was also terrific to hear their tree expert talk about the values of trees in sustainably managing storm water. Ironically, the post scheduled for tomorrow that I completed over the weekend was on part 2 of sustainable storm water management practices that the city has been ignoring but that have been demonstrated to be effective and proven techniques at reducing storm water flow and water pollution. The tree guy basically said any storm water management program void of an emphasis on tree planting is void of any real management, leadership, or sustainability.

Congrats to the leadership provided by the Oshkosh Community Foundation, to the financial supporters of this project, to the city's Forestry Dept - who has seemingly done a great deal with very limited resources, and to everyone who supports this initiative.

Posted in: elections,Health,Our City,parks,sustainability