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KIB Values Trees
Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, Inc. (KIB) is deeply concerned about our city’s
continuing loss of trees. According to IUPUI research, between 1962 and
1993, Indianapolis lost 25% of its tree cover. And, amongst all trees we’re
losing, those designated as “high quality” forests are disappearing at the
rate of 30 acres per year, according to Indy Parks Land Stewardship
research. One such high quality forest is the land north of 38th Street
owned by Crown Hill Cemetery.
We want to be clear: we don’t purport to know how many trees would
ultimately be preserved or lost to development at this site. We do know that
preservation of trees and wetlands are a part of the overall design, and
that is important. As the community considers proposed development here,
it’s important to understand the ecological benefits this land provides.
As part of the development planning process, a local company was hired to
inventory a portion of the property’s trees. KIB used this inventory and
I-Tree, a peer-reviewed software research tool developed by the USDA, to
understand the estimated benefits of the trees that were inventoried (2,700
trees with trunks eight inches wide or larger). Annually, these 2,700 trees
intercept as much as five million gallons of stormwater and as much as seven
thousand pounds of air pollutants; they sequester one million pounds of
carbon. The analysis reports the value of these annual “services” to
taxpayers is as much as $400,000. The replacement value of the trees: $3.9
million.
Perhaps the most startling realization is the effort it would take to
replace the trees that were inventoried. Hypothetically, if each of the
2,700 trees was removed from the property, it would take KIB, its partners
and volunteers six years to plant an equivalent number of “trunk inches”
through our NeighborWoods program.
This community values trees. Major local companies, prominent local
foundations and philanthropists and hundreds of individual donors and
volunteers are supporting NeighborWoods. This program, announced by Mayor
Peterson and Senator Lugar in 2006, is a partnership with the City of
Indianapolis to plant 100,000 trees by 2016. Keep Indianapolis Beautiful
already has requests from civic and neighborhood groups to plant 2,000
NeighborWoods trees in 2007.
We need to keep planting trees; but Indianapolis also needs policies that
better protect the trees we have, and policies that ensure the replacement
of trees we lose. Under existing ordinances, not a single tree needs to be
replaced should any development occur on any property.
This debate wouldn’t be taking place, though, if stronger protections of
trees and natural spaces were in place. Current policies have not kept pace
with our community’s growing appreciation for its natural environment. Mayor
Peterson has appointed an independent tree board to provide policy
recommendations, hopefully by year end. Surely, working with our entire
community, from environmentalists to developers, we can encourage better
public policy to protect our valuable natural assets.
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Tony Steinhardt
Board Chairman, KIB
445 North Pennsylvania Street, #910
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-523-0519 |
David Forsell
President, KIB
445 North Pennsylvania Street, #910
Indianapolis, IN 46204
317-264-7555 #114 |
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Please Read This Information on
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For more information,
contact Nate Faris at 264-7555 ext. 111
or email him at nfaris@kibi.org.
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