Environmentalists are focused on improving Northwest Indiana’s tree canopy in the wake of the Aug. 11 derecho.
As the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission updates its NWI 2050 plan, looking a quarter century into the future, among the goals is to increase the urban tree canopy from 17.1% to 23% by 2035 and 30% by 2050.
Having Indiana Dunes National Park, Indiana Dunes State Park and other natural areas in Northwest Indiana gives a significant boost to the region’s tree canopy. But the derecho was a major disaster for trees as well as residents, especially in Gary and Portage.
Replacing the trees should include planting the right kinds of trees in the right places to bring back the benefits of shade trees, a group of environmentalists convened by NIRPC agreed on Thursday.
“If we’re working on increasing the tree canopy, we’re looking at doing it the right way,” Indiana MS4 Partnership Executive Director Reggie Korthals said. “We don’t want to go through losing 200,000 trees again.”
Achieving goals requires identifying a way to measure progress and results.
Joe Exl, coastal resources coordinator for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources’ Lake Michigan Coastal Program, said achieving Tree City USA designation checks off the right boxes for communities working toward that goal.
NIRPC has promoted green infrastructure as less expensive than manmade infrastructure. Even though green infrastructure requires less maintenance, however, it will fail eventually if it isn’t maintained. “None of us live in a natural system unless you go out and live in the middle of the mountains somewhere,” NIRPC Director of Environmental Programs Kathy Luther said.
Noting the importance of trees for improving water quality could free up stormwater dollars for use in planting and maintaining trees, Korthals said. “Stormwater groups have money.”
Municipalities often have lists of appropriate trees to plant, but some of those lists are woefully outdated and could include Callery pears, an ornamental tree from Asia that has become a widespread invasive species in the United States.
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The Indiana Department of Natural Resources has an extensive list of good trees, most of them native species, Natural Resources Planner Jen Birchfield said.
“Different communities have different priorities and conditions,” she said, so there’s no one-size-fits-all list for Northwest Indiana.
Birchfield works on the ComuniTrees program, which provides trees for organizations and communities to add to the region’s tree canopy by planting on public property.
NIRPC has sustained funding for the program.
The NWI 2050 plan currently includes having a regional urban forestry plan. But if each community has one, they can form a regional plan in aggregate.
“Encouraging people to plant trees in their yard is different from public trees,” Luther said.
“We don’t want to nag them,” Lake County Surveyor Bill Emerson Jr. said.
Exl suggested revisiting the tree list every five years or so to see which trees are needed and which should be knocked off the list.
“Really, one of the best practices is to do a tree inventory,” Birchfield said. That includes information about what percentage of the canopy cover is made up of each species. Aerial photographs can help provide that information.
Aerial photographs also showed how devastating that Aug. 11 derecho was. “We didn’t just have a storm, people; we had a damn disaster,” Korthals said.
Valparaiso Councilwoman Ellen Kapitan learned at the meeting about some of the resources NIRPC offers for communities. “I have an environmental background and I come to all these meetings and don’t know they exist,” she said.
“For example, there’s a tree board handbook,” Birchfield said.
“We did do a lot of links to other resources,” Luther said. “We do want to promote that more.”
“I could talk trees all day long,” Birchfield said.
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Although Thursday’s session spent significant time on the tree canopy, there are other areas to cover, including reducing air pollution, improving air quality and more. NIRPC has a self-imposed Oct. 31 deadline to get the environmental aspects of the plan drafted for further review and public comment.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.