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Date: 11/12/2020
SOUTH HADLEY – The Town of South Hadley is accepting applications to give away hundreds of free tree saplings to residents and help the community become greener.
Conservation Administrator and Town Planner Anne Capra said the goal of the giveaway is to help mitigate the impacts of climate change within the town. Capra said South Hadley is looking to have residents plant a total of 500 trees around town during the spring of 2021.
The saplings, she said, were funded, in part, by a Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Action Grant. Capra said the grant will help fund three pieces of a larger plan that evaluated ways for South Hadley to become a greener community. She said the grant funded an action plan, “where we developed a plan to look at the ways in which climate change would impact our community.”
The total cost of the project, she said, would be $140,000. Capra said the MVP Grant awarded by the state will cover $105,000 of the project and the town is matching $35,000.
Capra said making the town greener would, in turn, help manage climate change moving forward. She said, “Just improving the green infrastructure in the community [is a] natural defense to deal with climate change.”
The first of the three parts, she explained, is doing a town-wide evaluation of road culverts that are constructed over streams in town. She said the underside of the culverts “are in poor condition” due to the rising number of weather events. The rise of weather events, Capra said, are directly related to climate change.
“One of those forecasts for climate change that will impact our community is larger storm events. We’re getting a lot more rain in short durations.They’re not able to handle [the rain,]” she said. “They fill up and back up, and the roads get flooded. They’ll assess all the culverts, and the top six to eight will get some preliminary cost and design estimates.”
This, she said, will also help the town be able to anticipate the cost of repairs to the culverts. “They can budget this type of work in,” she said. The culvert assessment, Capra said, will be using “the bulk of the grant.”
Capra said the second project funded by the grant was the updating of the town’s stormwater management bylaw. She said those living and doing business in town, disturbing “more than one acre [of land]” need to apply for the bylaw. She said the bylaw is in need of an update as it has references to “precipitation events back in the 50s.”
“It needs to be updated. We will be hiring a professional to review the bylaw and include these new standards and allow for the most current standards,” she explained.
Capra said the third piece of the plan that will be funded by the grant is the distribution of hundreds of saplings to residents in South Hadley. The goal, she explained, was to plant 500 trees across town. “We wanted to do something [so] people could do something on their own property to combat climate change,” she said.
While residents from all across town are welcome to apply for the saplings, Capra said an essential element of the grant that was outlined was planting 350 of the 500 trees in the lower part of town. This, she explained, was to provide “social equity” and ensure “everyone around town is eligible for the trees.”
She said the lower part of the town is where the “lowest median income” can be found and is made up of “more densely urbanized parts of town.” Capra said, “We want to make sure trees go there too.”
Capra said the saplings would be purchased through New England Wetland Plants, a commercial nursery that had moved to town in the spring. The saplings will include 13 different species of trees that are all native to the area. She said once orders for trees closed, then the town would order the saplings through the nursery. She said while they were still figuring out how saplings will be distributed in the spring, they will likely require those picking up saplings to make an appointment.
In addition to receiving a sapling, Capra said residents will also get a bag of compost and potentially a bag of fertilizer. While most residents are physically able to plant their own trees, Capra said there will be assistance available for those who may need help planting their trees. “If you aren’t physically able to plant a tree, there’s a place on the form. We can provide assistance,” she said.
However, she said the majority of people who had applied to receive saplings thus far noted that they would not require assistance planting their trees. She said should they not need money to hire a contractor to help plant trees, this would allow the town to potentially purchase more trees than they originally anticipated. “Instead of paying for a contractor, we can maybe buy a few more trees,” she said.
Capra emphasized that the program was only open to residents of South Hadley and residents who applied for saplings should commit to caring for the trees to ensure they survive. At the time of press, 61 applicants had applied for 350 trees. Capra said there was not a limit to how many saplings a resident could request, but emphasized that residents must be able to keep each tree they request alive.
Applications for saplings are due by Dec. 1. The application to request saplings, along with additional information, can be found at https://www.southhadley.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=483&fbclid=IwAR0nfcy_z9QnyG1q1E6nKI5oyBQ1vz0ufwtfCIisECA-UdQ1W7xO4JJ4LJY.