The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) has stepped up its efforts to ensure that it will be able to plant millions of trees in the coming years. The efforts also benefit local businesses and streamside buffers in Pennsylvania.
CBF, which coordinates the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership, is spending approximately $2.6 million for 710,000 trees, shelters, and stakes to supply plantings through 2022. Growers and related businesses in Pennsylvania and Maryland that provide trees, shrubs, and materials are guaranteed revenue through this forward contracting, and the partnership will receive the variety, quantity and quality of trees, shrubs, and materials it needs to continue its drive to plant 10 million trees in Pennsylvania by the end of 2025.
Since 2018, cumulative efforts by CBF, the partnership and others across Pennsylvania have planted roughly more than 1.74 million trees. The partnership is made up of 147 national, regional, state, and local partners.
CBF issued requests for proposals (RFP) and awarded bids to seven companies for a total of 210,000 trees, stakes, and shelters for 2021. RFPs for trees have been issued for single years since 2018, but contracting two years ahead to 2022 is unique for CBF.
Four companies were awarded future contracts for a total of 500,000 trees for 2022. Those companies are Aquatic Resource Restoration Company in York County, Musser Forests in Indiana County, Octoraro Native Plant Nursery in Lancaster County, and American Native Plants in Baltimore County, Md. All four companies were also among the seven that received contracts for 2021. Funds provided through the contracts will help some of the companies expand their operations.
CBF noted that the security of its forward contracting made the latest RFPs attractive to a conservative industry still affected by the housing crisis of 2008 when there was little need for nursery stock and services.
The economic benefits of forward contracting also extend to contractors that will do the planting work and maintain the planting sites, said CBF's Brenda Sieglitz, who manages the partnership. Sieglitz added that the new contracts will also increase the diversity of native trees for planting, as CBF has ordered a mix of species. As part of its efforts to plant a variety of trees, CBF responded to input from statewide organizations and is asking for trees that are hard to find.
CBF launched the Keystone 10 Million Trees Partnership in 2018, focused on Pennsylvania's Clean Water Blueprint goal of planting 95,000 acres of forested buffers by the end of 2025.
Amid COVID-19 restrictions, 84,000 of 95,000 trees distributed for spring planting in 2020 went into the ground. The remaining 11,000 trees are being kept in partner greenhouses and will grow into larger stock for future plantings.
For fall plantings, about 47,000 trees were scheduled to be delivered in September to pickup points. Due to spring cancellations, the fall 2020 number of trees is more than double what was planted in the fall of 2019.
Adding 10 million new trees alongside streams, streets, and other priority landscapes in Pennsylvania's portion of the bay watershed would accelerate the Keystone State as much as two-thirds toward the 95,000-acre target, according to CBF.
Trees are among the most cost-effective tools for cleaning and protecting waterways by filtering and absorbing polluted runoff, stabilizing streambanks, and improving soil quality. Placed in parks, municipal properties, and other urban and suburban settings, trees absorb and clean stormwater, reduce flooding, and help restore abandoned mine land.
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