May 14, 2014 at 3:30 p.m.
Pelican Elementary plants six trees as Rhinelander is named a Tree City
Pelican Elementary plants six trees as Rhinelander is named a Tree City
The city was named a Tree City for the first time this year. The honor is awarded to nearly 200 Wisconsin communities that meet certain criteria. Rhinelander met the criteria by having a Parks, Buildings and Grounds Department, a tree ordinance, and at least a $2 per capita budget for forestry-related issues, as well as holding an annual Arbor Day celebration.
Carlson Funeral Service helped spearhead the effort by planting 100 trees in the city in 2013.
The celebration was marked by the planting of the six trees. The students were assisted in the tree plating by Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Regional Urban Forestry Coordinator Don Kissinger, who said the event was important because it means the city is taking a more active approach to caring for its trees.
"It's a very important day because the city of Rhinelander, this is their inaugural year as a Tree City. They have such a presence with the U.S. Forest Service and our Department of Natural Resources and they have so many people wanting to get more proactive in their tree care program," Kissinger said.
"I hope that this goes on for perpetuity, taking care of their trees properly."
Kissinger said there are many benefits to a city being named a Tree City, including economic benefits that people might not alway immediately think about when discussing trees.
"Businesses that are looking to relocate, if they see that communities are taking good care of their trees, that probably means to them that (the community) is taking good care of their other infrastructure and the residents in their community," Kissinger said. "Also, with storm water retention, the more trees we can get out there, the less flooding, the less the storm water system has to be used. It saves a heck of a lot of money. Same with having trees out there shading buildings and shading homes."
Including the children in the celebration is also important, Kissinger said, as it will help them better understand the importance of trees as well as give them a better understanding of how to properly plant a tree that will live on through many generations.
"It's important because even the teachers learn a lot, too, about the proper way to plant trees," Kissinger said. "Letting these kids know how to do it, hopefully if they're going to plant trees with their parents, they can use what they learned here to do it properly. Hopefully, we'll have people plant trees and they live for 30, 40, 50, even 80 years instead of the typical five or 10 years, if they plant the tree improperly."
Kissinger outlined what the city and the community would have to do in order to continue being a Tree City.
"I would really like to see the city start to budget more money, not just for tree planting, but for maintenance - the trees that need to be pruned so they're safe for the citizens, trees that maybe are what we'd designate as a risk tree, to remove those trees, things like that," Kissinger said.
"Take a holistic and a proactive approach taking care of trees. Also, if there are new subdivisions, (look) at having people who are going to build in there pay their fair share to put trees in there because they do add so much to the environment."
Rhinelander Parks Director Gunder Paulsen said the city is already working on taking a more proactive approach to caring for its trees, including creating a tree inventory.
"We started working on this a few years ago. We've always had a good reactive force, when a tree falls down the stree department would come in and take care of it, but we created this to try to be more proactive, try to do more planning so instead of waiting for something to happen, we try to mitigate the potential problems ahead of time," Paulsen said.
"We now have a tree inventory, which is huge. We know exactly what we have, so we have a snapshot in time of how many trees we have, what species they are, what condition they're in and where they're located. That's a great tool to have to move forward, so now instead of waiting for a call about a tree falling down, we actually have this list so we can be more proactive in caring for our trees."
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected].
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