Trees Tame Stormwater and Have Many More Benefits

Double click on image to enlarge.

Double click on image to enlarge.

With all of the current "debate" about a new landscape ordinance for the City of El Paso (the brouhaha created by some developers principally Jerry Rubin's River Oaks Properties and their chief attack dog, Richard Williams), it is important to remember the tremendous contribution of trees and why we need more.

The posters above come from the Arbor Day Foundation. Our State Urban Forester, Oscar Mestas, forwarded them to me and others. What is really encouraging is that the link was also sent to me from Open Space chairman Charlie Wakeem who got them from Gonzalo Cedillos the Stormwater Utility Manager for El Paso Water Utilities. He got them from Anai Padilla at EPWU's TecH2O, who I'm sure got them from Oscar. I'm not just illustrating the power of the hyperlink and email, I'm touting the huge positive leadership from some at EPWU.

By the way, to see many more benefits that trees bring to a community, check this list out.

The tweaking that was done to the new landscape ordinance by Planning and Development and the recommendations that now come from the Open Space Advisory Board are reasonable. Just remember this: It's not true that the new landscape ordinance will mean the usage of "billions" of more gallons of water as suggested by Williams. Planning and Development staff made it clear at the Open Space meeting yesterday that "water use would be minimal." Besides, for a little extra water use, one gets many, many more benefits which in some cases will mean less usage of water as in shading houses and buildings and reducing evaporative cooler water consumption. Think also of all of those strip malls on Mesa and Lee Trevino and other thoroughfares that currently contribute to the power of stormwater flooding because of little or no landscaping. I wonder how New Mexico's Green Chamber of Commerce would come down on better landscaping requirements. Hmmm.