On Tuesday I attended a Parkway Partners information sharing session along with Gordon, Karen and Janel meeting at the Parkway Partners headquarters at 1137 Barronne St.
Parkway Partners is a nonprofit organization that endeavors to improve the quality of life in New Orleans by working to maintain and beatify the city’s green spaces and “urban forests.” For more information about Parkway Partners, click the following link:
Parkway Partners web site
Parkway Partners is enlisting neighborhood representatives to bring neighborhood issues to their attention and I have volunteered to represent our community association. I will be our neighborhood’s point-man for working through you all and Parkway Partners to help rehabilitate our trees and greenery. Please feel free to contact me at kageking@aol.com with any issues that you would like to raise to Parkway Partners.
My main concern going into this meeting was dealing with all the dead magnolias that resulted from the flooding of our neighborhood. Not only are these trees 1) an eyesore, but they are also 2) providing habitat for termites, and 3) because they are dead and brittle these trees have the potential to cause great damage in high winds. Unfortunately, Parkway Partners offers no silver bullet for this problem.
Here is what I learned from the meeting:
- Parkway Partners through its ‘Releaf New Orleans” campaign is working with city architects and planners, and with funding from government grants and charities to replace New Orleans’ tree canopy that was devastated by Katrina. They act as a liaison between the city planners, various charity and grant organizations, and neighborhoods.
Parkway Partners can sometimes line up funding to purchase new trees. In other cases, neighborhoods may need to purchase their own trees at a Parkway Partners negotiated wholesale price. In most cases, Parkway Partners prefers planting to be done by neighborhood citizens because these citizens will be more likely to care for trees that they have planted.
- Because Parkway Partners is supported by grants and charitable donations, and they have a limited staff, they can only undertake a few projects at a time. Their main focus currently is to beatify the major New Orleans corridors: these include Elysian Fields, St Claude, Claiborne and Broad Streets.
To engage Parkway Partners to help our neighborhood is going to take organization and persistence. But we are up to the task! In fact, when I talked to Jean at Parkway Partners this afternoon, she was already looking into the green plan for Earheart - thanks to Janel’s persistence in yesterday’s meeting.
- Parkway Partners doesn’t normally help with the removal of dead trees. They are dependant on FEMA or the city to remove trees before replanting.
- Apparently, there is a debate ongoing about whether or not FEMA is responsible for removing dead trees. FEMA’s current contention is that they are only responsible for removing those trees that are an “immediate threat” to neighborhoods (trees that could fall into a house or roadway.) The city is negotiating with FEMA to include other dead trees in their scope. When I talked to Jean of Parkway Partners today, she said that this negotiation seems to be going well.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait and see if FEMA takes responsibility for removing our dead trees.
ACTION PLAN: What we can do:
Get organized. We need to work together to understand the extent of our dead tree problem and create a report that can be provided to Parkway Partners and other helpful organizations so that we can make a strong case for our neighborhood and we will be taken seriously.
- Step 1: We need to survey the dead trees in our neighborhoods. We need to record the location of every dead tree in our neighborhood.
- Step 2: We need to work with GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software to create a computerized map of the dead trees in our neighborhood. I will be working with a GIS expert on this.
- Step 3: Once we have a good survey of our dead trees and a GIS model of the locations of each tree, we need to present this information to Parkway Partners. They can help us find funding and plan the replacement of these trees. At the same time we should send this report to other arborist or environmental organizations who could help us out.
VOLUNTEERS?
I need volunteers to record the location of dead trees in our neighborhood. Please email me at kageking@aol.com if you can help. Also, if anyone has any experience with putting together grant requests or GIS maps, we could use your help too!
